Quote:
Originally Posted by Amanda1977
This is an interesting question and I've loved all the answers! I have been following plans for years that discouraged eating highly processed/prepackaged foods at all. While I always lose weight on them at the beginning, I haven't done well with any of them long term because I end up rebelling against the plan. I think they are just too limiting for me. I think some people (ME!) don't do as well with the 'You can't ever have this' approach.
It's encouraging for me to read the responses here because I've just decided to do more of a calorie-counting approach and get away from any kind of plan. It seems like many of you have found that this approach works for you.
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I think that even if you follow a specific plan, and in fact, no matter what plan you follow, most people don't do well with a "You can't ever have this," approach.
For most of my 41 years of struggling with my weight loss (since kindergarten), I also found that "forbidding" things made them that much more tempting.
I always tried to incorporate any food I wanted into my food plan, and always felt miserably hungry while dieting by calorie restriction alone (whether by calorie or exchange counting - both of which allow a person to have any food they can fit into their calorie or exchange budget).
I also learned though that my hunger is much more manageable, and I'm much more successful with the weight loss when I'm restricting carbs rather drastically (but not so drastically that I get blood sugar crashes - such as I felt on Atkins induction, which kept me away from low-carb diets until my doctor suggested that I try low-carb but warned not to go too low. I realized that I had never tried a moderately low-carb plan).
For me, some foods just aren't worth having available, because they trigger what I call "rabid hunger," and I find virtually impossible to eat in moderation.
I may never be able to eat those foods in moderation, and I may always have to follow some form of carb restriction to manage my weight and my hunger.
I may always have to follow some sort of rather rigid plan - and yet I NEVER think of my plan as something that is set in stone. I put no food off-limits (not even wheat, despite having a rather unpleasantly and unsightly skin reaction (my hands and face become swollen, red, itchy, and sore, sort of like a mild sunburn). I also find that a high-carb diet, even without table sugar and wheat, aggravates my autoimmune disease. If I eat relatively low-carb, the symptoms are minimal, and if I don't, the symptoms flare.
Putting a food "off limits" even if the food hurts me, makes me want it. However, thinking of the food's consequences logically does the opposite.
Very sweet foods make me feel half-starved, so instead of "banning them" I think of them like I do the wheat, "What is going to happen if I eat this. Does this food help me acheive my goals, or does it hinder them. Is the flavor worth the consequences?
And you know sometimes it is. I don't consider myself to be "cheating" or "breaking" my "diet," because even though I HAVE TO watch carbs to have manageable control over my weight and hunger, the big picture is more important.
I don't have to "never eat a single carby food, ever," to succeed at weight loss, but I do need to have a plan to help me succeed. It doesn't have to be the same plan either, I can follow one plan one week and a different plan next week.
But what I can't do (if I want to succeed) is believe that I can truly eat whatever I want as long as I stay within my calorie goal (maybe when I'm closer to goal I will be able to, maybe not. I do know that I am insulin resistant and borderline diabetic, and have always had blood sugar issues even since childhood - so I may never be able to do well in the long term on a high-carb diet).
All my life, whenever I was on a weight loss journey, people (those close to me and even acquaintences that were nearly strangers) would ask "how can you give up bread (or whatever was not on my diet)."
Now, no one asks me "how can you give up wheat forever?" when I explain the reaction it has on my skin, but the truth is it isn't very different from the foods that make it difficult for me to abstain from overeating.
When I think, "it's so unfair that I CAN'T have wheat," that's when I'm most likely to "rebel," and then I suffer for three to four days because I had to prove to myself that I can do whatever the heck I darned well please, thank you very much."
And during the suffering, I realize "I CAN have wheat if I want to look and feel horrible and for my autoimmune disease to fall out of the (apparent) remission that I can manage on low-carb."
Even knowing that carbs were killing me, isn't enough to keep me away from them if I think "I can't ever have that."
Sometimes I think if someone were to tell me that I couldn't ever drink antifreeze, it would make the poison tempting to me. I'd have to remind myself that I CAN drink antifreese, IF I WANT TO DIE.
... and that's how many foods are to me. I can have them, if I want to make the weight loss harder than it has to be. When I think of it that way, it's a lot easier to avoid certain foods.
I'm NOT saying that I never eat or drink my poisons. I do, which is why I'm finding it so danged hard to get off this stall I've had for the last several months. I do so much better when I stay on my food plan, but I've had a lot of excuses to eat off plan, and I've allowed them (this family gathering or that one) and even though my intention every time was to "eat in moderation," there are just so many foods that I can't eat in moderation, without my "rabid hunger" showing up.
In some ways, I think my life would be so much easier if I actually could wrap my head around and embrace the concept of seeing these foods as poisons. If I can ever grasp my concept of "You can have anything you want, but that doesn't mean you SHOULD have anything you want."
I think that sugar in the quantities the average American (not just us super obese) consumes, is a poison (again not just a poison for those who are overweight, but to those who aren't obese as well. Heart disease and diabetes rates are increasing among the thin and underweight too, not just in the overweight and obese). We're slowly poisoning ourselves with sugar and foods that turn into sugar in the bloodstream.
Banning sugar wouldn't help, of course - because prohibition never does, but learning to stay away from foods that aren't worth eating can be a necessary part of the journey for some of us. It's not about forbidding foods, it's about concentrating on the foods that help us feel our best.
If you can get away with eating everything, but in moderation, more power to you. That's a luxury some of us can't afford. The problem is realizing that it could be a permanent problem. Some of us may have to learn to abandon foods that make it difficult to maintain a healthy weight, but abandoning them doesn't mean forbidding them - it means deciding that life is worth more than any specific food.
