I think finding my own way is going to be an interesting road of experimentation, failures and successes. Left to my own devices I will always overeat. I think I need to take what I normally choose for myself, cut it in half, then have something small in a few hours if I'm still hungry. That's a starting idea anyway. I know without a doubt I need to always be fully aware of what I'm stuffing in my face, because I can pack away a lot of food quite mindlessly. I think finding my own plan involves picking and choosing things from other plans that do work for me as well as tossing what doesn't.
Hope you don't mind me replying to your message. I like your approach to just making better choices rather than counting calories. with food labels being up to 25% inaccurate and the values of carbs fats and proteins being based off 100 year old research, it is not an accurate way to measure the food we put in our mouth. Making better choices and becoming self aware of snacking etc is a much better way of doing it.
You mentioned you are becoming cranky. What happens is when you start making better choices and you replace high processed foods with vegetables etc you body wil go through a series of fuel shifts. This is because your body is having to work harder to access the energy from the vegetables etc. What you need to do here is simply increase your health food. Do this in a system where you add half a cup of vegetables to each meal every couple of weeks.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I gained weight 10 years ago after quitting smoking and have been dieting since. When i first started out, i was just walking, and eating less, but still ate what i liked. Usually eggs and toast for breakfast, a big salad for lunch, nuts for a snack, and whatever the family had for dinner I would eat. I kept a rough idea of my caloric intake, but this was before logging apps etc. I lost about 25 lbs.
Since then I found different diets. South Beach, Atkins, LCHF, Keto, each one more restrictive then the last. I did lose weight. I lost a total of 56 lbs. but gained 30 back. Lost 20, gained 15, on and on. I would fall off the wagon, eat a baked potato or some watermelon and feel like a failure. I would gain 5 pounds of bloat from just one bad day. This has been going on for about 6 years.
Recently, I realized the ONLY pounds I've kept off were the ones I lost just eating what I like, keeping an eye on portions and not beating myself up!!
A big detriment to my progress has been Facebook. The communities for different eating plans are almost cult-like in their...enthusiasm..sometimes. Don't eat this, don't eat that, or you're "doing it wrong". I feel like I've almost been brainwashed - having so many people tell me what is right - for ME and for everyone (as if we're all identical somehow.)
This is turning into a bit of a rant, lol, but I've been really thinking about this, and I need to take control of my own life.
It's almost like I have to unfollow all these influences and rewind back to keeping it simple, knowing my own body, and doing what works for me. Will that include eating less sugar? Pasta? Making better bread choices? Definitely. But i'm not going to feel bad for eating carbs, or meat, or whatever the next thing is that is supposed to kill me...lol
Thank you for a thought provoking post. I'd love to keep in touch with you and anyone else who wants to keep it simple and stop thinking so hard about what we're eating or not all. day. long.
Hey I had some good ideas two years ago. I guess I was lost in the wilderness all that time .In all seriousness I was very ill and weight loss became a low priority - though I did make several attempts. I'm finally on a medication that's working for me, and I'm feeling much better. So, I'm back on team keep it simple and creating a plan that works for me. Eating what I like, but not kidding myself either.
So far, I've replaced my sugary cereal with oatmeal, my cookie problem has been replaced with a square of dark chocolate each day. My late night peanut butter sandwich has been replaced with an unsweetened yogurt. I'm just doing Leslie Sansone or other free walking workouts on YouTube for exercise They are indeed a workout for out of shape old me. So far so good, but I'm only a few weeks in, and I keep learning and tweaking. I'll have my doctor weigh me at the end of the summer.
I'm such an emotional eater. I have been going through a tough time lately, and although I've been finding alternatives to soothing myself with food - sometimes there is nothing like a batch of cookies to comfort. I was semi-smart, and just made half a batch, but I ate all within 24 hours.
I'm back on track, I bought a sugar free, whole grain cereal for the days when I'm just sick of oatmeal. And last night I allowed myself two unsweetened yogurts, and it did stop me from eating something much more calorific.
So I just need to keep tweaking, I guess it was just one slip (the cookies that is) in a few weeks, so that's okay. I got back on the wagon straight away.
I was going to type this post, then make another batch of cookies. But now that I've typed it, I realise I don't need to chuck it all overboard. I can pull up my pants and get back on track. I'm worth the effort. I think I'll go give the cat a cuddle instead.
My friend calorie counts and then gives herself a cheat day once a week. She doesn't do anything crazy on the cheat day but she eats what she likes. It gives her something to look forward to each week and she's not depriving herself of the sweets she loves. This works for her and she's lost about 60 pounds in the course of a year.
Cheat days don't work for me as I'm an emotional eater. When I start eating something sweet I can't seem to stop. I can polish off a box of cookies with ease so I do restrict and I just don't eat sweets. When I'm craving something sweet I have a cup of hot tea with stevia. I consider myself a sugar addict so it's best for me to stay away from it. I act like a crazy person when I'm on the sugar...I'm much saner without it.
I say do whatever works for you that you're able to stick with.
Hi ChickieBoom, thanks for posting in my thread I really appreciate your input.
