AIBU to ask any psychologists / counsellors / therapists to share weight loss tips that really work?

[ClockwiseCat]

It's January again and yet again I have 2 stone to lose. I start a diet, do well for a bit and then give it up.

I know I'm an emotional eater and I am a bit all or nothing about dieting. I also know that lots of people quit diets because of feeling deprived and most people gain the weight back anyway.

BUT there are those rare people who lose weight AND keep it off. So what are they doing differently? Any tips would be great especially around the whole psychology of weight loss. I'm less interested in hearing 'Do 5:2 / low carb / cabbage diet' and more interested in hearing how to go about making permanent changes.

[lornathewizzard]

Jeez I wouldn't encourage weighing every day, I'd be demented. So many variables that can cause fluctuations

[lornathewizzard]

Amd sorry, I'm not a professional but if you're and emotional eater then I think you need to deal with the stresses, or find another coping mechanism. Sorry if that sounds harsh

[LoisEinhorn]

I've been seeing someone and the tips so far have been:

always leave something on your plate, even a pea.
always make sure each meal has protein in it. If its beans on toast, add cheese! If its an apple add some nuts
dish up your meal into 2 portions. If you are still hungry eat the rest, if not save it for the next snack/meal
eat every couple of hours, even a few nuts (for me its to stabilize my blood sugars?
One major thing that has helped is 'tapping' its taken the emotion out of food for me.

[fascicle]

Quiero
The "all or nothing" approach you mention is a key factor for all of us who manage to regularly successfully lose weight but always put it back on.

I think you have to remove the "nothing" element to stop you reverting to the "all".

I agree. Changing an 'all or nothing' mindset is critical. Without it there is no momentum for a perpetual binge/diet cycle; once that goes you have a natural buffer against bouts of excess eating that would ordinarily lead to self blame and further 'sod it, I've screwed up, I may as well eat everything' eating. To break the habit of emotional eating, I think it's also critical to change thinking habits generally, so that you can process issues in a way that allows you to manage them/prevent them from overwhelming you. If you can do that, then I think you automatically reduce the urge to eat for emotional reasons.

WorraLiberty
Yes, willpower certainly comes into it.

I don't believe it has to. If instead of dieting, you opt to make a few positive lifestyle changes (as opposed to enforced dietary restrictions), I think it is possible to do so without feeling that you are exerting willpower. An example would be somebody who routinely has a second plate of food at each mealtime. If, after plate one, that person introduces a habit of pausing to consider if they really want/need any more food, just asking that question will help them to vary/change an automatic habit, especially if they are not rigid in denying themselves more food and the option to have more is still there. This goes back to eliminating 'all or nothing' thinking, and introducing shades of grey (not 50). Getting comfortable with flexibility and making your own good choices (as opposed to following somebody else's rules) can be very empowering. I also think it's far easier to incorporate positive lifestyle additions - e.g. some form of (extra) movement or exercise; a portion/extra portion of fruit/veg/salad every day - rather than introducing limitations (I musn't eat x or y). Whilst limitations may indeed require willpower, additions (which may eventually leave less room/desire for bad habits) should feel much easier.

[MrsHathaway]

I've worked out that to be at my goal weight I have to eat less often and eat less when I do eat.

Tactics I've found useful include:

labelling calorific drinks as food. I wouldn't dream of eating every hour, but I used to have a drink that often without remorse - milky tea, sugary squash. Now I simply Don't Drink Calories. I drink fizzy water or herbal tea because I don't like cold still water so wouldn't drink enough of it.

missing meals. This is more controversial but for me it means I stop thinking about food because I know it's irrelevant until 5pm, say. IF/5:2 work on this principle I think, and it does seem to work for "bored" eaters. You can also go for "don't eat if the DC aren't eating" which also stops you nibbling from their plates/the biscuit tin once they've scampered off to play, or in the evening.

use a smaller plate. This shouldn't work, but does, even though you know you're tricking yourself. Something about your eye measuring depth of food, not width.

eat one-pot meals. We eat lots at buffets because it's lots of different tastes. You only really enjoy the first few mouthfuls of any one thing, so you get bored with soup/stew/curry quicker. When bored, stop, and notice that your brain seeks something different to eat ("pudding space"). If you're still hungry, eat more stew. If you don't want to, you're not hungry.

