Can't stop eating

If you eat crap food your body craves crap food. Your gut bacteria will be geared towards it, the people who make it know how to make it addictive.

when I don’t eat it, I don’t want it. So the key is just starting.

the first thing is a decent breakfast. I enjoy scrambled eggs, so most days I’ll have that on toast.

then for lunch I like something like a tuna pasta but I have it with cheese rather than mayo and put in loads of veg, sweetcorn of course but also onion, cucumber and pepper.

dinner is just a balance meal. Protein, carb and veg.

my junk food generally comes from snacking and not every day. Yesterday I had a cupcake. The day before I had dark chocolate. The day before a hot chocolate. But nothing the previous few days.

Cooking extra at dinner and then having it for lunch the next day. I like warburtons high protein bagel thins its really filling. If your wrap is stuffed with chicken or hallumi and salad, humus that also has protein or like a bean burrito (filling premade and ready in fridge) then its harder to want a second one. Its when the filling is so measely like a little thin spread of hummus or cream cheese, it feels like eating air and i could eat 3 or 4 wraps and still have room for crisps.

'High volume' eating is good at this.

Shift your thinking so that from now on whatever you buy in a supermarket and keep in the house, consider it "eaten".

If you buy crisps and chocolate and wraps and other ultra-processed foods and take them home from the supermarket, who is going to eat them? Realistically, you are.

I know the psychological trick that we try and play on ourselves: "I'll buy these crisps for my husband/whoever", "I'll buy these but I'll ration them out/save them for a treat"- well it's not happening, is it?

Stop buying these foods and half the battle is won.

Don’t buy the crap and don’t have it in the house. Make sure your family are on board and supportive and get an exercise buddy to keep you accountable.

I love carbs, would literally just eat carbs and be very happy. But as I get older I realise it's not a particularly healthy way to eat. I do Noom which I really like and is useful for tracking what you eat but for me I had to consciously reduce carbs. As time goes on I don't really miss them. My weakness is when I'm very hungry, something carby seems easier to grab and stuff in my mouth. So I try not to get to that point. I think you have to set up deliberate strategies so you don't just reach for a biscuit.

Try and be a bit kinder to yourself. What is one change you can make? it could be I will eat one piece of fruit a day this week or something was that you think is achievable. Then next week you can add in a second thing such as I will drink water instead of fizzy drinks.

You could aim a little bigger with I will
eat a healthy breakfast and then pick 3 breakfasts to choose from. Make these ahead if you recognise you reach for whatever is easier due to lack of time / having waited to long…

Small changes are sustainable and easier to manage.

I found moving dinner to 5pm curbed the afternoon/early evening mindless snacks. If I do eat something after dinner it's not as big as the 4 and 5pm snacks were when dinner was at 6.30 or 7. We have lunch 12 to 1pm.

I make a fruit and veg smoothie in the afternoon instead of coffee and chocolate or biscuits and it perks me up.I put a frozen banana, frozen pineapple and mango, flaxseeds or frozen spinach and orange juice, almond milk or water and blitz in nutribullet. Sometimes i add dried prunes or dates. I know the calories and sugar are high but im trying to gradually change my lifestyle, normally it's 1 or 2 lattés with 2 or 3 bars of chocolate or some cake as a pick me in the afternoon!

So much great advice on this thread! Just chiming in to confirm what worked for me as a former carb junkie:

• Allowing myself one bread portion a day, then pasta/rice etc at dinner. This really helped with step 2:
• Plan Plan Plan. By planning your meals, and by this i mean sit and properly write them down to start with, you'll make sure you are planning stuff that you actually have time in your lifestyle to cook. If you type in 'easy breakfast' or 'easy lunches' along with 'BBC goodfood' there's loads of sensible stuff on that site, and there's some real 'beginner' meals if you aren't a confident cook.
• I have to echo the 'see what you can add in' it's been a game changer for me. I found it just ended up naturally eating less carbs because I didn't have room to fit all the protein and veg I wanted to eat as well.
• Also if you are like me, and nothing really tasted as good as carbs did, focus on the protein you know you like and the veg you can tolerate to start with - you might find it a lot easier to say 'okay, how can I get spinach and red pepper into my day' every day than try all the veggies under the sun at first. I at first chopped everything up super small (or whizzed it a bit in a small electric chopper) to add it in - it made it a lot more palatable!
• drink loads more water - trust me.
• assess your sugar intake and see if you need to try and cut it. I know some people function better on 1 square of chocolate a day, but I have to go cold turkey - the first week sucks but eventually the fog clears.

