[Marianna]

Hi.. I thought I should pop my head into this support forum and look around a bit. My name is Marianna and I have been doing the south beach diet for over a year now.. I have lost only a little weight and I sway all over the place on the scales. SBD seems to work well for me, I feel better on it and my hormones are balanced but I get side tracked by emotional eating all of the time.... I just tend to binge.. I will lose some weight.. have a crappy couple of weeks and then have to lose it all over again - I appear to be on a two week rotation with it I know that I need to get a handle of the emotional stuff and then the weight will become easier to move. I know that it is a control pattern that I have developed to not have to deal with other issues and I need some support. So that is why I am here.

Thanks for providing a safe place to talk about how I feel.

[ellis]

Marianna, welcome!
It's so good to have you here.

I did South Beach for a while, too. (in fact, I was a moderator "over there" until it got to be more than I could handle in my too-stressful life. )
I really like the diet, too. I feel good when I'm doing it, and in control for the most part. Until the emotional stuff hits, and I veer off track.

Have you thought of just going onto Phase III when you start feeling out of control? You'd still be eating healthy, and the extra carbs (bread! rice! oats!) might get you through a rough period without doing too much damage.

We're here for you, hon... we're all in this together.

[MyThreeTots]

Hi Marianna! I do the Scale Dance too. Every morning is a crapshoot. Well, not really...I know after a binge night I'll be up, and after a "regular" day I'll be down or the same.

I'm pregnant right now so am not trying to actively lose, but maintain. I don't want to go above 175 this pregnancy. This morning I'm 172 but that's following a mega-binge over the weekend (my siggie lies about when my last binge was) and I was wwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaay up, so I'm actually on my way back down to 170. I don't want to go below that, or above 175. I'm doing the Carb Addict's Diet to maintain.

I'm 13 weeks along. Just 27 short weeks to go.

So I definitely hear you on losing a couple, gaining 5, losing 7, gaining back 4...oh man! One thing I've noticed, emotional causes notwithstanding: if I try to eat way too little, I am virtually guaranteed a binge, whereas if I eat a bit more and lose much more slowly, at least I do lose and I don't binge as often so of, say, any 5 lbs. I lose I get to keep 2 of them...it goes like that. Gradually it does go down (although not right now since as I said I'm only trying to maintain). Do you feel full on South Beach? How often do you eat?

Try REALLY HARD not to feel deprived. As a compulsive eater that is like shoving a cigarette under an ex-smoker's nose. "Hey, guess what, you can't have this. Or this. And you can't have this either. But you can have a TINY bit of that. Just a tiny bit. Okay...THAT'S ENOUGH, we're taking it away now." It's just not the way to go. Try really hard to feel full if possible!

[Marianna]

Thanks for both of your replies I sure do remember you from the SBD forum Ellis

South beach works pretty well for me in curbing my cravings to start with and helping to eliminate trigger foods - it has taught me which foods help contribute to the spiral of overeating... and I try and load up on vegies to stay full.

I have been trying to unpack the reasons why I overeat and the emotional baggage that helps me to do it and it is pretty enlightening. I think for a long time I just refused to admit that I used food inappropriately.. there were a few flashes of insight - but I on the whole I chose to ignore it. But it is pretty bloody obvious to me now... I think that working on teh emotional stuff as well and taking teh slow and steady track with weightloss is my best chance of some sort of permanent change

Thanks for the support

[ellis]

Originally Posted by Marianna

I sure do remember you from the SBD forum Ellis

I thought you seemed familiar, Marianna. I remember you now, too!

Originally Posted by Marianna

South beach works pretty well for me in curbing my cravings to start with and helping to eliminate trigger foods - it has taught me which foods help contribute to the spiral of overeating...

I'm with you. Even when I'm not on plan (ummm... that would be most of the time, darn it!), I recognize that what I'm eating will set me off on a binge. (now if I could just get my head around that, and pull myself together...)

[Marianna]

That is the odd thing for me as well.. I know what works best for my body, what curbs the cravings and binges, but I just can't seem to get it together... So I figure that my weight must be giving me some sort of payoff - I say that I hate being fat, yet I am not able to string together a decent couple of weeks... I know that it is a very complex issue - but clearly the fear I feel at the thought of being overweight all of my life is yet to overcome the fear I feel at being thin.

My weight is a shield at the moment - which gives me a very convenient excuse to live a fairly insular life. The motivation behind why I want that excuse is painful to think about, but I think is what will liberate me from my fears and give me the courage to do it.

Does any of that make sense at all????

[ellis]

It makes perfect sense, Marianna.
When I was in day hospital this autumn, I learned about my "life traps". One them is fear of failure. I'm a quitter because I want to be perfect, and if I can't be perfect, I quit. It's a vicious circle. But identifying the issue is the first step... and a very big one!