How many of us here have an all or nothing mentality?
 

I didn't think I did, but I think now that I do.

I'm not in the, "Well I made one bad decision today, so I guess the day is lost - let's pig out." But with diet or exercise in general. I'm either completely on plan or completely off plan.

I'm either eating right 100% of the time and exercising right 100% or not at all. So, WHEN I start to do this, I am full in. I am changing my life. I am turning over a new leaf. I will forever more eat right and exercise right - moderately, but it's the NEW ME.

But when I get derailed, eventually I get derailed 100%. It might take awhile, but eventually it does go that route. That's not the first time that's happened to me.

I'm that way with many,many things. So, it's a personality trait... but how do I retrain myself to be more forgiving and moderate?

Anyone else in that club?

All the time! I also see a lot of posts where others have the same feeling. I just try to slow down, stop and not think and then reason with myself to just try and do the best I can with something - and that I made the best decision I could with what I could do at the time. Better to be a consistent B+ than a rare A with mostly F's!

Me.

And I've been working on changing that mentality for years. I don't know if I will completely get there, but I hope I do.

Yes it is so easy to be all or nothing. I still get in really busy periods and if I stop my daily walk it seems to all fall apart and my mind turns to "off". I was like that at the end of last year bad.

I retired in December and made up my mind to be more moderate and balanced. We have a huge yard and gardens and in the spring especially I could consume as many hours out there as I choose to devote. It's in these periods of trying to finish I unhinge.

So I am absolutely emphasizing balance now. Exercise but not excessively, eat healthy 90% of the time and don't deny a single thing I really want, work a few hours in the garden at a time, divide and conquer.

I have long embraced IE, read the Tribole book when it came out almost 20 years ago and adopted quite a few principles a long time ago, but I'm doing better with it now than ever. And honestly I feel absolutely terrific. It's such a good thing, I am just determined to avoid the yo-yo pattern honestly it is past time.

*raises hand*

I used to diet and give myself a treat day every week. But it would always morph into a treat weekend. This time, no cheats until I can learn how to handle it. I want to lose 75lbs before I test those waters.

I don't know if it is "all or nothing" or just giving into compulsions even knowing what the consequences will be. In other words, I knew in the back of my mind, eating all that junk food was going to make me fat, but I just. didn't. care. Then after about 6 months it was "what?, what did I do to myself". It is like the angel and the demon on my shoulder were fighting it out and finally the angel came back. . .. hopefully the demon will stay away for good this time, but I know I have to be vigilant. There are some people who don't have these problems. . .but we do.

Not exactly in the way you describe but it is easier for me to eat 1000 calories a day than 2000. (Maintience is about 2800) In that regard, I qualify.

Massive restriction is easier than moderate for me.

I don't think I am. I like to incorporate some of both sides. That can make me feel out of place with my friends who have absolutely no regard for portions and nutrition, as well as with my friends who are super strict about their diet. I like eating pizza, burgers, ice cream, and other high calorie foods, foods that my strict friends avoid like the plague. I know those can fit in a healthy diet for me. But I also like to eat plenty of fresh produce, strive for whole foods, and have a general awareness of calories, goals that some of my other friends consider me a "health nut" for having. I think I'd feel too confined if I ever spent too long on one side?

I can be "all or nothing" though with paying attention to all the little things. I'm very short, so being a little over in calories on a regular basis and too low on physical activity adds up quickly for me and does noticeable damage on my frame. I go through phases where I'm more or less inclined to being cognizant of the little things. I'd say though that I've always eaten well about 80% of the time. It's how careless and bad I am with the other 20% that does me harm or keeps me fit.

Me and I am working on it. If I eat 200 calories more than I should, I have the impulse to forget about my plan and eat a couple of thousand more calories.

If I ever get to maintenance (hard to imagine right now after basically getting to goal to almost gaining it all back), I think I'm going to have a whopper of a time finding a middle ground.

Especially, since I found that with exercising 5 times a week HARD and eating 1500 calories a day seemed to be about maintenance and I was ALWAYS hungry. It's hard to beat that beast if always feeling I need to eat more. I'll have to work on that and tweak a lot as I get closer, which is FAR from now.

