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.

Oh op, you sound a fine size! I’m 5’8” and currently a 14/16 and I’m only planning to get to a 12/14, (which I normally do about a stone lighter than I am). If I wanted to be a 10 (oh how I’d love to be a 10), I’d need to lose about 3 stone, which would be a hard slog for (greedy) me.

It will obviously be possible to get skinny if you persevere and if that’s what you really want to do. If it is then go for it of course. BUT, I do think some people just aren’t born to be skinny. A size 10 at 5’7” is usually slim and a nice size imo. Obviously there are exceptions.

I’m only looking for a healthy bmi tbh. Anything on the lower side of that I rarely sustain for long.

The only way I have found around this (and I'm talking some years ago) is tons of exercise. Do enough and you can eat what the hell you like in weight terms (still unhealthy, though).

It sucks OP :( Currently trying to lose 14kg and have lost 4kg since January. It's just so dispiriting though and I think about food constantly.

notwins it's shit isn't it! I think we are the same person down to the meal skipping! I know this is just a rant, I'm not looking for solutions as I have them all. I just don't like them!

I wish I could just fuck it but I would be HUGE!

I feel you. I have two modes, either eat what I want or don't eat at all. Once I have breakfast it's like a switch has been turned and I can't control my hunger. The only way I've ever lost weight is by not eating anything until dinner and going to bed straight after. Which is why I say fuck it.

Exercise doesn't take weight off me, in fact it makes weight loss harder. I do 9000 steps every day and used to run (a bit, hated that too) but when I actually worked out at the gym 3/4 days a week I couldn't lose. I stopped and the weight loss started. God knows why. Also find it hard to go to the gym with a 4 year old and 6 month old.

I'm feeling a bit less isolated reading all these replies! My fiends are naturally very slim but I notice they do cut sandwiches in half and only eat that, they eat very slowly too. When we go out for dinner I try to pace myself with them and stop when they do so as not to embarrass my piggy self. DH has just lost 2 stone and is as bad as me. I think we have made it worse for each other.

Is it low calorie you're doing then?

I've ben successful with low calorie before but it doesn't teach you healthy habits really, just a numbers game.

Much more successful with Slimming World and then you're not limited to portion sizes so you don't feel hungry.

But I feel you, when I'm a size 10/12 I feel incredible in so many ways. But all it takes for me is 6 months and then I'm back to a 16/18, anxiety is back, self esteem is gone. etc etc.

I just don't know why the fuck I don't keep it off once it's off. (Well, I do, I'm a greedy cow.)

Hopefully this time I can as it's looking unlikely we'll have more kids, so the years ahead shouldn't involve pregnancy or lots of sleep deprivation!

Also now I have 2 girls to feed and be an example for and I don't want them seeing me overweight or seeing me shovelling in fast food etc. They eat so much better than I did as child.

I used to just burn calories when I was younger, could easily live off crap and still be a size 6 (I'm short), so I never learned to eat like a proper adult when I was in my late teens/early 20s like everyone else, and now I have to be strict. Like you, if I just 'eat what you fancy and let your body self regulate' - I'd be the size of a whale as what I want is chocolate and crisps and biscuits and cake and snacky crap.

I use self control, I'm currently 'paying' for loosening up the self control when the snow was bad and now only one pair of jeans do up (and they feel tight), so I'm having to be more restrained. I am filling up on protein and veg and trying to do more exercise, but it's not how I want to eat and live. But I also don't want to look like a short arsed barrel, so this is the choice I make. (Not much I can do about the short arsed bit, but it's hard to carry off being a bit chunky when you are also short)

I do envy people for whom this isnt a choice and how they like to live/eat.

I wish I was the sort of person who would pick starter and main over main and pudding....

The problem with slimming world is its proper food. I think it's a good diet for people who covet a Sunday roast etc but for me the syns thing made it hard to eat things I liked. Weight watchers was better until they made it more like slimming world. I calorie count on MFP and eat 1000 calories a day. Doing this I loose 1/2lb a week and am grumpy and hungry but can now fit into my jeans. Feeling like sacking off the last stone though!

I’ve reached a point in my life where weight loss has become hard. Very hard.

I’ve always been a snacker but never really had huge issues with it. I’m tall and curvy and always have been, even when I was unhealthily thin I couldn’t fit in smaller than a 10/12 because of hips.

I hit obese after having DS and struggle to shift it. I know if I’m really strict with my eating and do slimming world, I can knock it off. I lost a stone earlier in the year. Then the snow came. Then all I wanted was bread and fat and chocolate. Now I’m struggling to get out of that hole. Evenings are the worst. I can eat nothing all day, then I do dinner for the family and get kids to bed and I just want to eat. I could easily eat a whole strudel. Large pack of crisps. Whole pack of biscuits....

I used to eat likethis when I smoked weed and never bloody gained weight. Getting older is shit.

coffeeorsleep I agree, it's the envy of people who don't have to care, or don't have to think as they naturally make good choices. It's a constant struggle.

What is it about the bloody snow?!
Stupid snow.

Wow!! Other people just like me!!! I love you all!!! i've never been particularly overweight (except when I gained 3 stones in each pregnancy and ended up 48-52 inches round!) but have always been just a bit too heavy to be 'slim'. At 5ft 9 i can carry it off to a point but I too love to snack and graze - i dont enjoy sitting down to a meal and eating.

Phew - i've admitted it!! I told a PT that and he looked at me like I was bonkers!

