To ask you to share your issues with food.

[ineedsomeinspiration]

I could really do with losing 2-3 stone. I have success in the past but since having my ds 2.5 years ago I am stuck. I'm not huge but am unhealthily overweight.
Previously my will power was strong and I lost weight and kept it off. Now I am truly and utterly rubbish. I feel awful about how I look and really miss feeling good about myself. Me and dh hardly ever dtd now. My sex drive seem so have dropped right down. I'm not sure if I'm putting my weight there as a barrier, or if it's creating the barrier. I miss wearing nice clothes (I have a wardrobe full of them).
Everyday I decide to improve my habits and eat sensibly and everyday I fail. At work I'll pack a sensible lunch, eat that before 11 then go to the shop in my lunch break and buy unhealthy treats. At home I snack even when I know I'm not hungry. It's like I can't help myself. I'll be making something knowing I don't need or really want it but do it anyway.
I also have a real tendency to reward/cheer myself up with food.
I think i need to understand what's going on inside my head to enable myself to lose weight but I just don't know where to start. I don't know what's wrong with me.
Anybody else struggle with these issues and is there anyone whose got their head round it and lost weight?

Mine is mixed. Didn't get much food at all with my mother, so I'd store and eat very little, but every now and then would pig out. This evened out a bit with my foster parents, although I'd say the damage was done as I was an older kid by then. And then I'd eat and eat unless someone told me to stop (and would even vomit from eating too much) and would keep food hidden under my bed, spend my money on longer lasting stuff so I could keep it (and all unhealthy type food too).

As an adult, I find it really hard to deal with leftovers. Instead of making it into another meal, I'll eat them then and there, because otherwise they might not be there tomorrow or whatever, even though I know that's not true. I can ignore signs that I'm full up and struggle to tell myself that if I feel full up, I should stop. I exercise a lot and always have, so weight isn't actually an issue for me, but I also tend to avoid particularly healthy food and even if I'm okay weight wise, what's going into my body isn't good and I have to work hard to keep it off.

I've started to write a food table, including a few snacks, which I can tick off and write in, so x number of meals/snacks a day, and I tick off my 7 fruit or veg a day, which has helped me to eat healthier. It also means I'm not eating the leftovers from the DC or whatever. I've also given myself a certain amount of money to spend on food, and when it's gone, it's gone. Of course, I could dig out some other money if I needed to, but it's helped me not to buy/store as much food (and therefore avoid temptation)

I don't think I have any issues with food. I really love food and I love eating but I'm also interested in nutrition and I try not to eat heavily processed foods if I can help it. I think I "crowd out" junk food/processed food by not limiting the amount of proper food I eat at all, ever. If I want bacon and eggs followed by bananas with double cream for breakfast then I have it.
I try to eat about 8 portions of vegetables a day and that in itself makes it hard to fit in stuff like biscuits, crisps etc.

Laziness is probably my biggest food-related problem, in that if I can't be bothered to prepare and pack a decent lunch before I leave the house in the morning then it's really hard to avoid eating crap while I'm at work.

Oh.. well.. I've had eating disorders for over 20 years. First just "dieting" then anorexia, then BED, then some more "dieting" and bulimia in various degrees for the last 12 years. I use food in very much the same way than someone else mught use alcohol or drugs. It's an addiction and rush/gratification of the "forbidden", followed by a cleansing purge. It's a way to fill a void, dull the senses, feel powerful, etc. I also suffer from depression. It's all a great big tangle of genes and environment. I think I will never eat "normally", but make sure DS has a healthy attitude to all foods (everything in moderation - nothing forbidden, have something sweet every day, not making a fuss about it)..

Already at 7, I started to think of myself as fat (even though I wasn't). Sad, really.

I love baking too and every weekend would bake a different cake/cakes. Like MrsWinnebago I turned the baking into soup making. I bought a couple of different soup recipe books and experimented. I use frylight instead of oil where a recipe calls for it and use low fat creme faiche or 0% yogurt when a recipe uses cream - though there are lots of recipes that don't rely on cream. Tomorrow I'm making bacon, broccoli and celeriac soup Some weeks I make 3 different soups. I tend to make my soups quite thick and I've got used to eating them without bread - I have cereal or toast at breakfast so figured I didn't really need the extra carbs at lunchtime too. I take soup to work for lunch in a microwavable bowl and don't eat it as elevenses as I would have to heat it up so it stops the temptation to pick at it.

