So I have chose to count calories. I love fit day. I used the first week as a counter what have I been doing and oh my goodness I have been eating on average 541calories more than I need a day. This is my first day trying to stay on track. Thank goodness my hubby is away . I feel like I am going through withrawl already. I have to get my mind off food so I am staying upstairs away from the kitchen and later I will be out with my dog. I want to know is anyone else like me? I am so addicted to food I love the taste and how it feels and I'm starving!!! Well not really but it feels that way. I know that when I am thin it will feel and taste even better but today and right now thay is not how I feel. Please let me know how to get through or deal with addictive behaviour? My dad is addicted to alcohol and I believe I have picked a different addiction, only he can never buy or have alcohol again, I can't I have to eat to survive. Help
Take it easy, we all have to be addicts, some kind, mine is food for pleasure, I also buy a new car to cheer me up....51 in 7 years....take small steps not to eat junk food and increase exercise...... Yea I hate it too....
Oh for sure. Food is/was/is my drug of choice. No doubt about it. But the good thing is it IS controllable. Not easy, but definitely controllable. We have to want it badly enough. Eventually it does get easier. I found the first 2 - 3 weeks of "withdrawal" very, very difficult. Get through it anyway that you can. Read, journal, clean the house, do laundry, organize, take a bath, a walk - a anything - just get past the first couple of weeks. Then it really does get much easier.
I must tell you I loved food before my lifestyle change. But I believe I love it more now. I don't think I really appreciated anything before. I was too busy shoveling it down and I allowed myself so much access to it, that none of it was enjoyable. Like a kid who has too many toys, he doesn't appreciate any of them. Now I truly look forward to and enjoy each and every last crumb.
I am now more addicted to the weightloss then I ever was of the food. It didn't happen right away, but it did happen. I'm obsessed with it (in a good way). It's a bonus I hadn't counted on.
I have those same tendencies too. It's a balancing act. I don't want to eat too little, deprive myself and binge... but I want to not go overboard.
Some food help keep you full more than others. Vegetables have a lot of bang for their buck. Lean protein, high fiber foods will keep you full longer...
It seemed natural to pay more attention to nutrition when I started calorie counting, because I wanted to try to get the biggest bang for each calorie. It's like you have a certain amount of money to spend and you learn to buy the things you need the most that will last the longest.
It is often times incredibly difficult to make the right food decisions when you love so many that are not the best choices for you! I know this from experience But we learn at our own pace and by experimenting. I would often way rather have the sugar, calorie loaded choice, but I've learned to change on that one...and learning more all the time.
It always helps me to find something else to do that doesn't involve food. I rarely eat when I'm reading, exercising or knitting. Try to maybe replace the bad addiction (bad foods) with a good addiction. I also think though that if you are really and truly hungry (something else that has to be learned) that you should eat something on your plan.
It all takes time and plenty of patience, but you'll get there! Just don't give in!
I definitely know the feeling! I am very addicted to food. I love sweets; they're my passion. This weight loss is more of a challenge than I ever imagined but I need to get into a healthy weight range. The only real comment that I can make here is good luck because I know the struggle all to well!
We probably all have this addiction, and that's what brought us here. Unfortunately you're in that painful beginning stage where you just have to tough it out. I know that's not terribly helpful, but please remember that you can get through it and when you do the rewards are truly great. When you start seeing those rewards and feeling them in your own life, it won't be as tough to resist the things that kept you from having those great things in your life in the first place. Before I started this most recent weight loss journey (the one that finally has worked),
I always scoffed at people telling me to do something to take my mind off eating, because I never believed it would work. They said to take a long hot bath or occupy my hands or blah blah blah, and I just thought....ok, this person has no idea what I'm struggling with. But that actually is good advice -- you just have to get in the habit of following it. You have to actively CHOOSE to replace your unhealthy eating habits with healthy ones and with other habits that don't add more to your daily calorie intake. Take a walk. Keep walking until you're addicted to it and can't get through the day without moving your body. Then try taking a run, and get addicted to that. You'd be surprised at the things you'll want to do after a while. It may not be running, but it will be SOMEthing, and if I can do it, anyone can. (Yes, I know everyone says that too, but it's true).