Giving up refined sugar and artificial sweeteners helped my appetite. They both make you crave more food. It was hell for a couple of days then absolutely fine. Sugar gives me a hangover now.

[FinallyHere]

What works for me is Gillian Riley's www.eatingless.com

It took a while for it to click for me: first i read the book which seemed very simple was i didn't stick to it. Then I tried the seminar and had a followup personal email exchange. The email exchange made suddenly startlingly obvious the difference between what i thought i was doing and actually following the steps outlined. Plain sailing thereafter.

Not to say that i don't fall off the wagon occasionally, the difference now is that as soon as I notice, instead of saying that's it blown for this year, i can just get back to what works and the weight eventually melts again. Not fast, but reliable.

Hope you find what works for you.

[Yuleloglatte]

I was an emotional eater, but looking back I see i was addicted to sugar - in the way that some stressed people reach for a cigarette or alcohol. I know you don't want people suggesting diets, but going low carb, and breaking the sugar addiction really worked for me. It was hard at first but now I can't bear sweet stuff, and I have less appetite so I don't get emotional/ hunger pangs. So while it doesn't fix emotional eating, it works brilliantly for me while I tackle the emotional side. I also found crochet and cycling as much better outlets for my anxiety!

[chipshop]

I lost nearly four stone by summer last year and remain a healthy BMI and a size 8/10 which I'm happy with. I am an emotional eater too.

My advice would be forget the word diet or trying to lose weight quickly.

I ate healthily, using My Fitness Pal (as others have said this is great for portion control). Lost on average 1lb a week. I still had holidays, the occasional fancy dinner with DP or boozy night out with friends... your life has to carry on!

I did go back to my old habits occasionally when I was fed up, eating huge pizzas, supersized bags of chocolate and crisps etc, but you just have to forget it, not beat yourself up about it and carry on.

Exercise really helped - I joined a gym, started off with easier stuff like zumba, then progressed to the hardest classes. An hour's hardcore workout gives you loads of extra cals on My Fitness Pal.

Good luck!

[Deliaskis]

Not an expert of professional by any means, but I lost 4 stone in 2014, and can't imagine ever putting it back on again. I have about another stone to lose. Honestly, it hasn't been hard, because I somehow managed to change the way I think about food, and even emotional eating. So a year ago, when I was having a bad day, or felt like I 'deserved' a treat, I would have reached for chocolate or something similar. Now I tend to try and think more about what my body needs, and try and give my body a 'treat', i.e. what it needs to get me through each day feeling good. So loads of fresh vegetables, good quality protein, some fruit, some dairy, some fat, some nuts/pulses, some good carbs, and drink mostly water. The thing is, I went through about 2 weeks of sugar withdrawal, and since then, it just hasn't really appealed and hasn't been difficult to stay away from at all. I have calorie counted as well, and started exercising, but it has all been through a belief that I need to treat my body kindly, with some respect. And somehow it has worked. I can't imagine going back to the way I was, and I'm not depriving myself of anything, because I just don't want all the things I used to 'treat' myself with.

Don't know how I made the switch in my head, and I hope the above doesn't just sound smug, but it really has been a mindset shift for me, and it has worked.

[MonstrousRatbag]

I second the advice to avoid sugar. By which I don't just mean sweets, but cakes, biscuits, puddings, jam, syrup, flavoured yoghurts, the works. After you've ditched it for a while treat yourself to a very little chocolate occasionally.

If you are an emotional eater, try to tackle that. There are loads of quite good books about that. I found Fat Is A Feminist Issue quite good as well.