I have made several attempts at the don't eat sweets approach, and it always led to more binge eating for me. However, there are certain sweets I absolutely cannot have in the house, nor can I bake. I have never once baked, no matter how small the batch, and not had it lead to an eating frenzy.
I hear you on the sugar addiction, and sweets are certainly my weakness. For me, it seems to be an addictive/emotional reaction to certain sweets, but not all sweets. Cookies and candies from childhood will trigger a binge for example. I think some sweets are so well engineered that they trigger an addictive response. I'm not entirely sure. But I do know that if I allow myself, 1 square of dark chocolate or 2 store bought cookies (only certain kinds, and definitely ones I loved as a child) each day, I can stop at just that one portion. I did this for years, and I lost weight (70 lbs) and maintained it for 5 years, and then life got hard, very hard, and the grief caused a very long depression . I blotted out the pain with food and gained all the weight back.
Life is better, not perfect, but better, and I'm on a med that's working for me. So I hope that same way of eating and exercising will work for me once again.
I've tried your friend's approach too, and I felt like an unharnessed beast on the cheat day lol - it wasn't for me, but I know a lot of people are successful with it.
But like you said, the best plan is the one we'll stick with.
I'm still doing okay. I had a planned indulgence this week on my birthday, and I surprisingly didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. It was easy to get back on track the next day.
Ok, so....I'm slipping into restriction once again. I think for me, and for many others, if we make our food choices and exercise with the sole focus of losing weight, things start to get crazy. I think if weight loss is even included in my focus at all, I start to lose sanity.
I'm on a new medication that finally has me sleeping after many years of terrible depression and anxiety related insomnia, and now I'm waking up in the middle of the night because I'm hungry. And I'm anxious and feeling crazy, and I need to get up to have a glass of milk and some toast or a sandwich or bowl of cereal in order to sleep. Clearly, I'm not eating enough during the day.
The results from blood work I had done last month were all great. Liver function, cholesterol, etc all very good, according to doc.
Society, diet culture tells us we all must be thin, in addition to healthy, And often times we are expected to put our mental and physical health in the back burner in the pursuit of thin.
I need to accept that I'm just going to be chubby, even if I eat healthy and exercise regularly. Probably my ancestors survived quite a few famines, and I just have survivor genes.
I decided to go plant based low fat. I don't count calories or restrict carbs. I just make sure to keep the fat low and stay away from processed foods/animal products.
I think being vegan for the animals is great. But for me low fat plant based thing is just another diet. I know, I was a vegan for many years and I did the low fat diet while I was still a vegan for 10 years. At the end of the day it really is as restrictive as a lot of diets, and I just got tired of bringing my own food to family gatherings, and only having coffee or a fruit smoothie while out with friends for lunch because the restaurant they chose had no options for me. And it was difficult being in relationships with omnivores. As far as restrictive eating plans go it was the easiest for me to stick to, probably because I already was a vegan and the food appealed to me, and it was a very inexpensive way to eat. I was physically healthy eating low fat vegan, and I kept my weight down, I also exercised quite a bit back then. But after several years I just burnt out, mentally. It was still restriction, and it still lead to many episodes of binge eating and self-shaming for many many years I lived like that. On the outside I was this shining example of the "healthy vegan" not too skinny, not too fat, physically fit, and non-preachy. But behind close doors, I was caught in the same restrict-binge, crazy making cycle as any dieter would be.
An update on how I'm doing, and what I'm learning for myself.
I'm finding any restriction leads to binge eating, but if I don't diet or restrict, I also don't binge, and I fall into 'normal eating' parameters. Although at the time, I don't think it's normal eating because I've been conditioned to believe that dieting or it's modern incarnation of "wellness' or "lifestyle change" are what normal eating is supposed to look like.
I think the Health At Every Size folks have it right. I do need to move my body, and I do need to eat vegetables, and I need to accept that unless I engage in eating disordered behaviours, I'm not going to be thin again, I'm just not built that way. Some people are naturally thin, and many of us are not. I need to stop dieting, keep exercising and eating those veggies and let my body just be the size it wants to be.
....but it's really, really hard, because like many people, I can't let go of that dream of being thin again. I was fortunate to not be a fat child or teenager. I didn't start to plump out until I started to have serious mental health issues in my mid-twenties. I've managed to obsessively exercise and routinely under eat in order to get down to that "normal weight" a couple of times. I even managed to maintain that weight for a few years at a time So I know that the world does indeed treat thin people better.
But life gets crappy, and the weight comes back on. I keep believing I'll "do it again" the weight loss and regaining fitness, it will become my full time occupation - nothing will stand in my way and I will be thin again. *sigh* But I just can't do it, I'm 49 now, still crazy, taking weight gain meds once again because they save my life. I have a husband who'd rather see me fat and well than thin and dead. My doctor says I'm physically healthy...but I can't let go of that dream to be thin. I know intellectually if I eat healthy and exercise I'll be well, I won't be as thin as I'd like to be, but I will be well. At my age I should be able to let go of the vanity reasons...but I truly can't. And I'm making myself crazy miserable because I can't let it go.
