I have no idea what to do! It sounds so simple...eat less, eat healthy, and exercise. Why do I have such a mental block about this? I am 28 years old. I have never been thin, but as a teenager I could at least get disgusted enough to start dieting/exercising for short periods. Now, I am convinced that I am unable to change. I eat horrible, mostly junk food, and tons of it. As disgusted as I am, I don't do anything to change. I am so embarrassed at how I look and how quickly I am gaining...40 pounds in 5 months. I wake up in the middle of the night and immediately inhale a package of pop tarts. When it's pizza for dinner...it's a whole pizza for me. And pints have replaced scoops of ice cream. I am completely out of control and I have some sort of mental block about changing. What is happening to me?
Have you thought about seeing your docotor? They can recommend a safe diet for you and if need be a diet pill or in some cases, surgery is an option if nothing else works. Another thing to try is maybe counseling. Maybe you are eating to fill an emotional void.
The only thing that is keeping me on my workout plan is seeing pics of myself from my vacation this past month. That was a real eye-opener for me. Everyone is different though.
I think letting yourself be convinced that you can't change is probably the #1 thing holding you back! This can be done and *you* _can_ do it.
I had 100 pounds to lose myself, and for years I wouldn't even confront the problem or think about it because it was too hard to handle emotionally. I was numbing myself/ self-medicating with food and avoiding addressing some of the other real issues in my life. And on the rare occasions when I did let myself think about my weight, I saw the amount I needed to lose as so overwhelming that I got totally discouraged and that only fuelled the cycle- I figured I was screwed and could never be "normal" anyway, so why bother- and I just ate more. (The pints of ice cream at a sitting you mentioned rang serious bells!) I usually didn't even think about why I was eating, whether I was even hungry or not, or if I did it for comfort or out of boredom or for energy or what. I just went into almost a trance-like state and indulged.
I'm reading a book right now called "When Food is Love: Exploring the Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy" by Geneen Roth. It is really helpful to me in understanding in retrospect why I behaved as I did throughout my childhood and adolescence and into my early twenties. If you have a minute, I'd recommend swinging by the library and checking it out.
I know where you're at because I've been there. I ultimately lost the weight by going vegan and reducing the amount of fat in my diet. I slowly added a little exercise, but nothing really strenuous- just walking around campus, the occasional 1 or 2 mile walk before school... I was actually surprised how easy it was compared to how impossible I thought it would be! I totally recommend going vegan. I am SO much healthier now, have a ton more energy, and just feel wonderful. My cholesterol is down from around 280 to 106, I can do things I thought I never would, and I am at a "normal" weight for my height and age for the first time since... well maybe ever! I still love food - in fact I enjoy it now more than ever and am starting a vegan catering company - but it isn't a weapon I use against myself anymore, but a source of nourishment. It isn't something I use to blur realities I don't want to see anymore, but something I experience consciously.
I'm mentioning my success to show you that it is completely within your power to do this for yourself. You just have to want it enough and you have to be patient. That last one's killer, but it is really important. It took me a few years to lose it all. I lost most of it in the first year and some change. Instead of concentrating on the numbers and obsessing about how much more I had to go, I set short term goals so I didn't get impatient. For example, at 235 pounds, I was working to get to 225 -NOT worrying about getting to my ideal weight of around 155. When I got to 225, I felt great about myself. I gave myself a pat on the back and set a new goal 10 pounds down. Focus on your accomplishments, remember no one is perfect and some times will be harder than others, but if you hit a rough patch, that is no reason to quit!
Thanks. I don't know about going vegan...as much food as I consume, I am actually a very picky eater. I hate most healthy food! I won't eat any seafood, and the only vegetables I like are the ones that are least healthy, like canned green beans and corn. I am definitely a carb junkie, I can't imagine doing the Atkins thing as protein is a very small percentage of what I eat. I find it difficult to focus on small achievments, I think the way my husband is has something to do with that. He is a creature of extremes. When he is not dieting, he eats whatever he wants and gets lazy. But when he has had enough, he goes on almost a starvation diet and exercises constantly and just gets the weight off. I have never been able to do that. And honestly, I just LOVE my favorite foods SO much...a very unhealthy obsession with it. The only thing I seem to get any enjoyment from is eating these days. I've tried every pill, the only ones that work are the "speed" types like adipex, but they don't work for very long and so I start taking more and more to get the same effect...it becomes a drug abuse issue for me. I've had physicals and there is nothing wrong with me, just weak willed. I know I use to have SOME will power, I just don't understand where it went. My self loathing voice tells me to stop whining and JUST DO IT. It can't be as bad as I am telling myself that it would be to change my diet and get a little exercise, right? I must WANT to be fat, because it is solely by my choice that I am. And then the "Oh, pity me" voice comes up with all the excuses and whining, and that voice is louder I guess. I guess I am hoping that just getting all this crap out of my head and onto this screen will help me figure things out. Anyway, thanks for listening!
I had a 100 pounds to lose too but now I have 80 pounds, just lost 20. did it very slowly, the body controlled way, in other words I let my appetite and cravings be my guide, I started to eat a substantial breakfast and I stop fearing food and I let my body decide when fat became maladaptive, by eating enough consistently, trying to keep junky foods to a minimum, filling up on real foods etc.
I ate when I got a food thought, I ate when food appealed and I ate when I was just plain hungry. I ate until I lost interest in the food. I ate and ate and ate until diet boredom set in, until I became a picky eater because very little appealed to me.
I ate junk foods until it came out of my ears and I developed an aversion, the experts are wrong you don't lose your desire for something by avoiding it, but rather by saturating your self with it. until your body says ENOUGH!!! (usually when the setpoint is reached and fat production stops)
and my cravings eventually changed to metabolism boosting foods like whole grains leaner dairy meats, vegies, fruits etc. you get the picture, fattier foods lost their appeal. all because I trust my body to tell me when how much and what to eat.
you see it turns out our bodies know better than the "experts" what it needs and how much fat it needs, and once you eat to keep from forcing the body to use it's fat stores, fat becomes maladaptive or harmful to survival and it turns out the body makes the needed adjustments on getting rid of it, poof you lose weight and keep your muscles.
all without food worries and worrying about gaining it back and having to fight food cravings or force yourself to stay within a caloiric maximum, your body can do that for you via appetite and cravings so you can have a life.
we are not meant to regulate our weights and food intake, that is the body's job, if we would just let it and stop following advice of experts touting you have to eat less to lose weight and maintain a low caloire diet (such as 1600 a day) to maintain.
we would cure obesity. and don't worry if you eat due to emotions, thin people eat from emotions too since they have emotions to, and besides technically emotional overeating doesn't exist. the normal response to stress whether depression, fatigue, fear is appetite suppression not it's increase, only hungry bodies find stress relief from eating during stress as hunger is one stress the body can do something about and it a perfect oppertunity to get you to eat when your willpower is low.
don't want to say being very fatty is healthy, like fat acceptance groups do but what I do say there is a better more permenent way then the traditional you have to control your caloires to lose and maintain way.
RR
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