I am basically recovered from where you are to the point where potatoes sit really heavy for me now. I still love bread (god, i love bread) but it bloats me so much if I have too much now! You essentially have to retrain your gut so that you don't crave it. It's tough, but if I can do it you definitely can!

12 stone and 5'7 is really not a great concern.

*Stop buying junk - if it isn’t at home, it’s going to be much harder to eat it! There are so many other snacks available these days that are lower in calories - you don’t have to stick to fruit/veg. Popcorn, vegetable crisps, high protein yoghurts, protein bars.

*Don’t cut your carbs but make a conscious effort to add protein to these meals - egg, chicken, tuna are all easy and quick to add into sandwiches, wraps and pasta.

*Do eat a good breakfast, with high protein - a protein shake mixed with oats, cottage cheese or eggs on toast/bagel.

*Eat before you become starving.

The above are such easy and small additions to your current routine and will make a big difference.

An entire lifestyle overhaul will be too hard - small changes each week.

I wouldn’t try and lose weight initially. Try to eat at maintenance and gradually change what you are eating. I would add protein and pulses and veg in to what you are eating/try and improve your diet gradually. Targets for protein and the number of fruit and veg a day are good. Don’t do any mad things like cutting out whole food groups.
look up the hunger scale. If you won’t eat certain things when you are ‘hungry’ then you probably aren’t really hungry and are eating for reasons other than hunger.
are you stressed and using food to cope? Weirdly if you are very short of time I think some ready meals can be helpful as it may be healthier than the other type of food you might be tempted to grab. These are just a few of the things that have helped me

Meal planning ahead is your friend then.

I also have pcos but I am significantly more overweight than you. BMI of 41 I think, possibly higher.

I am taking WLI, and it is helping but I did have success when I was younger in meal planning and prepping. I wish I had stuck with it.

I used to always have a little cooled lunch box with chicken, broccoli, green beans, and a sauce of some sort and protein heavy snacks like beef jerky, peperami sausages, boiled eggs etc on me at all times.

Also ditching hormonal contraception. I was a different person on hormonal contraception. That was my mistake the second time around and it didn't even work.

My BMI is bigger than yours and I'm trying this:

No junk food bought at home specially the triggering foods that i overeat. Eg i binge brioche but dont care for crumpets. I binge milk chocolate but i can easily leave dark chocolate.

Adding instead of taking away mentality: im adding more water more vegetables morr protein (greek yogurt, tuna, mozarella) this makes me have less room for unhealthy stuff

Routine meals, 3 a day and 1 or 2 snacks if needed..if the clock says its too soon to eat i wait and drink water.

Getting more active

Trying new healthy recipes, new vegs

Visualising myself this summer feeling good in my summer dresses

If nothing else, reduce your sugar. Going low sugar for January was what made everything easier.

You need to start your day with a protein based breakfast or you’ll be stick in a sugar/carb craving cycle all day. Bacon and 2 eggs should do it. Or Greek yoghurt and a banana, ideally with an egg first if you can manage it. Even good peanut butter on wholemeal sour dough/freshly baked wholemeal bread (from a baker, not supermarket - keep it in the freezer). Look up protein based breakfasts. There must be something you can force down. That’ll regulate your blood sugar from the beginning of the day and help with the cravings.

Intermittent fasting got rid of this for me. It's been 2 years now and I don't think I'll ever go back to a high carb breakfast - it just made me absolutely starving by lunchtime.

My weight dropped and stayed fairly stable too. I now don't really notice if I have carbs. I load up on things like dhal, Greek salads, poached eggs with avocado. If I have bread it's high quality sour dough. Very limited pasta and rice

As others have said, stop trying to reduce food intake and instead boost the nutrition of your current food intake. Start with just adding fruit or veg to every carb snack. Eat the sausage roll then eat and apple and some cucumber. Eat the toast and then eat carrot sticks and cherry tomatoes. don’t worry about anything else.