I guess I am..it shows that I have not been able to maintain my goals for more than 2 years in a row..and that I've been a 3FC chick for 11 years! :shock:

All or nothing here. If I slip up, even once, I run the risk of driving the car right off the cliff with a box of cookies in my mouth on the way down. I don't know how to fix it, if I did I guess I wouldn't be that way, huh?! But I can guarantee you that this time I am going to try to evaluate it more realistically. Maybe go for a short drive with one cookie. Just not all the way off the cliff. Hopefully I can avoid the cookies altogether. Those are the things that start the kamikaze car up. The fuel to my self destruction. I would be interested to see how many people made a switch from all or nothing and how they did it. If some people changed it, maybe it's not a personality trait that we are stuck with?

Originally Posted by JohnP:
Not exactly in the way you describe but it is easier for me to eat 1000 calories a day than 2000. (Maintience is about 2800) In that regard, I qualify.

Massive restriction is easier than moderate for me.

So much this.

My mom will tell me to eat a small piece of this and that, but I would rather not have it at all than to eat it and then start "remembering" the taste.

I've been trying to change my mindset but it's been hard! The days I cheat, I also have bad workouts (meaning I'll cut it short, never get my heart rate up), but when I'm netting 1000 cals, I workout hard, feel great, and have no desire to cheat. :shrug: You're not alone!

Originally Posted by berryblondeboys:
Especially, since I found that with exercising 5 times a week HARD and eating 1500 calories a day seemed to be about maintenance and I was ALWAYS hungry. It's hard to beat that beast if always feeling I need to eat more. I'll have to work on that and tweak a lot as I get closer, which is FAR from now.

1500 a day and exercising hard for maintenance does not seem right. I'm slightly shorter and perhaps around your age and I estimate that I was eating on ave 1500 a day during maintenance without exercising at all (did not actually count but would be somewhere there). I've stuck to my eating regime and after incorporating exercise for the last 6 months, I've lost around 5-6 pounds.

So if you're hungry and it's truly hunger, which could well be the case since you were exercising so much, you might want to try upping your cals this time round.

Like you i'm either on plan or off plan. But i have modified the intensity of my plan. I no longer exercise hard or even regularly. I will but later. And this time i eat more fatty foods (good fats) and have not suffered for it.

I don't bother with the idea of moderation any more. I'm just not that way inclined. I need to never eat sweets forever (except in tightly controlled conditions). I need to monitor my intake because straight intuitive eating leads me to just eating more and more eventually.

But i am now using the ideas in a book called the Don't go Hungry Diet which talks about how to manage that appetite that comes from a low calorie diet such as what you are doing. For people who don't experience hunger on a strict low cal diet, fine. What's the problem when there's no hunger? But there's no way i can manage hunger so i minimise it by keeping my calories high as i can whilst losing weight.

Right now, though, i'm procrastinating (about my work) and that's giving me an appetite - which i am managing by eating more so long as its healthy stuff. I believe the procrastination is causing my stress hormones and other body chemicals to all get out of whack. I NEED to get back on the job. Today hopefully.

I am right with you Melissa.

Originally Posted by hhm6:
So much this.

My mom will tell me to eat a small piece of this and that, but I would rather not have it at all than to eat it and then start "remembering" the taste.

Definitely this. It's like the Lay's old commercial, "I bet you can't just eat one!" If I don't eat it, I can maintain control. If I have one, I want two, three, everything until they are ALL GONE.

Originally Posted by berryblondeboys:
Definitely this. It's like the Lay's old commercial, "I bet you can't just eat one!" If I don't eat it, I can maintain control. If I have one, I want two, three, everything until they are ALL GONE.

yes..."one is too many and a thousand is not enough"! (that applies to cookies for me ) It just awakens the beast.

Originally Posted by JohnP:
Not exactly in the way you describe but it is easier for me to eat 1000 calories a day than 2000. (Maintience is about 2800) In that regard, I qualify.

