To rant about dieting

[Champagneandthestars]

I've just lost 3 stone over 4 months and I'm so so so so sick of dieting! It's one step forward 2 back, if I even eat one OTT (normal) meal I put on 2 lb and have to eat 800 cals a day for a week just to get rid. I have boobs and hips and I love food! I'm the person who turns up to a picnic with enough to feed an army, cheesecakes serve 4 not 8. I know how to diet, I'm just so tired of watching everything that goes in my mouth to both lose and maintain. I watch people thoughtlessly eating crisps and cakes with blind envy. I hate healthy food and just want to eat crap! Sorry for the rant, needed to get that off my chest.

As you were.

Sounds like you need to do some reverse dieting if you can't eat normal I.e maintenance calories without gaining. Id one million percent recommend you join team rh on Facebook you won't need to "diet" again.

I'm not sure that age has nothing to do with it @sundaygirls. As you get older, your muscle mass slowly decreases (it turns to fat). This means you need less calories to function - basically, you don't burn as many calories each day in your 40s as your 30s, or as many in your 30s as your 20s. This is incremental change so may not be hugely noticeable, but it does play a role in weight gain over time (along with menopausal factors).

Doesn't mean you can't lose or manage your weight as you get older, just something that has to be taken into consideration. Strength-based exercise becomes more important (for health, too) as we lose muscle density.

Coffeeorsleep I have no children so no one else is suffering for my greed as you so nicely put it. DH buys chocolate wafer biscuits sometimes but I actually don't want to eat them. I don't have that much of a swet tooth. I do keep dark chocolate (minimum 85% cocoa) in the house and will have a couple of squares of that occasionally. It's good for you apparently. And btw I am a healthy weight just about but not vanity slim.

I ha e an underactive thyroid, treatable with medication but lifelong. I will always need a certain number of calories to support my thyroid function and going below about 1400 is not advisable.

Sunday were you agreeing with me? It reads a bit like you're not but your experience sounds very similar to mine. I wouldn't have said I had a "healthy" lifestyle before I moved in with DH, certainly didn't work out or think about what I ate or drank, but without realising it I was keeping myself slim just by dint of what my life looked like.

Tuft thanks for the article, it's interesting reading. I still think though, it represents "mindful eating" as effortless and hugely overstates the difference between "mindful eating" and "dieting". It doesn't account for the daily struggle to be mindful - and that's all the OP was posting about. It draws too stark a distinction between "dieting" and "mindful eating", when the only real difference is that one is a "regime" and one is a general attitude of "don't overdo it and don't binge". A lot of people actually do the latter and call it "dieting".

Yazoop I agree that age is definitely a factor, but quite a slow one. I I read Sunday correctly she was saying that, like me, she could pinpoint life changes which led to weight gain, so it'd be a major coincidence if those changes had coincided with age-related weight gain. I noticed my weight gain within about 3 months of moving in with DH, possibly less, so although that was 7.5 years ago (!!!! Gah) and in the intervening years age might have played into it, I can be pretty sure that whatever lifestyle changes came with that move were the main culprits.

I don't think I have had that many life changes as I still walk an hour a day as part of my commute and would rather go a walk than have a meal. I have always ate some rubbish and then compensated in following days by eating less - until I hit perimenopause this balance worked but have to say age is definitely a factor for me now. It isn't helped by the shift in where fat lies when you get older.

@QuimReaper Oh, definitely agree that lifestyle factors are the most impactful!

Of course, being less active and eating more will more quickly add weight than age related factors - but I do think the body is a bit more forgiving of the lifestyle stuff when you are younger. And, as Sunday says, when you are younger you are usually more active (and have more physical energy generally - you start to feel the wear and tear more over 30, in my experience anyway ). I think it is all interconnected in a way.

I often use the much-criticised Kate Moss line of ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ if I am tempted to each shit I know I shouldn’t. Works for me. In fact, so much so that over the years I have even convinced myself 100% that I don’t like crap foods, and I very rarely eat them now. It started out with iron willpower but has become slowly ingrained into my psyche and now feels relatively normal to not buy, or eat, crap. It can be done! (& I was of the mindset that cheesecakes were for 2, not 8...but now I am an 8 person)

I was definitely agreeing with you Quim, it was just my poor writing that made it sound like it wasn't

Yes, definitely Yazoop - I used to be able to get away with murder in my early twenties, I could go on a really indulgent holiday and if I gained weight I didn't notice it, and just normalise again when I got back. Nowadays I have to really fight the extra poundage off again!

It's the mindspace it all takes that is exhausting. Having to think about it all the time, instead of mindlessly opening the fridge or cupboard and having what you fancy.

One thing that has struck me in this thread is the fixation with weight. I'm trying to lose weight, but I haven't weighed myself. I know by my clothes that it's working. Weighing yourself just seems to make dieting even harder, IMO.

Sparkli - I watch my weight as then i know exactly where I’m up to! The scales don’t lie (unlike clever dressing, foundation underwear, heels to make my legs longer & thinner) I do all that when I’m heavier. It’s easier to be lighter and out invexactly what I want to knowing it will fit in advance.

• put on

Iv found keto best. After the initial few days your appetite goes.