Oh, very FEW people deal with the root, just about everyone who doesn't maintain their losses, in fact. There is a reason the percentage of maintainers is fairly small and it isn't because weightloss is PHYSICALLY impossible to maintain, I can tell you that much

Let me make you feel better, or empathize a bit? I had an INSANE night tonight, and everything that could have gone wrong kind of did, in terms of controlling my eating. I ate off plan food and too many of them, because I used food to mask my stress and nervousness and just shoveled in, rather than dealing with the emotions with my brain I used my poor body as a shield. That is NOT conducive to weight maintenance and isn't healthy behavior.

What I should have done, and will begin to do right now, as it is over, is to go over what I did right and what I did wrong in my choices that led me to this end. Then I will reinforce or tweak my plan of action so that my very next choices are going back in the direction I need them to go. I had reasons, sure, and excuses, but in the end tonight I made the wrong choices and recognize that, so now I can do better going forward. I'm still pretty new to complete intuitive eating and using NOTHING but physical cues as my guide, so a few slip ups are to be expected, but I already see ways I can minimize this from happening even more in the future. Tomorrow, first chance I get upon waking, I can do better.

That is how you turn this around - make different choices, analyze and plan a better course of action. Forgive yourself for the failure but resolve to move on in a positive, goal achieving direction instead of declaring it a failure or yourself powerless to the circumstances you are in. We always have a choice, we don't always make the right one (like me, tonight!), but we can FIX that! Isn't that awesome?!

I had a couple of thoughts reading this thread:

I think when people change eating habits, perhaps they focus too much on what they can't eat. I have really discovered flavorful healthy food and I really enjoy eating it. I have no desire to sit in a chain restaurant and eat sub-par ingredients slathered in sauce to cover their inferiority (which is the story of most chains) I want good food, whole foods, herbs, spices and other things that I can look forward to. So the concept of me eating whatever I want has changed. I want a kale, portabella mushroom and goat cheese salad. I want curried cauliflower with cous cous and bok choy. And when I go away or to a wedding, the foods that get my attention don't change. However, I still want the cake. So I'll eat that too. But at least I didn't have the cake AND the prime rib AND the fried food at cocktail hour.

I don't understand where the concept of deserving a type of food comes from. First, that's just dangerous thinking and assigning way too much meaning to a food. Second and I mean this sincerely: No one deserves a brownie. No one. You want it? Eat it. But you don't deserve it. I know it is cliche but it is true that there are people who are starving to death everyday, so someone going on about deserving a dessert or junk food is being a fool. And it kinda pisses me off.

Oh boy, wouldn't that be a huge can of worms! For me, I struggled with binge eating and my weight for a long time before I started to successfully lose and keep it off. In retrospect, I can so clearly see that my behavior was a symptom of my general unhappiness, and not that my weight and binging was the problem.
Once I stopped focusing on my weight so much and started focusing on work, my social life, and moving on from my divorce the weight just sort of came off naturally, and the binges became less and less frequent.

I think that for MOST of us, the same general idea can be applied; extreme behavior in terms of diet (such as bingeing, anorexia, bulimia, and other EDNOs) is probably the symptom of some greater root cause of unhappiness in our lives.

We can't always wait around for things to get better though. Sometimes with regard to dieting, working out, or making any sort of life changes we have to "Fake it til you make it" in a sense. You may not want to stop binge eating, you may not feel able to start a new workout program, or you might not feel like your relationship with your SO is all that bad (even though you're miserable) -- but sometimes you have to white knuckle it and take that first step.

Put down the food and walk away! Tell your SO you're unhappy! Start looking for a new job, a new gym, or a new puppy... whatever it is that is going to knock you out of your funk, it's going to have to start somewhere. You may hate getting up before 8am now, but if you drag your *** out of bed for a 6am run everyday this week you may find you actually love it.

I'm starting to ramble, but my point is this; you have to make that first step. It may not stick, you may stumble and you may completely fall down BUT you have to start with that first step, and whatever your situation, only YOU can do that for yourself.

I had struggled with binge eating and now since determining that my want to be thinner and healthier is stronger than my want for that cheeseburger, i have not for nearly a year. I am reaching my own frustrations with needing to take a medication that may be stalling my weight loss when i am so close to onederland, and to be honest my eating is better than ever...weight loss is a constant in my life but i want this so badly i can...for want of a better saying...taste it lol

I'd also like to pop in and say that the following is true for probably half of people struggling with their weight: they just like food and eat more than they burn. No childhood trauma, no eating disorders, just liking to eat because eating is fun and food tastes good, and too much of any food but especially too much of the "wrong" food makes people fat.

Ok. Three things. ;-)

1: Vegas... man, the mecca of weight gain! I was in decent shape until about 2 years ago, hubby and I spent 3 days in Moab and 4 in Vegas (waaaay too long for Sin City... we were disgusted by the time we left... just not our thang) and I went from about 171-173 pounds to 180-182. And it just started climbing from there. Dang! Shoulda kept hiking in the desert...

2: There is no one "root" cause that changes your relationship to food. That's the problem. Just like there is no one "magic diet" that will work. Your relationship to the world is ever changing, as is your body, hence why so many of us plateau and then need to change something in order to continue losing weight. I have emotional components to my eating patterns (stress, boredom) but I also have physical ones- when I can feel my blood sugar dropping and I'm starting to feel sick/fuzzy, I grab whatever's close and stuff it in.

I work in healthcare... I can't afford to crash, and I don't always have time to pre-emptively eat something healthy (though I do try and I'm still learning what helps me function the best). Also, if I'm exhausted at the end of a 12 hour shift (especially when I don't get off till 11:30pm) I have no motivation to cook and Wendy's is open late (darn that redheaded name thief!) Solution? Meal plan, give hubby explicit instructions on what to make for dinner, and hope for the best...

3: Sometimes you do need to eat something that tastes good and has positive emotional associations with it for you. For example, this past weekend, I did medical support at a bike race, and I ate more of those delicious breakfast burritos (delivered in excess to my aid station) than I should have. I hadn't had one since last year! To me, those burritos mean friendship, love, belonging... my Venture Crew is a rockin' group of folks, and there's food I only associate with being on duty with them, so I ate it ALL. Frito chili pie, burritos, race snacks... yeah. Starting over on phase 1 of South Beach today! But it was worth it, and I'm not angry- just know what I have to do to get back on the path. That's the key- interrupt the guilt. Yeah, I farted all weekend and gassed people out of the aid tent... and now I weigh a bit more than I should... but why be upset? I can't go back and NOT eat the burritos... so just move forward. Ya?

Lots of love to all of you today,

--Wendy

That generally becomes less true the higher the weights go. I've noticed definite patterns of mental and emotional disturbances emerging in the super morbidly obese subset with a higher frequency than just the obese or overweight. Many women don't get to the bodyfat ratios I began with just eating too much of yummy stuff. I *thought* that was the reason, for the longest time, but it turns out boredom and loneliness eating was much more to blame than simply wanting two more bites of brownie

I've started to subscribe to the belief that it's ok to have a "cheat meal" but not a "cheat day" because gosh it's easy to eat a ton of calories in just one day. A cheat meal is so much easier to recover from than a whole cheat day (or days).

I agree, you can't think you are done once you reach your goal weight.

Right now I work out 1:30 hours a day 7 days a week, but when I get to goal I will change that to 4 days a week at 1 hour a day.

Getting there is one thing, staying there is something else.