It's hard when you have a dh that has higher calorific needs than you and they resort to junk. I try to buy mine things that I don't really like - skips and quavers, dark chocolate, brazil nuts and as I'm not a cheese eater I will get him in some cheese and biscuits that he'll eat for 'supper'

I am so similar to you in many ways. Always intend to change by doing various things but struggle to do everything. But then three weeks ago I decided I'd just make one change at a time and it seems to have worked. I have now been gluten free for three weeks and on Tuesday intend to go sugar free as well.

Could you decide not to take any cash with you to work (but leave £10 emergency fund for taxi etc) with a friend. Pack a helthy snack to eat at 11am, packed lunch at 1. Do this for a week, then add something else a week later - running maybe? Even if its only twice a week

I've only really skimmed the thread but have read all OPs posts

Have you tried Paul mckenna hypnotic gastric band? It's fantastic! Have a look at the reveiws online for it.

I had major issues with food. I used to go out to the shops, spend about a tenna on cakes, then go home eat the whole lot (to the point of feeling Sick) then hide the boxes/ wrappers so I wouldn't have to share any of it with Dp. Even when there were 8 cakes in the pack. I used to do this most days and it cost a fortune!!

I can recommend this book, OP:
www.amazon.co.uk/Eating-Less-Say-Goodbye-Overeating/dp/0091902479/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399237549&sr=1-3&keywords=mindless+eating
Basically, she advises to give yourself permission to eat whatever you like, whenever you like. It sounds crazy but it works because if you want something unhealthy our natural reaction is to tell yourself "no I mustn't" or "I'm not allowed to eat that", which makes us want it even more, so if you give yourself permission you tend to want it less. Worth a shot, it worked for me x

i eat less than I ever have done but I am putting on weight and im feeling ugly. I eat meat, fish, veg, pasta, bread, but I won't eat certain foods. I have a good diet but I drink a lot of coke, etc.

My general diet is pretty good but I'm a binge eater. I eat mindlessly and until I've run out or can't eat any more.

This means that even when dieting, I find it hard to lose weight over time because 1 binge can undo weeks of wirk.

Then I do well, feel exposed frightened and self sabotage. Then having self sabotaged I then swap to using food as a punishment as if course I don't deserve to be normal and aren't capable of it.

So for me, it's not about diet, it's a bit more than that.

Kissmequick, that's a good idea to change one thing a week as a way of re learning my old healthier way of eating.
This weeks will be to eat a piece of fruit at 11 for a snack and then nothing more till 1. I will not buy anything from the shop.

I've had a few issues with food.

I've learned that just recognising that you have a problem isn't enough to stop you behaving that way, you have to dig a bit deeper and come up with a strategy that works for you to tackle the source of the problem.

I used to be a very fussy eater. I've tackled that over the past 20 years or so and although I still have a few random aversions, I now eat most things and really enjoy food I wouldn't have touched in the past. But that's different to your issues.

I'm also an over eater. I'm currently about 3 stone overweight. I lost 2 stone over the past couple of years and I'm slowly creeping down. I know that a lot of my problem is that I'm a comfort/boredom eater. So I have to work out exactly what I'm seeking comfort from, and take some action on whatever is making me unhappy/stressed. Then I don't feel that need to comfort eat. When I was very unhappy a few years ago I'd binge eat so badly I'd feel ill and my stomach would plain hurt, but I kept stuffing it in. I knew what I was doing. I couldn't stop myself. It stopped overnight when the situation I was in started to be resolved. So if you think there's a comfort element to your eating - tackle your real problem.

Boredom eating I just try and tell myself off about and find some willpower.

I also at one point just got very greedy. I would eat very quickly. I was quite greedy especially if eating in a group - I was very obsessed about making sure I got my share and a bit of everything and would feel quite angry if, for example, there was a plate of chicken wings and they all went before I had one, or I felt other people had taken my share. I suddenly had a flash of self realisation about how quickly I was shoving food in and how much of a pig I must have seemed sometimes. It was weird but I almost felt panicky about not getting my fair share. (I now think this was tied into feeling unvalued/exploited/taken advantage of elsewhere in my life.) I stopped it partly by feeling embarrassed about how I might be coming across, but also by reassuring myself each time that hey, this are today's chicken wings. There will be other chicken wings. It's not my last chance ever to have a chicken wing. It doesn't matter if I get one this time, or not. There will always be plenty of chicken wings in my lifetime.