Massive restriction is easier than moderate for me.

i think i am like this

Which is why i'm restrictive 6 days a week and let it all go the 7th. Then back to it again but i'm glad to be back to it and then glad to fall off, and repeat, LOL

The older I get, the less I have that attitude, but vestiges of it still exist (Sometimes, when I open a pint of ice-cream, I have the feeling that I might as well go ahead and eat the entire pint rather than have it "haunting" me in my freezer). Oddly enough, having a weekly calorie allotment (rather than a daily one) helped me get rid of the "Oh, I've blown it for the day, so I might as well eat the house down" mentality. I know that my week will include high-calorie days and some lower-calorie days. Also, exercise now for me is almost separate from weight loss. I'll exercise whether I gain or lose, whether I'm off-plan or not.

Originally Posted by time2lose:
Me and I am working on it. If I eat 200 calories more than I should, I have the impulse to forget about my plan and eat a couple of thousand more calories.

OMG me too!!....i can do terrific ALL DAY and be over my calorie allotment by 200ish at the end of the day and then feel like "well heck with it...i'm already over calories anyhow" and proceed to eat however much ice cream that I want to that evening and the day ends in a failure after all :( ughhhhh

i also have huge issues with restriction and i won't ever get too far into being extremely restricted on my eating...i just am really really good at finding lots of reasons to be overly UNrestricted *sigh*

I used to. This time around I am giving myself lots of grace and mentally focusing on "one meal at a time"

I think I'm like you. It isn't that I'm in the camp of I had one bad meal so I got off plan forever. I actually do pretty well on patching those holes.

But I remember this time a year ago. I had been losing and doing pretty well. Going to Weight Watchers meetings. Walking outside and getting a lot of Fitbit steps. Burning more calories.

But by August I had gained 10 pounds. What happened? It was a lot of cumulative things. We had some family events (birthdays, mothers day, etc.) and I ate a little more on them. Slowly we started eating out more - 5 days a week instead of 2 or 3. Then the weather was so hot we quit walking.

It was the cumulative effect. I didn't consciously say I was going to go off program. But, as I kept doing these off program things (eating a little too much for a birthday celebration, buying cookies at the store and eating 4 servings in a day, not exercising, etc), it made it easier to do other off program stuff and then, seemingly suddenly, I was totally off program (well, I actually did keep tracking my food intake so I can look back and see the progression).

A few months later when I went back on program I did it in all aspects and I've kept to it fairly easily since then. To me, I can have occasional blips and stay on program. But if i have lots of them so that it has a big cumulative effect then I seem to use all that as the excuse to just go off entirely...

I usually am not like this. I think that's why maintenance hasn't troubled me, overall. But it's also my first clue I'm in a funk with my weight when I begin to get into that mode. So I watch for it, now, and it helps me catch potential issue before it can blindside me.

I'm in one now, unfortunately. But being aware of it has helped me mitigate it. Most of the time I'm very, very good at working freely within my plan and salvaging a day that hasn't been bang on.

Originally Posted by VermontMom:
yes..."one is too many and a thousand is not enough"! (that applies to cookies for me ) It just awakens the beast.

This is how I am with some good hot chips and hot cheese curls. I CANNOT eat them or I will go into relapse lol. I'm in recovery right now, 2 months clean ;)

Originally Posted by Koshka:

It was the cumulative effect. I didn't consciously say I was going to go off program. But, as I kept doing these off program things (eating a little too much for a birthday celebration, buying cookies at the store and eating 4 servings in a day, not exercising, etc), it made it easier to do other off program stuff and then, seemingly suddenly, I was totally off program (well, I actually did keep tracking my food intake so I can look back and see the progression).

A few months later when I went back on program I did it in all aspects and I've kept to it fairly easily since then. To me, I can have occasional blips and stay on program. But if i have lots of them so that it has a big cumulative effect then I seem to use all that as the excuse to just go off entirely...

THIS. I am like this in many aspects of my life, unfortunately. These behaviors have also made me wonder if I might be bipolar.