I always find treating a need to lose weight as a food adventure quite helpful. New cookery book, experimenting with new ingredients, buying slightly better food than you might normally, things like that. So food does not simply become a negative in my life.

And, distraction, distraction, distraction. Whether it is going for a walk, drinking water or tea, going on MN, reading, sex, whatever. Recognise the times, other than mealtimes, that you reach for food and do something else instead. Once dinner is over don't eat again until the morning.

[Viviennemary]

I think for a start people should think of chocolate biscuits crisps takeaways and the rest of it as a very occasional treat. And eat more fruit and veg and protein. I'm giving that a go. Somebody I know has lost 2 and a half stone just by cutting out snack foods and eating a bit less.

[fascicle]

chipshop
My advice would be forget the word diet or trying to lose weight quickly.

Agree completely. Impersonal, off the shelf diets, with ambitious, aspirational weightloss targets, used by people who want to get down to (insert specific weight) for (insert specific event), are unlikely to result in permanent weight/health changes.

Deliaskis
I have calorie counted as well, and started exercising, but it has all been through a belief that I need to treat my body kindly, with some respect.

I think that this sort of motivation has far more potential for long-term changes. Looking good for an event is a relatively superficial goal. Aiming to be healthier, have a more balanced lifestyle etc has the potential to be more meaningful and enduring, especially if achieved through gradual measures/change/results.

[MERLYPUSSEDOFF]

Eat less.
By which I mean have one slice of toast instead of two. One piece of bread for a sandwich. We have plates from Ikea that are about 10" so a bit smaller. I have my main meal on that. I have a smaller breakfast and lunch than normal and have fruit for dessert after tea if I'm still hungry. Instant drinking chocolate has been good for losing the choc craving for me. I could do with losing 2 stone. If I feel peckish I have a glass of sugar free squash and wait 30 mins before eating. Yes, I know it should be water but it works for me.

[sleepwhenidie]

There are quite a few posts here that are providing useful advice OP, Quiero and Deliaskis to name two. I am an Eating Psychology Coach and my advice may differ from other therapists, but I would agree with those posts and similar ones in particular.

The problem with diets is that they are all about punishment, a mindset of deprivation and hating your body. They also make you think about food and weight all the time! All this quite apart from the fact that many can have unhealthy effects. A change of mindset to kindness and respect for your body is a much healthier and sustainable approach, one of working with it, rather than against it. So yy to mindful eating and also finding movement/exercise you actually enjoy and doing it regularly and making sure you eat plenty of the good stuff your body needs to function well and feel good, without banning anything completely. This can also involve cutting right down on sugar and processed food which can be addictive as part of the process.

Wrt emotional eating, diets are indeed usually disastrous. They just increase the swing from 'good' to 'failed' and back again. Emotional eating is an attempt to serve another purpose in life, whether it is something missing that you need (affection, intellectual or physical stimulation, a sense of purpose) or a way of processing emotions that you find difficult to manage (this can include happiness!) - it is very often that your self esteem is low and gets a further battering every time you 'fail' at a diet because you ate too much... identifying what your individual triggers are are the answer here and from there learning different coping mechanisms, without making eating wrong. Think about the whole of your life, what makes you you? Are you proud of your achievements and your personal moral code? Are you true to yourself, things like not regularly saying yes to others when really you want to say no?

What would change in your life if you were your 'perfect' weight? Are you putting things off until you get there? In reality, unless someone is physically disabled by their size, there are very few things in life you can't do, overweight or not. Live that life now, treat your body as you would as a slim person now, take the focus off food and body flaws. They will become less significant.

Could your extra weight, as one pp said, be serving you somehow, perhaps providing an 'excuse' for social anxiety that you would still want to address even if you had the 'perfect' body?

Lots to think about, everyone is different with emotional eating. I'd also recommend Gillian Riley and Susie Orbach if you want to read more.

[RonaldMcDonald]

judith beck has a good diet book and workbook that can be helpful to get you to restructure your thinking around food and overeating
it is based on cbt principles

[MrsHathaway]

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating...

