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Old 08-06-2012, 11:46 AM   #1  
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Default I am a returner, seeking advice

So I've been off for maybe six months now. I could give you a list of excuses but the reality is that I just got sick of dieting, missed my old foods and gave up.


I'm starting up again but, honestly, I'm not sure how to start this time. I want to ease into this because I really want healthy eating to be a lifestyle change and not just a dieting option. Every time I diet I immediately start out on my calories goals and exercise goals and eat the salad and the healthy options. I cut out all the bad stuff right away but I don't get the chance to mourn them. I like my soda and cookies and cake. My thing is moderation is very hard for me. I'm a recovering anorexic/bulimic so when I've been eating smart and then I binge, it's very hard to control myself. And since I quit purging I usually sabotage the dieting part.

Gah!! Why is this so hard?! Am I the one making things so difficult? How do I stop making this difficult and just do it?
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Old 08-06-2012, 12:44 PM   #2  
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I don't have any real advice for you, but I want to take a moment to validate your feelings: losing weight and changing your eating habits IS hard. It will be a struggle. Don't beat yourself up for finding it difficult.

Also, you might find "The End of Overeating" helpful.
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Old 08-06-2012, 12:57 PM   #3  
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Leah I wish I had the answer as to HOW it clicks. For me I had a wakeup call seeing pictures, but more so because I couldn't do things like VACUUM without being winded. I realized my mother was following the same road as her mother, inactivity and pretty much reliant on people to do their grocery shopping. Neither of them could buy more than 1/2 gallons of milk by 50 because they could NOT have the strength to carry or pour it. I felt when I vacuumed and got WINDED it was my wake up call. I went through a period of a bunch of what to some would be devastating things about 7 years ago and it started the road to overeating, inactivity (although oddly I did exercise daily but that's ALL I could do) and depression. When I realized I was turning into my mom physically and saw pictures as well as hearing the same complaints coming from my mouth--I did an about face. My stepmom is 2 years younger than my mom, is and never has been more than 10 pounds maybe overweight, and while I don't aspire to be her (she did triathlons and stuff)...I knew there is a happy medium for me. She can still go camping, travel, hike, etc, etc and I'm not living the next half of my life from the sidelines. So that started me. What keeps me going is reading positive weight loss stories online and books. I figure if regular people do this all the time, so can I. And like I used to tell people when they would say "well Madonna can do this because she's got a personal trainer and a cook" well she also has something inside because she could still sneak a box of Twinkies in the closet every night if she wanted too and I'm not any different...except for the cook and trainer.
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Old 08-06-2012, 02:35 PM   #4  
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For me, it's the same old baby steps that make healthy habits into a real habit that I don't think twice about doing. I think when you radically change your diet overnight, you're going to miss the thing (or things!) that you can't eat anymore.

That's too hard. I think it's bound to set you up to fail.

The first thing to get in your head is that this is going to be the rest of your life.... but not in a bad way! Not like, "OMG, I'm never going to eat chocolate again for the REST OF MY LIFE."

More like, "I'm going to be healthy and I will choose what is good for my body and my soul at that moment in time. It might be an apple or it might be a chocolate bar. I'll decide when the time comes."

So, first things first -- you can't radically change your life. You have to pick one or two things you're willing to change now.

They don't have to be big impact things. Some people, back when I started, would suggest things like, "Stop drinking soda or fruit juices." Okay, but I wasn't ready to give up the bubbly goodness. So, I tried something else. I started -- mostly because my boyfriend teased me about it -- to eat vegetables. I could still eat Cheetos and chocolate cake, but I also had to eat my 5 servings of vegetables/fruit every day.

You wouldn't think that would make a difference, but it did!

I don't know if my body was just lacking in nutrients, but when I started to make sure I was eating those five servings -- without counting calories or carbs or how much protein I was eating -- I started to crave the junk food less.

Then it was easy to say, okay, I'm going to count calories. And I would just track. I wouldn't restrict.

Then, I would make sure I was drinking all the water I "should" drink. And I would count calories AND I would eat my veggies.

Then I started to exercise seriously... AND drink water AND count calories AND eat veggies.

Then I would take one "bad" thing out of my diet. Maybe I was eating cake every day (yes, I did!). Okay, I'll have cake every OTHER day... I can handle it every OTHER day...

