On day 4 i ALWAYS just binge and give up.
Anyone wanna suggest how I should keep it going?
Today is day 4 and my parents ahve bought sooo much nice food.
Help me stay on track.

Honestly, I think it has something to do with what our body is used to, and then it just starts to crave it. It's kind of like quitting smoking.. You really, really want a cigarette, which is why it's so hard to quit cold turkey. You just slowly but surely quit.. That's kind of how I look at dieting.. no cold turkey.. I mean, count calories yes, watch your fat intake yes.. but if you really, really want something, allow yourself just a little of it.. and put it down, throw the rest away if you need to, I do that all the time. I'll take two bites of a piece of cake and throw the rest away, that way I can't eat it, but at the same time I am calming my cravings.. Or just work out harder, to make up for the excess.. You get used to it, really. Everyone cheats, I don't care who you are, just realize you are human and this is a life change, just takes some getting used to. Just don't give up, it really does get easier, you just have to get over that "day 4 hill"

Pretty soon you'll be in day 10 and that much closer to your goal!!

Good luck!
Patty

I've heard several people remark on hitting the 3 day dieting "wall" - I do it all the time too. I gain back whatever weight I've lost for the week on Saturday night in front of the TV.

I changed my routine - no TV - and that seemed to help. I also have a DH who is "sabotaging" (your parents are doing it to you, probably without being aware of it) my diet by bringing home and eating foods in front of me that I shouldn't have. I'm now just going into another room and putting on the headphones, or going out into the backyard. I find that, if I just get away from the temptation for a few minutes, I can bring it under control.

You can do it!

Dagmar

Heres why they don't last, possible reasons -

a) You are making your appearance/weight your priority rather than how you feel/your health. Since Appearance and Weight arn't going to really change in 3 days, if this is your main motivation for losing weight, you are going to hit a wall pretty fast.
b) Are you eating enough? If you just arn't eating enough calories, your body will yell FEED ME and you'll eat, probably binge.
c) Are you being too mentally restrictive? Eg are you saying stuff like "I must not eat/I should have/I'll never eat X again?" Any diet plan has to be for life, basically, or you'll just feel deprived and ultimately put the weight back on when you inevitably let yourself out of the jail cell of restriction. No food should be banned completely, for ultimate mental health!

emily
xxx

I agree with emily that a restrictive diet can be the cause a lot of time. I had the worst day I've had on my diet on Thursday - I totally binged! And when I look back at why, it's clear: the day before, I had eaten fewer calories than normal, PLUS I had a double workout (ran 3.5 miles Wed night, then 4 miles Thur morning). Of COURSE I was hungry on Thursday! I had barely eaten on Wed and ran 7 miles!

Another reason you might overeat is that you buy into the "oh, well, I ate one thing off my diet plan, I might as well eat WHATEVER I WANT!!" I know I have a tendency to think that way. But if that's you're problem to you need to work on changing that attitude. Every extra hundred calories you eat is a another 100 you're going to have to burn off. There are no free calories! When you "cheat" on a diet the only person you cheat is yourself - you aren't getting those calories for free. You can't cheat your body - it knows what you ate.

Thanx for all the tips.
I'm dead proud of myself tonight.
It's day 5 and my mum bought chips/fries in for dinner and I refused them.
I had a bowl of bran flakes with skimmed milk instead.

I am cutting somethings out but not major thing.
Like i'm cutting out butter and full fat foods.

Good work! You don't have to make humongous changes. You can eat everyday, ordinary foods and lose weight.

Hi,

I find that I'm more likely to hit a three-day wall on a low fat diet than on a isocaloric diet (fancy-pants way of saying 33% calories from fat, carbs, and protein), even given the same number of calories. Cutting fat, especially, seems to do it to me. After three days of a low-fat diet w/ exercise, I dive into the nearest bag of Doritos and won't emerge unless the house is on fire. (And even then, I'm taking the rest of the bag with me.)

I know it seems counterintuitive, but try adding some fat back into your diet, keeping total calories roughly the same. Shoot for good fats, like those found in avocados, cold-water fish, nuts, olive oil, or flax seed oil. But for the purposes of avoiding the 3-day diet/binge cycle, any fat is better than none at all. If it's a choice between eating a square of dark chocolate once a day (and compensating on calories elsewhere) and downing a package of Oreos on day four, for gawd's sake eat the square of dark chocolate!

This is, incidentally, related to what emily said in her third point. It's a lot easier to commit to eating less of your favorite foods (which presumably includes some high-fat ones) than banning your favorite foods altogether.

Once you get over the three-day hump, you can work on eating less of your favorite foods less often, and substituting "good fats" for the "bad fats." If your intake includes enough good fat, eventually you'll find that you don't even miss your old favorites. Or, at least, that the rewards of losing weight and feeling healthier make up for their absence.

kaw

Have you tried calorie cycling?

What is that? Sounds intriguing. Tell us more please.
Dagmar

Calorie cycling is changing up your calorie budget on different ways of the week, I kind of do that too and it works great (I do 1,600 calories 5-6 days of the week, with 1 "splurge" day where I do 2,000 calories) I think there are more on it in the Calorie Counters sub-forum (with 3FCers rotating between 1,200 - 1,800 calories).

I don't know if the "science" of calorie cycling is sound at all, but psychologically it does the trick since I have more flexibility with my calorie budgets.

I find the best way to keep me from cheating is to allow 1 (diet) sweet treat per day. I eat mine in the evening It is usually a choc protein shake or mini pumpkin cheesecake. That way I know it's good for me but it cools my cravings.

Thanks for the tips. I have the same problem lately.

Another thing that can help is having a planned treat day or meal. When you are first starting out, maybe plan one meal or one day where you will be off plan. As you get better (and you start to see the rewards of stick to plan), you'll probably be able to have fewer off plan days/meals. But knowing that I have a off-plan treat coming up really helps me stay on track in the interim. For example, I'll be able to tell myself: "Oh, I don't need dessert tonight because on Saturday I'm going out to dinner and will have a dessert then."

I leave for a girls' trip to Mexico tomorrow (which is definitely going to be way way off-plan--can you say "una mas maragarita, por favor"). Knowing that this trip has been coming has literally kept me POP since January, including in several situations where I normally would have had a lot of trouble staying on plan.

Finally, we all have off-meals (or days), most of us more than we'd like. The trick is to not give up at that point. Just get right back on plan the next meal/day.

I just got back from a ridiculously off-plan ski trip (i.e., 3000 calories eaten on Friday... yikes). According to various calorie counters, the hours of skiing I did made up for it... but my body never works like that, so we'll see. (It's more like 5 calories in = 1 calorie out, and that's even taking into account the fact that gym machines are notoriously high). Good luck, and hopefully you can do better than I did