Weight is an equilibrium between calories in, calories out, and calories stored. If you stop losing weight, your diet hasn't "stopped working", you've just balanced out. To change the calorie store, you have to change something else.

That was a revelation to me. You can't starve down to a size zero then go back to eating Kit Kats in front of Eastenders and expect to stay that size. It doesn't seem fair, but it's science. To be eight stone forever I have to eat and do eight stone, forever.

[GlitterBelle]

This is something I'm looking to do, and been talking to some nutritionists about a lot.

I tend to feel I have to go on a diet - give up everything, but what they were suggesting is little changes.

My personal circumstances are a little different to some in that I can't exercise (at least not enough to burn calories as such), am a wheelchair user and have severe pain/fatigue. My weight was put on mostly after my health problems started fuelled by specific health issues, or emotional problems as a result of the health issues. It got to the point I couldn't cook - so I live on ready-meals, take-aways and easy food. I.e. for lunch I often don't have the energy to even make a sandwich, so will have a packet of crisps.

However, I now have a personal assistant/carer who can batch cook some meals for me. So what I'm going to do is make little changes.

First I'm going to swap my lunches to a homemade vegetable soup, and then over the next few weeks swap some of my puddings/deserts to fruit. Only do something little at a time, the first week swap two puddings to fruit, and if you're sitting there thinking I could murder a a cake, you know you can have it tomorrow. Then the following week up to three.

Don't give up everything, just moderate it. Have a treat occasionally, and if you do have a bad day and eat your whole cupboard, move on and start afresh the next day. (A lot of people think well, that's it - I've broken my diet, I'll continue this way.)

I'm also going to have some hypnosis to deal with cravings/hunger, once I've got my healthy food in place.

[projectbabyweight]

I've read a heck of a lot about the psychology of eating, and even researched it when I worked in a university, pre-dc.

My conclusion after all this is that "emotional eating"/cravings etc are likely to be due much more to blood sugar highs/crashes than psychological issues (disclaimer - not in all cases of course).

I'll get on my soapbox here and say we need to eat much more of the food we evolved to eat (meat, fish, eggs, veg, nuts, etc) and much less of the modern stuff by which I include grains & dairy. This means more stabilised blood sugar, due to a lot less carbs, esp sugar.

I know many will disagree, but like I say, this has been my specialised subject for many many years, and incidentally the only way I've ever lost weight. It also cured me from IBD. However, I will add the temptation to eat "hyper-palatable" junk is strong.

[sleepwhenidie]

projectbabyweight, I agree on the wholefood aspect, focusing on eating plenty of the food your body really needs, as opposed to restricting calories and banning the foods we label 'bad' and attach a low moral value to (and by association ourselves if we eat them) when in diet mentality, usually makes a huge difference to cravings. If it doesn't, then you are left with the true emotional aspect and can tackle it.

[BoyFromTheBigBadCity]

Cut sugar from tea/coffee. Switch from latte/cappucino/flat white for white coffee. Don't feel you have to have a biscuit with a cup of tea. Don't have chocolate or sweets in the house. Don't buy big bars of chocolate - they just get eaten. I agree with pp on the 'less' comment - I only actually need one slice of bread at lunch, not three. If you currently use green semi skimmed milk, switch down either to skimmed or (if that's just too far) to the orange milk which is half way between. You won't notice the difference but it all adds up.

I find cooking up fruit with interesting things a good way to get a treat - so chopped apples cooked with ginger. yes ideally we all eat veg as raw as possible but it means my treat is fruit. If you can't be bothered to make yourself something from scratch for a snack, you don't need it.

I also find ways to cut down on 'heavy' food while upping veg. So cauliflower 'rice' is good - you feel like you've eaten a plate of rice but it's all veg. if you are doing rice, then half the amount and make it up in added veg (like balls of frozen spinach) - they bulk it out without you feeling like you're missing out.

take the stairs, every time. Park at the other end of the carpark. Anything to add steps into your day.