Then slowly try to change your meals. Hungry? Have a proper meal not just a crappy snack. Have a veggie sausage, rice and salad. Etc. Don’t worry about eating less just make what you eat better. If needs be, eat more if it’s adding fruit and veg to your plate.

you have to prep veg and fruit to make it appealing. You say you’re on the go, so then cut up carrot and cucumber sticks to take in box, buy fresh berries if you can, take nuts, cheese sticks, cut up apple etc everywhere you go. Assume you will be hungry and anticipate it by prepping snacks and food.

your body will benefit from increased fibre, healthy fat and protein and your blood sugar won’t spike insanely every time you eat cheap carbs and then come crashing down again.

I find accountability the best for me. I track what I eat using my fitness pal and am shocked how many calories it’s so easy to consume. Don’t go all out as you’ll feel like you’ve failed when you have your first binge. I agree with introducing more of something before you start to take things away. Aim to have two veg at dinner, weigh your pasta so you know exactly how much you’ve eaten. Add in more protein. Focus on flavour, if you just eat grilled chicken and salad you’ll get bored.
I aim to be in calorie deficit everyday, sometimes it’s 400 other days it’s 150 the main thing is I burn more than I consume. Work out your base metabolic rate then set a realistic daily goal based on how active you are. Aim for consistency and don’t let one ‘bad day’ turn into ‘I’ll start again on Monday’. Stay hydrated and look for ways to satisfy yourself. I have a sweet tooth but instead of reaching for the haribo I snack on mini pickled onions and gherkins as they are sweet. Low cal hot chocolate is better than shoving down a bar of chocolate so look for substitutes that satisfy. I keep a list of easy healthy snacks so that I am reminded of what I can eat. Walk more if you can. Aim for overall being more healthy and eating nutritious food. It will start to pay off.

It's weird to recommend carbs (particularity processed carbs like wraps) to someone who is struggling with uncontrollable hunger/cravings. The suger/crash cycle is well documented.

A few ideas to try

Skip breakfast, this is intermittent fasting and by delaying that first dose of carbs you will delay the first blood sugar spike and the subsequent hunger cycle. It takes a while for your body to adjust as it's used to eating.

Alternatively, eat a fat/protein based breakfast for a similar effect. Eggs and bacon, cheese omelette, natural full fat yoghurt.

Try the fast 800 diet. It's only two weeks so you can give yourself a deadline. Delay don't deny. You can eat all that stuff after the two weeks. See how you feel after the two weeks. If you feel great then you can continue.

Rather then reduce carbs at all, just make better choices on which carbs. Ultraprocessed food (which often includes bread and pasta) will be effecting your hormones and increasing hunger. So make your own bread or buy 'artisan' sourdough. Potato is surprisingly low in carbs and completely unprocessed so swap out bread and pasta based meals. Baked cheesy potato skins, potato dauphnoir, mash etc. rice is a better option too although not completely unprocessed.

Me too, similar weight and same height as you. And like @Fishandchipsareyum I had PCOS as a young adult but it had rectified itself by mid thirties. I still have so many symptoms of it though 🤷‍♀️ I don't eat so much beige food, but I am pretty much addicted to carbs, bread and sugar. Yesterday I had a really good day of balanced meals, dh bought some chocolate and I ate 100g bar, destroying and calorie deficit. I exercise a lot which sort of helps keep my weight steady, but it also makes me so so hungry. I just can't seem to switch myself into healthy mode anymore like I used to when I was younger.

The only time I have ever been free of it was when I cut all processed food, grains and dairy and all sugar out of my diet on an American diet called whole30, except you're not supposed to do it forever, it's supposed to be 30-40 days max. I did 100 days and felt genuinely amazing, but introduced things back in and now I'm back where I started 😢

Agree with PP saying add things in rather than take things out. I used an app to track protein and fibre: I aim for 30g + of fibre and 90 g + of protein a day. It’s really hard to achieve and if you get a good chunk of fibre and protein into your breakfast is moderates appetite all day. Game changer for me to think about it this way round. Then try to add in 30 plants a week. Soon you will have no space for junk.

Are you anemic?

Could you recommend some low carb bread and pizza please. I really miss my toast in bed each morning.

I totally relate. I’ve been on keto a few times (very successfully weight loss wise) but still find carbs are my favourite food stuff. I’m currently doing a type of keto which is I allow myself one carb item in a day but only if I am craving it and NO carbs in proper meals. I am finding this easier to maintain than a blanket ban on carbs and I’m still losing the weight and eating decently.