I'm finding it really hard to overcome these voices in my head. It's like therz an evil angel on my left shoulder and a pure angel on the right..the evil told me "Just shove that doghnut in your mouth, its soo good"..the good angel was like "Noo think about the oufits you can try in future and how hot u'l look"..Long story short EVIL ANGEL 1 - GOOD ANGEL 0

You've come all this way (20 pounds down) with weightloss and you've still got voices in your head seriously tempting you.

I think you need to do a lot more work on getting rid of those mental voices once and for all. Or did they just start appearing?

If they've only just shown up after losing 20 pounds, then you need to try to see what might have triggered them?

Could it be from:
1. Lack of nutrition. How much variety have you been eating, particularly fruit and veg. If you have been eating the same things over and over you may need to vary what you are eating more to top up your micronutrients.

2.losing weight too fast and triggering a famine reaction? Read up on the hormone leptin to understand about this. You can read up on leptin in web-md and nutrition wonderland.

3. life stress or disappointments. Such situations induce an appetite for carbs.

4. Lack of sleep. as above.

One of the antidotes to all these possibilities is to eat more for a while. If you choose to eat a little more of a variety of good quality foods, you will rebalance whatever is out of balance, unless its stress which needs different tactics. And after a bit the tempting voices will go away.

Do not take this as permission to start eating more unhealthy foods. That would only worsen the problem.

Good luck, i hope you find a solution.

Wow, never considered all those. You have some really good points noted Thank You. I think one of the big problems is that i lost those (20 pounds) in a month which was pretty fast and now i'm craving all these different foods

Right well 20 pounds in a month is really a lot. So that suggests you are having a famine reaction. According to Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis from the don't get fat diet, you need to eat more now.

Don't worry the that you will put on all the weigh thou lost just as fast. You won't if you stick to eating healthy whole foods.

What has happened is that you've triggered a famine reaction which is that you've lost too much fat and stopped producing so much leptin. This triggers your appetite. Its the body's way of trying to save your life, because it doesn't know you are on a diet. It thinks you are starving to death. I'm not going to try to explain it in any detail. Just read up on the resources i've already mentioned.

But eating more is what you have to do now. Eat lots of fruit and veg at appropriate meals times. Eat decent meals. Eat protein, and i would say some carbs, good fats, dairy. Eat unprocessed foods as much as possible.

What i have found really clear just in the last few weeks is that if you eat in courses, smallish sized of each thing its easier to assess when you have had enough to eat with out overeating.

So if for breakfast you have say a fried egg on toast, plus some fruit, you can see if you need to eat more straight away. Then you could have some yoghurt and cereal (not sweet stuff preferably).

For lunch, you could have an open sandwich with lots of salad vegies or a big salad with no bread but instead maybe some thing else that would fill you up. But keep up the veggie bulk. Again if after that you are still hungry, have some fruit or a piece of cheese perhaps.

For dinner, try to start with some vegetable soup, or lentil soup or something like that. And then your meat and veg or whatever you do. Tehn if you are still hungry you can have some more fruit.

I find i do not need to spend a lot of time cooking actually. When i make most of my dishes, like a soup, i do it once and i've got enough for a number of serves. Unless i'm making something like fried rice or pasta many things i make will last for several meals.

Other things, sardine sandwiches on wholegrain. Bean and veg salad with nuts and cheese. baked fish and veg. omelette or frittata a. bla bla.

I have only recently started doing the courses and i find its great. Its the french way.

So get to eating. I can tell you this works because its just what i have done for the last month. I increased what i have eaten and i have not put on any weight at all. Now i have started to think about reducing again. I don't reduce drastically. And i plan to take my time. I've given myself till the end of the year. Last night i waas thinking i might even take a month break every month. the idea is to keep my hormones and metabolism in perfect balance. If you read all those things you will understand where i'm coming from.


Good luck.

Again, very good points honestly. Thank you