I'm currently trying to lose some weight so I'm trying to do all of this.

[RawCoconutMacaroon]

I lost a lot of weight (a lot, 6 1/2 stones), and I've kept it off other than around 1/2 stone that cycles on and off, eg at Christmas. It's now 8 years since I started the "diet" (I'd say lifestyle) that worked.

If my weight starts to drift up wards is always for the same reason... I've started to eat more carbs than my metabolism can handle. I am utterly convinced that some people (a lot of people) have huge, pardon the pun, problems with food because of a real, physiological problem with carbs/sugar driving appetite and mental issues that lead to binging and overeating.

I spent 20 years (since teens) dieting and feeling a failure and eating "healthy low fat" (high carb). I got really sick, and very fat. I felt hungry all the time. I had to eat every 2 hours or so as my blood sugar would plummet and I'd feel so sick and weak (hypoglycaemia).

The life style that changed that (and my health, completely), was low carb, then low carb and grain free.

It's about eating the foods we evolved to eat (and it might surprise you to find out grains are a fairly recent addition to the human diet, especially in the amounts we eat them today).

Fish, meats, eggs, nuts seeds. Lots and lots of leafy veg, dairy in small amounts if you don't react to it... This will level your blood sugars, stop you getting the huge bs spikes and crashes many people get after eating carb heavy food, that leads to constant snacking. I can go many hours between meals now without feeling sick/ill (just a bit of normal hunger), obviously that makes losing/keeping weight off easier!

The best advice I can give, go and read Marks Daily Apple blog, it's free, it has a great archive of articles, with links to scientific citations, but explained in easy terms. It's a great starting point... Good luck! :)

[MrsHathaway]

I disagree about swapping milk down to skimmed. Swapping up to full-fat (which is only 4% fat) appears to have better outcomes.

Far better to have full-fat less often than low-fat all the time, lulling you into a false sense of security. Corn flakes with skimmed milk do not constitute a nutritious breakfast.

[fatlazymummy]

I lost over 4 stones, unfortunately I have regained some which I am dealing with now.I am still nearly 3 stones lighter than I was 3 years ago, so have kept the majority off.
I have found that I have to have a strategy. I cannot just eat whatever I fancy, because I don't have the ability to regulate my food intake naturally.
I have to plan ahead. I decide what I'm going to eat for the day in the morning (I'm writing it down at the moment) and I try my hardest to stick to it.
I don't buy multi packs of crisps/chocolates, etc, other than over Christmas. If we want anything like that then we have to go to the shop to buy one (singular).
I've made the rule for myself of not eating outside my home unless it's an actual meal, at a proper meal time.
These little rules (there are more that I can't think of at the moment) have the effect of making my immediate enviroment conducive to eating healthily. I don't want packets of biscuits or lovely cakes in my kitchen because I find it very hard not to eat them. They don't tempt me at all in the supermarket though.
I expect other people have mentioned using a smaller plate. My dinner plate is a dessert plate. I think this is the single most important change I made,psychologically.
Lastly I make sure I'm reasonably active. It gives me a buzz. I'm 54 now and I love the fact that I don't have aches and pains, that I can still walk fast and move freely. That is what motivates me. (I'm very lucky with my health for which I'm grateful).

[bilbodog]

I am trying the Jon Gabriel method - look it up - as I realised that just going on yet another diet wasn't going to work for very long. He approaches weight loss from a phsychological and emotional point of view and uses a lot of vizualisation. I have only been doing it for a few weeks but as soon as I had read the book I could feel a shift in my perception of food and although I don't think I have lost anything yet I am eating smaller helpings of healthier food - not DEPRIVING myself of anything - I just want the healthy things. Didn't go mad over Christmas either. Look up the books on Amazon and his website.

[sleepwhenidie]

Jon Gabriel is fantastic bilbobag and such an inspiring personal story. I'd highly recommend checking it out too.