I've lost 45 pounds so far. I've inspired other people. I still have a round belly from childhood. Im 5'8" 170 pounds and my largest point around my hips is 42 inches. I would like to lose 5"...
I eat great during the day. But every night, regardless of whether or not I'm really hungry, I'll eat more. like pizza or hostess cakes. My fiancé eats junkie food and it's really hard to be in a diet around him.. I don't know how I got this far.
But I feel like..after a great day of eating right..I grab a crappy snack..like its a control I have? I dunno. Im just doing low calorie, 1200 or so a day. It's worked before but for like 9 months I've been pretty much at a halt. (mostly because of cheating and yah I know about plateaus and how to break them)...but I'm afraid it's gonna work this time for some reason.
Also I'm getting married in October. And I don't want to put his weight loss goal on myself because of the wedding...it'll drive me nuts. And my dress already looks amazing on me.. I guess I just would like a better reason to lose weight other than looking good. I know that sounds ridiculous.
I'd advise you to have a discussion with your fiancee about what kind of food you guys should have around the house.
Yes, some people can have all kinds of junk food in the housoe and ignore it but plenty of people can't. It is simply easier if it is not in the house.
As for yousubconciously wanting to fail - I say rubbish. You have the habit of eating junk food. Junk food tastes good. Your reward center is probably lighting up like a christmas tree at the sight of it. Get rid of the junk food around the house. Problem solved.
I think it's very difficult to put off the immediate pay off of eating what's in front of you (instant gratification) v. denying what you want now for a long term goal. Sadly, not eating a snack at night does not often result in instant measurable weight loss but eating the snack does result in having what you want right now, if you follow me.
I have spent YEARS trying to figure out if I'm trying to defeat myself or if I don't really want to succeed but I think it comes down to something very simple - instant gratification v. a long term, far off goal.
So yeah, what they said, it's much easier just not to have that stuff in the house and fight that battle.
It sounds to me like you might just be happy where you are, and since you've been the same weight (i.e., not gaining, right?) for months while indulging in some junk food at night, maybe you've found a formula that works for you? 5'8", 166 pounds is a BMI of 25.2, and "normal weight" is considered to be 24.9. BMI is not a science, so you may not even be overweight at all at this point. If you're happy where you're at and you're maintaining, why don't you just put your energy into maintaining? Make sure you're eating enough good foods to support your health, and go ahead and indulge in some junk food, as long as you're not gaining.
But if you do want to keep losing, or just want to avoid the deleterious effects of junk food you don't really want (eating it just because it's there rather than because you're enjoying it), I agree with the other posters. Get it out of the house! If someone brings junk food into my house, they hide it from me, because they know I'll get rid of it. Maybe that's your compromise? He can have it -- he just can't have it in front of you?
Seconding the advice to ditch the junk food. If you're not craving it and only eating it because it's there, then it not being there is the simplest way to stop eating it!
Of course, your partner may want to keep eating junk food, so as JohnP says you'll need to talk to him. One thing you could try is only buying junk food that he likes and you don't. I'm lucky in that I don't like dark chocolate, so the boyfriend can keep as much of it in the house as he likes and I've no desire to touch it. And his pudding of choice is trifle, which, again, I don't like. Now, if he liked milk chocolate and cheesecake best, I'd be utterly screwed. We just had to have a brief conversation first, about how difficult I find it to resist certain things when they're in the house.
Thank you guys for the advice. I do Need to ask him about eating different around me.. He always says "just don't eat it" but Its obviously not working. We also live separate, so when I visit his house/room where his family is little Debbie's biggest fan, it's hard to say the least. That, and his mom is a baker. And I myself am a cake decorator. Lol I'm an alcoholic workin in a liquor store!
I agree with some of the other posters. If you're used to eating junk at night, you just end up wanting it. I love dessert after a meal. I still crave something sweet, even though I don't tend to eat dessert anymore.
I had to ask that the amount of junk food in the house be reduced, that my husband only bring home items which don't have a tendency to trip my trigger, and to please keep the junk below or above eye level in the pantry. I also throw away (down the garbage disposal) anything that is left out. Since doing that, I feel a lot more in control. There are so many junky choices out there that to ask he bring home BBQ chips instead of sour cream and onion didn't seem like the biggest sacrifice to me.
The fact that you don't live together is helpful. Have him come to your place instead. If you visit him and you're hanging out in his room, and he feels compelled to munch on the Little Debbie snack cakes, put a smile on your face, and tell him it's been a wonderful visit, and you'll see him tomorrow. Be very sweet about it. You can tell him that you are in control of what you eat, and you don't expect him to give up his treats because you're on a diet, so you'll just go home where you won't be tempted. He'll get the message.
