How do I stop eating (took a break from diet for Christmas).

Oh and don’t forget the water! First thing that slips for me when I fall into carbs and it’s the most impactful change when it comes to losing weight. It helps you feel full, helps your muscles heal so they don’t retain water, it’s used by the process that breaks down fat. I have lots of hot sugar free squash in the winter to keep me warm while also hydrating.

Remember how great you felt when making good food choices, recognising that you have done the most painful part already and just need to reinforce your decisions to invest in your long term health. Weigh yourself daily to get early indicators and reinforce your positive progression and return to making conscious choices that you know are going to make you feel great again- self love and compassion if you have the odd slip up. Well done on all the fantastic progress you made in 2025! You can do it again. Best of luck.

Could you pre-make tomorrow’s meals so that it is as easy to grab them as it is Christmas food? Perhaps some overnight oats, some homemade soup and then have ingredients to make an easy meal? Have some ready chopped veg & hard boiled eggs in the fridge for when you want a snack? Fill a jug with water & lemon and have that in easy reach? And really try and avoid sugar. It may only take a couple
of days to re-set yourself again.

It’s. Out finding what works for you. In my case, it’s Thise complex carbs. Meals without them don't satisfy and I actually feel quite ill if I cut them for more than a day.

I bought a really nice flask, and made loads of ice in the freezer.
Every morning I fill the flask full of ice then top it up with cold water.
I drink as much as possible and top it up regularly. Keep it with you whereever you go.
This helps take the edge off any ravenous hunger for me.

I would also have a really good think about what it is about your healthier meals you really like? For example, I realised I love the herby and roast-chicken-y aspects of salads. So when I make a salad, I make it with those things so that it feels more like a treat rather than a shit boring salad 😂

Carbs - especially bread, rice, pasta - are just dense calories for me. They make me hungrier in the long run and I pile the weight on. I can have chocolate or sweets and still lose weight but having carbs is a no no if I want to reach my target.

I also just feel better when I haven’t had them. They make me sluggish and my muscles ache.

Give yourself 3 days of eating as much as you need to eat to not feel hungry, BUT it must all be low carb, high protein, high fat, high fibre. Then go back to eating a calorie deficit, that 3 days should be just enough to take the edge off of the carb craving and help to reduce the hunger.

I think it's probably just going to be a case of forcing through it. Get yourself back on track tomorrow, plan all your meals for a week and stick to them, it might be a struggle for the first week or so but you know yourself how quickly those cravings will leave once you've got over them.

Good luck, I'm also trying to start a new diet from tomorrow and I am starting from scratch, I don't have much confidence in myself but I have about 2.5 stone to lose and I feel like it's achievable, if I continue putting weight on I think things will start to feel totally hopeless.

The processed food can go in the bin or it can go in you OP. Which do you value more?

Yourself or the bin?

I genuinely had come to a place where I was choosing to eat soups and salads out of actual preference.
It sounds to me that you had got it right. You not only lost weight but kept it up.
The only thing is the idea that food is good or bad and the idea that relaxing the rules means going mad. You ate differently for a couple of weeks, that doesn't mean all is lost. It's no different to eating more on holiday for a week. It's temporary.

The idea of throwing away food is difficult to get your head round but the cost has gone.
Are there others in the family who would eat it all? I disagree that no-one needs these foods in the house because most people moderate their food intake but still include what you class as "bad", just not in large quantities.
If you went on jabs imagine how much that would cost in comparison. I agree with others, bin the stuff you can't resist and replace it with your new favourites (that aren't cake).

Have you heard the phrase ‘it’s not what you eat between Christmas and New Year that makes you fat, it’s what you eat between New Year and Christmas’? I think you need to stop worrying that you’ve sabotaged everything - get some exercise (not because it’ll help you lose weight particularly, you can’t outrun a bad diet, but because it will distract you and make you feel positive - even a 30 minute walk at lunchtime would help). Stop seeing it as a moral issue - you aren’t being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ - you aren’t kicking puppies you are eating a piece of cake.
It may be tricky with the cravings for a few days but you can refocus on healthy food - I wouldn’t necessarily try for the same things though. Salads are a summer thing - make your meals hot and nourishing. Soup doesn’t work for me at all, I’m starving as soon as I finish, but I know lots of people like it. Try some different things.

I don’t know if it works for you, but I find coming at it from the positive health aspects really helps to keep me focussed.

I’ve just listened to a podcast on Cholesterol and although high intakes of saturated fat can increase cholesterol for some individuals, obesity and type 2 diabetes are also significant drivers. This instantly makes me consider the left over chocolate that I’ve been wolfing down 😄 and makes me want to eat better (which I do most of the time), but like you, do fall of the wagon from time to time.

