Quote:
Originally Posted by fight2winthis
How did you END THE GUILT? That's my huge-est problem now, always has been, even up till this morning, I ate a croissant and a piece of chocolate and so I'm 'planning' on letting myself 'go' completely today, and I'll start on a 'clean slate' tomorrow. My excuse is that I can't help it. Please help before I end up gaining back some of the weight I've struggled to lose... OH I'm already being sucked into the frenzy I need a lifeline!!! But just reading your post has calmed me a bit. Now... I have one croissant left... Shouldn't I just eat it and forget it? So I can have a white bread-less fridge starting tomorrow...
It takes time, for sure, and it's definitely an ongoing process. For me, I found that 2 things were especially helpful in shaking that mentality:
1) Stop putting negative or positive connotations on food. Such as "chocolate is bad, it has so many calories", or "bread is bad, lettuce is good". Food is just food. What we choose to do with the food is what is good or bad. Some things are more nutritious than others, some are very caloricaly dense, some calories are empty of any nutrition at all. Start making choices based on what you enjoy and like IN CONJUNCTION with its nutritional value. If you like croissants and chocolate, then eat them when you have the calories to do so and in moderation (I'm a calorie counter, so that keeps everything in check for me). By de-stigmatizing foods as good or bad, that has helped me with the "get all the bad food out by eating it all so you won't be tempted tomorrow" mentality.
2) This one has helped me greatly also, though I don't know what kind of plan you're on, so it could be off-base: stop cutting out things that you like or love. I have done my share of different programs, but I've probably done the low carb more than any other. When I cut out all of those carbs, I started feeling like I was being short-changed. And frankly, cutting out an entire food group because a diet tells you to is dangerous. For example, if you're the kind of person that doesn't like carbs, then it's YOU making the daily choice not to eat many of them, it's not a diet telling you what to do. I don't know about you, but as soon as I am told how to treat my body I start rebelling. I decided this time around that I'm not cutting anything out completely, but I am going to be smart about my choices. This also goes hand in hand with #1 because now I'm not obsessing over what I'm not "allowed" to have. This has helped me a LOT with the bingeing because I don't feel the need to pack as much bad stuff in when I have a bad day. If I want to eat a bit of junk, I do, because nothing is off limits. If I am "allowed" to eat chips whenever I actually want them (and not when I'm just mindlessly eating, that's never good!), then I don't feel the need to consume a whole bag to get rid of them so I can "start being good" tomorrow. If I can have ice-cream any day I want, then I don't need to shovel in a whole gallon tonight. That ice-cream will still be there tomorrow and I'll enjoy a bit then too. The only thing I have cut out of my diet is soda, and I did that because it reeks havoc on my skin, NOT because of (lacking) nutritional value.
Anyway, I hope that helps a bit, it's been a very crazy process for me but I feel like I'm making headway. I think sometimes when we try to lose weight, we treat ourselves like children and set silly rules that seem smart which only cause harm. Food is delicious, period. I enjoy eating the good stuff just as much as the bad, so I'm not going to deprive myself of what I enjoy, I'm just going to be smarter about it. You just need to take the pressure off yourself. There's enough pressure from the outside world, so practice being kind to yourself- eat to fuel yourself, but you want to be happy with it! Force feeding ourselves foods that we don't actually love because they are technically "good" is just as bad as overdoing it on nutritionally poor choices.