I understand the concept of "I'm not on a diet, I shouldn't have to give it up". It's called consideration. He doesn't have to eat it right in front of you. There are 24 hours in a day during which he can get his junk food fix. Why does it have to be during the time you're together?
Oh my gosh! you are in a world of hurt with that family! More power to you!
It doesn't sound like you want to fail. Just sounds like you (like me) also have a desire to eat the way that you used to, and that conflicts with your weight loss goals.
I remind myself that the only want to resolve this is to either
1.) Pick one. Either eat how I used to or keep eating the way I currently am.
2.) Eat the same foods I used to, but less of it (a no-no for me, I love to eat big quantities of unhealthy food - I'm a very either/or person)
3.) Magically have an incredible metabolism! haha
Sometimes, I go back to my old ways of eating, then I stop. We're maintaining this way of eating for the long term and the way that I see it - when you do something for the long term, you have your up and down days. So some days, the desire to eat like how you used to is way harder to ignore.
After reading the book, The End of Overeating, I stopped worrying about subconscious sabotage.
The author, David Kessler writes about people's and lab animals' tendency to overeat certain foods and food combinations, especially given certain circumstances (such as stress).
Now I don't believe for a minute that the animals are overeating because they're trying to sabotage their weight loss efforts. They're overeating because instinct, experience, habit, and environmental pressures are reinforcing the binges.
And I think the same is true of me. I don't have troubles with certain foods because I don't want to be thin, I have trobules with those foods because I'm a mammal and high-glycemic carb/fat/salt combinations (the yummiest foods to an omnivorous animal) are difficult NOT to overeat, whether you're a human mammal or a rat mammal.
I had a pet rat named Pinky, a few years ago. Every evening I brought her an evening snack (usually a small bit of my evening snack). Usually it was fruit (and she loved it). Once it was half of a jelly belly jelly bean (she really liked that), but once it was a corner of cracker, spread with Asiago cheese spread (from Sam's Club - and wow, totally amazing), and what do you know - it had that "addictive" combo that Kessler talks about, carbs (starch and sugar), fat, and salt. Super, duper, yummo, and the rat thought so too.
In fact, the next evening when I brought her a snack, she was already waiting (knowing she'd get a snack). Now, I never fed her the same snack two days in a row, but she must have been hoping for another cracker/asiago snack, or something equally as good, because when I walked in the room (and she had never done anything like this before), she had both sets of paws wrapped around the bars, and her whole body was wriggling and shaking, rattling the bars.
She was very, very disappointed to get a strawberry (one of her usual favorites). In fact, she was so disappointed that she didn't immediately eat the strawberry (as she always had done with every snack prior). It was almost as if she was disgusted that I had not brought her a treat as yummy as the night before. Eventually (probably when she realized that I was not going to get her a better snack), she did start eating the strawberry.
Hubby and I even started calling the Asiago spread, "rat crack." In fact, even when I was eating it, hubby would say, "what are you eating, rat crack, again?"
Now, I have a brain more powerful than a rat's, but I'm still an omnivorous mammal with instincts that scream "if you find something super yummy, especially if it has carbs, salt, and fat (which would be a nutritional goldmine for an animal in a natural environment) you'd better eat it fast because it's not going to be around for very long, and your survival may depend on it."
I know better of course, but I still have the mammalian instincts to act as though food resources are scarce (because in a natural world, they are - overpopulation occurs before widespread obesity).
Just "knowing better," isn't enough though, because instinct is hard to fight - especially survival instincts (though it could be argued that all instincts are survival instincts).
So, to avoid falling prey to instinct, I find it much easier to keep addictive food out of the house, rather than trying to fight instinct 24/7.
I've learned to work with my instincts rather than against them - and I'm succeeding (which pretty much disproves the theory that I subconsciously want to fail, because not enough has changed in my life to explain why I would suddenly change my subconscious mind "this time" as opposed to the 35 years of prior dieting).
I really do believe that instict and physiological factors have a whole lot more to do with weight loss than conscious and subconscious motivations, but maybe that's just because I spent more than 35 years trying to figure out and manipulate my mental state, and failed. Yet I began to suceed when I changed my environment and exposure to high glycemic carbs.
Maybe "state of mind" is more important for some folks (or maybe it's not really important at all, and we're all wasting our time and effort trying to change something that doesn't really matter very much).
Kaplods, that is an awesome story. I was simply going to say that it's hard for us to fight our cravings, and that we're hardwired to want certain types of foods- but you said it so much better!
do I subconsciously want to fail?