You’ve done this once before and you can get into that mindset again, it’s just going to be tough for that first week.

I have had panettone for breakfast for two weeks because "oh it needs eating up". Now my arse looks like a large panetone. So I threw out or force fed DP all the remnants of our Christmas treats. It was the only way. Can you go cold turkey OP?

I have PCOS and was prescribed metformin to help with insulin resistance for infertility. It really stopped the food noise - which is caused by sugar / insulin spikes and troughs. I lost weight really easily. Im not TTC now but am considering seeing if my dr will prescribe it again for the metabolic benefits (I have high cholesterol and a family history if heart attacks so feeling hopeful) I know you're not up for their jabs but metformin has a much longer safety profile with minimal risks unless youre a heavy drinker. Might be worth a thought?

Get rid of the fatty sugary food. These can be addictive. No one in your house needs them. DF-i-L brough home baked food and loads of sweets with him. I sent what was left home with him today. I don't want to be slobbed out on the sofa, eating fudge or cookies just because he made them.

Bin the lot today. Don't feel guilty at throwing it out - it is causing you to backtrack on your health and fitness. Getting rid of it is a good thing, not waste. If you have unopened boxes of anything, they can go to the food bank. If any of it can be given to wildlife safely, dispose of some that way. If there are things that never tempt you (like chocolate coins) you could keep them as an occasional treat for DC but no one in your family needs to fill up on processed sugar and fat while getting over illnesses. They need nutritious food. Otherwise just chuck it away. Then meal plan breakfast, lunch and tea, some delicious very healthy recipes.

I've been having toasted rye bread (because unlike other bread it doesn't seem to cause a craving for more carbs) with marmite and a boiled or poached egg, or sugar free porridge with blueberries or banana.

Home made veggie soup for lunch, eating up clementines and a couple of walnuts that I have to crack open myself to slow down the rate of consumption.

Dinners of baked or poached fish with lemon, ginger, soy, brown rice or soba noodles and steamed greens. Chicken casserole with barley and cavolo tonight. I can't wait. I'm sick of the rich food.

Sugar, salt and fat are all addictive. You need to go through detox again. Bin all the processed food and once you are through detox you will appreciate real nutrition again.

Count calories! There’s an NHS app where you log everything. I did this and OMG was so shocked by how much was going into my gob that I soon swapped food choices!

Edited to add:I had to get rid of the Christmas food first. Also meal prep and moving more (away from the food!) has been helpful.

The fatness comes back quickly with Christmas indulging.
Try to stop tomorrow by preparing your usual nice foods.

Stop avoiding the scales.

You may not have gained anything, your weight may have shifted.

Stop the yule logs for breakfast and go for scrambled eggs to fill you up.

And delete the Deliveroo app.

Yes, your stomach will have expanded from eating more over Christmas.
It's ok to feel hungry and not act on it. You can feel hungry and sit with that, and know that it will pass.

It partially sounds like you've reactivated a sugar addiction. Think of it like this: when you were eating healthier, the gut bacteria that love refined sugars were starving. And as they died off, you stopped craving it, and wanted the food that nourish the other microbes that live on proteins etc. Now you reactivated it, so the sugar ones multiplied & are now sending you lots of signals to keep going and feed them. You can know that, feel that and not listen, knowing it'll change back again presently.

Protein keeps you feeling fuller for longer, so eggs, salmon, prawns, things which are high protein but low fat are good here in the transition phase.

Agree about throwing out (or preferably giving away) the unhealthy stuff.

I think there's also a strong psychological angle here. You lost the weight, and maintained for months, so you know you can do it, but now after 2 days of not being disciplined when you decided to, your words are all "start of a slippery slope" and "back to my old ways" and "compulsive".
So is there something for which food is a substitute and filling the void? And if so, what else, as a healthier choice, could you use to satisfy that urge instead? Being outside and in nature can be really helpful in resetting, and walking/gentle exercise can often switch off that kind of false hunger (for me at least). What would work for you?

I find that once I pick up my exercise I also stop the over eating. Got a kettlebell class tomorrow so that will do the trick, plus I got my husband to hide the rest of the Christmas cake. He made me make such a massive cake and I knew it would tempt me beyond my will! Next year I will only make a tiny one.

I ate NO UPF this Christmas but there was still a lot of food left to eat too much of!

I get you! I put on half a stone in December and I’ve found it hard to go back to the new eating habits I’d created. I cut carbs almost completely and eating them again has made me starving all the time. I have to power through the hunger and fill up on protein and veg.

I set myself the deadline of restarting on the 2nd January which I did. The food noise is a lot quieter today than it was yesterday.