Originally Posted by SunnyMathChick:
THIS. I am like this in many aspects of my life, unfortunately. These behaviors have also made me wonder if I might be bipolar.

Just because you have traits, doesn't mean you have a disorder.

I tend to go WHOLE HOG when I do something. I'm a go big or go home kind of person. So, when I decorate for a holiday, I DECORATE. When I make an Indian dinner, it's a 7 course meal (that lasts for several days - purposefully). I don't just make a batch of cookies, I fill my 8 quart mixer, 8 times the recipe and then freeze them (using my double ovens to cut the time down).

it's more efficient in the long run to do that, but... it's a bit insane. But not insane as in bipolar. I just don't feel like cooking daily, so cooking big every once in awhile means I ahve a few days break... but very few people go to the extreme that I do! And I realize... that's a bit Abby Normal! :-)

I love Gretchen Rubin's (The Happiness Project) take:
She says people seem to fall into the categories of abstainers and moderators.
Some people do better not having things completely off limits and allowing themselves to have a little of something, and for others, it's easier to have NONE of it than to moderate.
For me, I am a total abstainer. I can't moderate sugar. I have to say, "I don't eat ice cream"
I am not able to have it in the house and have a little now and then. Impossible!!!!

Focus
 

I have done that so many times. It's really easy to start your bad habits again.

I have changed how I look at loosing weight this time. I don't want to deprive myself, I want to enjoy my life and food is a big part of it. I'm a foodie and I don't want to give up eating out, food events home brewing and baking. I buy 1 cookie not a box, I buy 1 cup ice cream servings not a gallon. As long as I'm trying to stay in my calorie amount that's what matters for me not what I am eating. Most days I eat really healthy and am under calories but if I'm over I'm just starting over the next meal. I'm focusing on life changes not I'm on a diet. Diet implies deprivation for me because of past experiences with weight loss.

Who knows if it will work. So far I'm loosing weight. Only the long run will tell.

I'm not as bad as I used to be, but the tendencies are still there. In my 20s I used to buy diaries that were supposed to symbolize the start of a new me. After a few days or weeks of filling out my brand-new diary, I would inevitably fall off the all-out living regimen I had laid out for myself, which included eating, exercise, studying, social life -- basically everything. Then I would throw out the diary and give in to all the impulses I had suppressed during my "good" phase. Then the cycle would start anew with a fresh diary. I must have purchased about 30 diaries during this phase, each of them costing about $10. (It couldn't be any old diary because it had such an *important* function.)

I no longer do diaries and no longer expect perfection of myself, but I still divide the year up into "starting now" dates. Starting my birthday, starting the first day of spring, starting my husband's birthday, starting cinco de mayo, etc., etc. It's a compulsion that's hard to shake.

F.

Originally Posted by Serenity100:
I don't know if it is "all or nothing" or just giving into compulsions even knowing what the consequences will be. In other words, I knew in the back of my mind, eating all that junk food was going to make me fat, but I just. didn't. care. Then after about 6 months it was "what?, what did I do to myself". It is like the angel and the demon on my shoulder were fighting it out and finally the angel came back. . .. hopefully the demon will stay away for good this time, but I know I have to be vigilant. There are some people who don't have these problems. . .but we do.

Serenity: I think we were separated at birth! That is me--exactly.

Oh yes, continuously yoyoing and either on or off. It was a disaster and I either hated myself or loved myself. I couldn't stand being on that pendulum anymore, feeling good meant that inevitably it would swing the other way.

No more "starting over" and "new me" and "monday is the day" and "look good by summer." This is me, I've got to deal with her, not be different. Incorporating intuitive eating allows me to work on my relationship with food rather than bash myself for eating things that are not on plan. It's a skill and the more I do it the better I get. But if I choose not to employ that skill for a meal or two it's ok, it doesn't make my skills worse, I'm not moving backwards or falling off wagons etc. It's a constant march forward or staying in place if necessary. I feel more grounded this way, and Mondays can go back to the regular amount of drugery that they are without the added pressure of becoming a different person overnight. There is no all or nothing, just 100% being me at all times.