When I was 17-25 I was 11 stones whatever I ate (fashion dictated I should be 9.5 -10 stones at my height but I was toned from horse riding every day). When I turned 30 my weight settled at 11.5 stones, when I turned 40 it seemed to settle at 12 stones. I'm 50 next year and hovering between 12.5 and 13stones. However I have more muscle than ever before thanks to my daily routine at the gym!

Funnily enough, when I was 11 stones I wore a size 14 with the occasional 12. Now I'm nearly 13 stones I still wear a 14 with the occasional 12

re the gym thing - do you think you were overestimating your calorie burn and what you could then have? I've found My Fitness Pal fucking evil bastard who won't let me eat anything nice a wake up call about how few calories different exercise burns, and just how much is in different foods.

coffeeorsleep Exercise thing was years ago (way before MFP) so I never ate what I thought I had burned. Just didn't make me lose so I stopped, because I hated it and only did it to help weight loss. I would be happiest sitting on the sofa eating a massive pack of biscuits with bottomless tea. I hate exercise so would never do it for doing its sake. When I was 14 I hit the gym really hard going daily after school and lost 2 stone. I think that was mainly because I saved my dinner money to buy CDs and would only eat wheetabix when I got home.

YANBU. Three things that might help.

1. Weight train. That burns calories and fat like nothing else.
2. When I was thin (years ago) I had a different mindset to food. If I was going to a party, I fasted or did a massive workout the day before, so I could pig out on cheesecake and not feel guilty. Try 800 cal days before not after the cake. That way you feel really fine about indulging and the weight keeps coming off and you'll end up being one of those slim people who eat cake and never put on an ounce.
3. Make a long list of little non food treats: new nail polish, bath stuff, face masks, paperbacks, music to download, journals, magazines, fresh flowers, accessories, candles, spring bulbs etc etc. Buy one every single day. Go out in your lunch hour for a 'treat' and pick up something non foodie to reward yourself for having stuck to the diet the day before. That way you retrain your brain to think of gratification and pleasure as less food related than before. And you get some really good nail polish collections going.

Lovely suggestions mina but I still bet your 'pigging out on cheesecake' looks very different to mine!

Me too! I lost 3 stone last year, put 10lb back on over Christmas and now hover at about that weight. I really had moved on to a day by day eating pattern which involved lots of vegetables and pulses, high protein and low carb, it does actually suit me very well. I think the cold weather is partly to blame but I now crave for cheese on toast, mini eggs, cake and chips. I Have managed to halt the decline but as I now have the extra 10lb plus another 12 or so to finish the diet to lose I'm feeling as despondent as you, OP. I've kept up a good exercise routine and my main hope now is that once the weather improves my motivation will come back.

I should do the fast before thing - DH and I talk about having one cheat meal a week when we are maintaining. It's all I think I could get away with. I maybe need to think about grazing more through the day but 1000 cals is not a lot to do that with.

Champagne it does not so there . My appetite beats 6'2" DHs and I'm 5'3". It shows though...

once you come off the diet it can take weks to find your bodies natural state.so anything you will find it grabs hold of.therefore there might be seen to be weight gain(water often) etc but if you can try and persist on a rule of healthy eating for a short while it should then equal out and stop.slow down and u will find the right resting rate so to speak for your body.as long as in this time your eating right and not binging or overeating under exercising there isn't a reason your continue to put on weight.your body is just in a state of shock coming off a diet.it wants everything.but it does let it go.
it took my mum a month.in this time she put on 2lbs for a "going out" meal but it quickly fell off when she steadied and her body new it wasn't to be starved again.it did cause a few anxious moments but she only found stability when she stook with it.and just ate healthy again.on a level.
otherwise from then your still yo-yogi and ur body will never no whats right or what it can let go of.

minapaws I hereby challenge you to a cheesecake off!

Tell you what, OP, it's so bloody refreshing to see a thread like this where you hit the nail on the head with what the problem is, i.e. "I just seem to love shitty calorific and sweet food more Han my naturally skinny friends". You know exactly what to do and how to do it but you're saddled with cravings for fattening food (I remember someone on another thread once pointing out that we're the only animal on earth who will eat carbs + sugar + dairy all in one mouthful, it hits our pleasure sensors like crack cocaine and makes squillions for the people who worked that out) and no "off button". Good on you for plugging away at it when you know there's no quick fix to either of those problems. There are so many threads where people refuse to acknowledge the problem and insist their slimmer friends just have "fast metabolism" and there's Nothing they can Do. You know that there is, and you're doing it even though it's hard, and I really bloody applaud that.

Once you get to maintenance, can you have a day a week or so when you eat what you like? That's what I do - I am very careful Mon-Thurs, lots of protein and veg, no carbs or booze or sweets etc., but it's OK because I know I can have it at the weekend. I hasten to add that I know this doesn't work for everyone - lots of people are "all or nothing" and a scheduled slip will escalate into an endless binge and it'll be 10 times harder to revert back to healthy eating. I'm the opposite - for me the Release Valve is what enables me to keep my focus.

Otherwise, as PPs have said, I think you'll have to take up weightlifting and marathon training Incidentally, I'd wager the reason you stopped losing when you were exercising was that it boosted your appetite and you ate more. Sounds ridiculously simplistic but the same thing happened to me when I dabbled in running: I thought "I'm starving and I've been so good, I'll just have a..." whereas the reality was, on my run, I'd probably burned off about the calories in a piece of toast. It took me ages to accept that if I was going to try and exercise the weight off I had to stick to the eating plan to the letter, or it had the opposite effect.