And so on, until I was really ready to go the full throttle with a healthy diet. Those habits still exist in me. I drink water like a fish, I exercise 6 days a week (without thinking twice about it or feeling like, "omg, I have to go again?!). I also feel the difference when I am not eating vegetables/fruits and when I am -- my body can tell the difference.

Eliminating white carbs also became easy. I would still eat them once in a while because I could... I wasn't trying to be perfect, I was just trying to be better than before...

Good luck. I hope my story helps.
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Old 08-06-2012, 03:30 PM   #5  
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I feel like a lot of people go too hard too fast and end up burning out. I know this site can even make one feel competitive- ignore others, ignore the books and listen to your heart as cheesy as it sounds. Take it step by step, little baby steps until it actually completely feels okay to you and you stop seeing it as you giving up everything. Try doing 1-2 times of exercise in a week, cut back on one of your normally fried lunch/dinners but keep your cookie. Eventually you'll slowly stop wanting or needing anything else. Even if it takes a year, who cares? Atleast you'll have gotten somewhere.
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Old 08-06-2012, 05:01 PM   #6  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LovelyLeah View Post
My thing is moderation is very hard for me.
If it's any consolation, moderation seems to get a little easier for age. It certainly has for me (now 55), and several people on this board have mentioned the same thing. It's not that I'm above temptation -- hardly that -- but that I'm able to resist the lure of unrestrained indulgence MOST of the time. I think the key is a combination of REMOVING temptation and PLANNING for it. Don't keep your trigger foods in the house, but build them into your eating regimen as planned treats that you buy in small quantities. Figure out what eating style leaves you most psychologically satisfied. For me it's eating more for breakfast and less for supper -- for others it's the opposite.

HTH Freelance
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Old 08-06-2012, 07:23 PM   #7  
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I can't offer much, either, as I believe it's all a personal struggle and each of us has to find their own way. For me, cutting it all out at once - NO baby steps - was the key. Allowing some, for me, was allowing all. It is way easier to just not have something 99% of the time. When I do give in to the urge for whatever it is, I buy enough to satisfy the urge and that's it.

We also have to remember that NO ONE eats perfectly on plan every single day of their life. We have off days once in a while. We have to just stop them from becoming a chain of off days. Even thin, healthy people eat "off plan" once in a while. But for me, keeping those to a minimum was the easiest when I jumped in with both feet.

I also agree with Freelance about age making it easier. This is way easier than I thought it would be and I'm sure age has a lot to do with it. Perspectives about "forever" are different at 60 than at 26, for example! And life's lessons remind us more easily that we are not perfect, good things usually do happen if you let them, and success is a process.

Hang in there. Welcome back. Try to just take things one choice at a time.

Lin
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Old 08-06-2012, 07:48 PM   #8  
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"My thing is moderation is very hard for me." You too the words right out of my mouth, sister. What I've decided to do is to try cutting out all the bad stuff except for one thing I just don't want to live without. It's only been a few days, but it's going good so far. I love chips, cheese, soda, ice cream, did I say cheese? Well, I decided to cut out chips, for now, soda (have been really good about getting rid of that) and ice cream (not a big miss, honestly). I realized that I'd cry for days if I had to stop eating cheese, so I figured, why not just pick one type and stick to that for a while, instead of all the different kinds I would usually get, like cream cheese, cheese cake, spray cheese, taco cheese, etc. I've decided to buy only one small brick of mild cheddar cheese. I was a bad girl and already got into it today, but when that's gone, it's gone. I have a limited income when it comes to grocery money, so what I buy is all I get. I am very proud of myself and shopped healthy with everything else, so I'm stuck with it. When I'm craving my faves in a few days, I'll have no choice but to eat what's already in the fridge.
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Old 08-07-2012, 07:47 AM   #9  
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Note to Slush: Cheese is not a bad food. Maybe the spray cheese and processed "cheese food" are not good, but real cheese is a good thing to eat in both the fat and protein categories.

Experiment with different healthy cheeses and see what you like and keep a couple on hand. Cheese in an aerosol can is way more expensive (ounce per ounce) than a block of good cheese, so it shouldn't be a budget killer if that's what you used to buy.

Now the OP can have the thread back . . .

Lin
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Old 08-07-2012, 11:37 AM   #10  
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A friend of mine recently lost over 40 pounds by cutting out soda and fries and replacing this with water and salad. back to a size 34. Some people can do baby steps, some can't.
Most of the bloggers at goal all say the same thing: consistency and perseverance is what got them to goal.

So find what works for you and work it! Good luck!
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