6am Quality Street diet

[Helenahandkart]

Perimenopausal insomnia means I’m sitting in the couch at 6am eating Quality Street musing about all the people who say that they’re starting their diets today.
How is it possible to start a diet on the 27th? Do these people not have any Christmas chocolate?
I have a fridge full of cream and Baileys, there are peanuts and Twiglets everywhere, and mountains and mountains of chocolate and sweets and gingerbread houses - most of which were given to us as presents. Any plans to diet are postponed until we’ve worked our way through it all.
Do the dieters just throw it all in the bin? And not go to any new year parties?

My first thought this morning was, right starting healthy eating today!

Second thought was, can't be today, it's turkey sandwiches!

You are right. It is too soon. But I do think I tend to be a bit all or nothing and maybe need change that mindset so I am not either on or off a diet. I need a dimmer rather than a switch maybe.

😭

There is some warm Cadburys in the Hyperdino but I can spend 6E on other things wine

Just enjoy them for today, maybe healthier breakfast tomorrow?
I am still in bed eating Milk Tray, l will do couple of star jumps later along with some funky moves to "Kung Foo fighting", conscious eased.

I scoffed half of a family-sized Tiramisu this morning.

I had terrible insomnia at one point, were I was raiding the cupboards etc because my body was mistaken tiredness for hunger. Only thing that worked for me was routine, going to bed and staying (not looking at my phone etc). I had insomnia for 3 years and been the last 2 months I've managed to get back to normal - so full sympathies!

Enjoy your quality street.... Pass the vanilla fudges over 😂

In solidarity with you, OP, I have just eaten two chunks of giant Toblerone. I feel ready for the day, now.

@Alargeoneplease89
Thank you. The insomnia is utterly miserable. I do everything right - no screens before bed, no caffeine, regular bedtimes, magnesium, etc etc. I’m not quite sure how my body is still functioning on this little sleep after several years of this. It makes me wonder whether Margaret Thatcher, with her famous 4hours sleep a night, was determined to crush the miners and destroy society just because she was always a little bit too tired.

It was March 23 last year before we had finished all the Christmas food. Even now there is still a bottle of gin left from that year. I froze as much as possible, all the meat and cheese cream etc and that's the day I started dieting, I lost almost 5 stone. This year we didn't buy so much, but we haven't even finished the meat yet. No way would I throw anything away. My diet will prob start mid Feb this year, we will see how it goes. We have another Christmas on Friday with ohs family and have more presents which will probably include chocolate and booze too.

Just worry about yourself, I would rather gain a few pound than throw food away. Others wouldn't.

Eat the orange and strawberry ones and consider it fruit!

OP are you on HRT? I started on oestrogen then had a mirena coil fitted and I've slept through the night ever since, after many years of being up half the night.

Assume the progesterone is what knocks me out.

Yes, the HRT hasn’t helped at all unfortunately, despite trying several different types and dosages. Thank you.

Surely turkey sandwiches are healthy?

Diet culture has nothing to do with a balanced, healthy way of eating. It’s about the culture around dieting, which is what’s toxic. The push after Christmas is especially unpleasant- right, you’ve enjoyed your food for a week or so, time to feel guilty and crash diet for a month!

Yes!!! 👍👍👍
I’m through the dreaded menopause by twenty years & it does get much much better once it’s over, I promise. Life actually gets to be fun again ( providing you ignore the creaky joints)

😂

Other than half a chocolate torte which I delivered to MIL yesterday we have taken everything else chocolate based on holiday. There are 25 of us here (arriving over the course of the day), it will all get eaten and we will return home to no crap in the house and start the new year with good intentions 😂
I hardly buy anything junk wise though, and we don’t get given loads either, people know we don’t really eat it.

Enjoy your chocolate. I eat it for breakfast every day 😋

Sadly, that's what a good diet will do for you.....sense of humour bypass 😂

Just work the chocolates into your diet. No need to ban any kind of food at all.

In which case, crack on. Add some light and delicious chocolately joy to your life 😊

I have just had a massive sort out of all the food and made a massive salad. Which im going to have with a glass of cremant. Cheers!

I like to have a nice comfy, insulating layer of fat for the winter months.

Halloween is generally the start of an eating odyssey, kicked off by the early appearance of mince pies, and not ending until the start of Lent with a nice break halfway thru that for st paddys

And for all nut said their first reply is right, we’re all different so if there’s no serious health repercussions have a 5mile run and a bowl of porridge or a lie-in with a box of quality st° whatever floats yer boat

°nope not since they changed the lovely jewel wrappers so black forest gateau choc bar for me this morning

Please do eat and enjoy your chocolates without a tiny bit of guilt
It's only for a couple of weeks at the most, and you will soon lose any weight gained when you resume your normal eating patterns again
You've done so well to lose 3 stone but life is too short not to relax over Christmas

I'm on a WL program at the moment, I enjoyed myself on Xmas day, unlimited wine and chocolate and other junk but back on the wagon yesterday. I didn't go overboard and buy too much junk this year so no leftover treats. I got myself a beauty advent calendar instead of chocolate and asked that no one bought me chocolate for Xmas. The kids got loads but I'm pretty good at leaving their stuff alone.

I couldn't overindulge as I was the fattest I've ever been 2 months ago and I don't want to undo all my very hard work so far and I want to stay in the weight loss zone and I have a weigh in shortly.

If you are enjoying yourself, bloody go for it. On behalf of my fat ass 😄
.

I’m really interested in how this thread has taken shape. My initial post was, in a nutshell, “hypothetically, is today a good day for someone to start a diet, given the amount of festive food in the house? I am eating chocolate.”
I didn’t say I was overweight, or intending to lose weight, or that I was concerned that I was eating chocolate.

The responses now seem to be (paraphrased) “eat the chocolate if you want to, you don’t have to feel guilty, you can lose weight in the new year”

I don’t think I was making any judgement about whether or not it’s ok to for me or anyone else to eat chocolate at 6am at Christmas, nor was I asking for permission to eat it. And yet we are all so conditioned to think we’re not supposed to do it that we give permission to other women, whether or not they’ve asked for it.

And we tell people they can lose weight even if they are not saying that they want to lose weight.

I want to make it really clear that I’m not being shirty about this. I just think it’s really interesting that we all assume that we should feel bad about eating nice things, and also overwhelmingly it seems we want to be nice to strangers on Mumsnet and say (again, paraphrased) ‘you go girl, eat the chocolate, don’t worry, you don’t look fat’.

I have previously dieted to lose weight. I don’t anymore. I eat a fairly sensible range of food now, which is not about weight loss but is an attempt to minimise menopause symptoms. I’m really comfortable with eating lots of chocolate at Christmas but will stop once it runs out. Not as a diet. But as a return to post-Christmas normal eating. I’m in the normal BMI range.

So, to summarise, I wasn’t asking if it was ok to eat chocolate at 6am, but I am very interested by the responses and what it says about the omnipresence of diet culture and our relationship with food.

I hope this post doesn’t read as a criticism. It isn’t intended to be.

Christmas chocolates have no calories 😀