Or you could go through the forums on 3FC and obsessively read stuff like I did at first -- that still keeps me from munching sometimes!
I am very bad about sweets. I started a binge on friday that left me 10lbs heavier today. I wasnt eating b/c I was hungry more like mindless eating but I knew exactly what I was doing. I use food to suppress other feelings and have done so for years. Prevention.com has some really good articles on food addiction I found last week.
I hope you don't mind, but I went through your fitday.com and noticed there was not a lot of fiber in your diet - but a lot of sugar. How much fiber are you getting. I've noticed that when I have a good fiber day (for me that's atleast 25 grams) I will not be as hungry and eat less.
Just based on what you eat I would not say that you are addicted to food. But rather addicted to sugar.
Add some whole grains - take out the enriched noodles and sugar cereals and see if this helps.
The most important thing is give yourself to make healthy changes. Don't give up. It will come.. give yourself a good month to play around with food - find out what makes you full. Keep entering your food on fitday. It will click. Make notes when you have good meals of what you liked about them. You are off to a great start. You didn't put the weigh on overnight.. it's not going to come off overnight.
Again.. I hope you don't mind me giving the advice.
Withdrawal is a very accurate term, I think, to how it feels at the beginning! As Robin said, it DOES get easier as time goes on, but I agree that that doesn't help at the beginning! For me, I found that it was very helpful to weigh myself every day. Weight often comes off quickly at first because you are FINALLY eating a sensible number of calories instead of the amount of calories a DISTANCE RUNNER might scarf down before a marathon! Seeing the pounds literally melting away helps.
Something I didn't do but wished that I HAD done at the beginning was to take my measurements and record them in my journal. The reason I say this is that eventually the big amounts of weight loss can slow down. Taking your measurements every week or so can offer some pleasant surprises even though your scale may read the same. (I lost 15 inches while the scale remained on the same number! That helped keep me going because I realized that there were more ways to have progress than what showed on the scale.)
Try to identify your triggers. These are foods that you just KNOW you will overeat if you have them around you. Get these foods OUT OF THE HOUSE! Later on, these foods will still be a trigger but you will have developed more power over them by then.
As Dana said, watch the sugar and increase your fiber. Fiber is a GREAT FRIEND and will fill you up with less calories. The more filled and satisfied you are, the easier it is to withstand eating things that you shouldn't.
Add more protein. It helps to keep you satisfied.
As Lisa said, spend time being encouraged by the many BIG LOSERS here on this site. Read, read, read and read some more of the stories of all of us who were/are right where you are at this moment!
One little trick I use is to make a hot cup of flavored green tea and add a teaspoon of benefiber to it. It is filling and warm! (and the benefiber helps with your fiber intake for the day)
Definitely addicted to food here. I find myself eating for no reason, eating when I'm not hungry, eating just because I can. You get the idea. And I will be sitting there, putting something else I don't even really want in my mouth, knowing what I'm doing, but doing it anyway. This weekend was terrible. Somehow, I haven't gained from it -- or it just hasn't shown up yet...
Back to being a little more reasonable about my eating today.
Hey gang, guess what? It is addiction. For some reason in some people alcohol or drugs flip this feel good switch in their brains. That's how they can end up drinking or injecting God knows what. So with that in mind some studies have been done that show food does the same thing in some people. Crazy, right?
I don't think that absolves us of all blame, it just gives some insight into how our bodies might be working and what it will take to change a behavior.
Is anyone addicted to food?
. I feel like I am going through withrawl already. I have to get my mind off food so I am staying upstairs away from the kitchen and later I will be out with my dog. I want to know is anyone else like me? I am so addicted to food I love the taste and how it feels and I'm starving!!! Well not really but it feels that way. I know that when I am thin it will feel and taste even better but today and right now thay is not how I feel. Please let me know how to get through or deal with addictive behaviour? My dad is addicted to alcohol and I believe I have picked a different addiction, only he can never buy or have alcohol again, I can't I have to eat to survive. Help
But we learn at our own pace and by experimenting. I would often way rather have the sugar, calorie loaded choice, but I've learned to change on that one...and learning more all the time.
Seeing the pounds literally melting away helps.
