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.

@SundayGirls fair enough! I'm slightly overweight and looking to settle at BMI 23-24, so I'd bite my arm off to be where you are already .

Have you heard of the set point theory? It basically says your body has a range it "settles" at naturally and will fight to get to back to that point if you lose weight beyond it. It might make things quite a bit harder for someone like you, if you are trying to battle to a "vanity" size rather than one than a simply healthy size.

I've read that you can reset the set point by losing weight very slowly and having breaks of maintenance for 1-2 months in between (I'll try to dig out where I've read that, it sounded like common sense to me, but I don't know if it has been scientifically proven). Could be worth a go.

Sometimes it is worth accepting your "set point", if it means you can eat well and still be healthy. I'm sure you look just as great at BMI 22 than BMI 20. I know it is hard not to have a personal preference, though!

And I know that it is a battle to maintain (even within the so-called "set point / range") - our brains are wired to get us to eat calorie-laden foods where they are available, and nowadays there is temptation everywhere!

Haha Peanutbuttercups, I say this all the time - there's an obese woman stuck in me demanding I eat what I'd like to! Ideally I would live on cake with some cheese now and again. Because I want to stay slim I rarely eat either.

Here is the article I was talking about. I'd take everything like this with a pinch of salt (especially as it promotes a book), but it makes sense to me as a sustainable approach to try.

Yazoop - I think maybe it is what you say. I do settle naturally at a certain weight, which is around 5lb below my current as I've taken my eye off the ball when it comes to diet recently. I won't have too much trouble getting the 5lb off but it is hard to get another half a stone off beyond that, to the vanity weight/size. I think there's definitely something in what you say!

Even though I can't maintain my ideal vanity weight for long as it's really hard to do, I'm still not ready to accept my natural settling weight even though it's definitely slim enough and healthy, because, it's so close I could touch it even if I can't really grab it properly?! It's annoying it's just out of reach. I should just accept it but I can't

Thanks for the article link Yazoop - I'll have a good read of that!

Every single slim person is slim because they are careful about what they eat.

In my 20s I was 8st and most definitely not careful about what I ate. I lived mostly on fattening processed crap, lunch most days was a bought cheese sandwich a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar. But I was slim.

No probs, @SundayGirls - good luck with whatever you choose to do!

This food you are craving - biscuits, ice cream, crisps - is all high calorie, low nutrient, highly processed food that is designed to make you fat.

Read the labels and see what the recommended portion size is - NO ONE CAN JUST EAT THAT PORTION SIZE!! It is impossible and no one does it. It is designed to be addictive, compulsive and as it is so calorie dense of course people will eat more than one "portion" and gain weight. Who the fuck has ever eaten 7 Doritos or whatever the ridiculously tiny unrealistic "portion" is on the pack.

Its not you OP, it's the food. You are not flawed, you are having the expected response to these foods.

The only way to not diet, is to actually deprogram yourself from the diet mentality you have been raised in for so many years, and start learning about food anew. You can loose all this anxiety, cravings and distorted behavior around food, but you pretty much need to reject and detox every diet/food idea programmed into you.

Clitterati your advice is bad....and your statements wrong.

Of course people can "just eat that amount" of the processed foods you're talking about.

Shouting NO ONE CAN JUST EAT THAT PORTION SIZE!! It is impossible and no one does it.

Is rubbish! Many, many people can and do.

I eat one portion of crisps or a small cake....I don't eat the whole box. I'm not that unusual either.

It's not the food....it's the person eating it all.

I don't mean to be unkind but that's the truth.

Jaygee your activity levels were probably higher and in your 20s your body works more effectively.

I didn't do any exercise other than walking. I eat healthier and exercise more now but I am still 1.5st heavier than I was then.

Are you sure Jaygee? A lot of people think they eat healthily but their portions are too big and there are things which sneak into their daily menus which are calorific but perhaps not something you notice.

Sugar in tea, cream on top of desserts, cheese, beans....even tomato sauce. It all adds up.

I don't take sugar in drinks never have, don't eat dessert with or without cream other than natural fat free yogurt.

I am losing weight now a year 10lb since the beginning of the year.

@AjasLipstick

It is true that it isn't impossible to limit your portions. But I think Clitterati is rightly pointing to the fact that junk food is often designed to make it hard.

For example, often shops stock "grab bags" of crisps, rather than regular sized, and it is only a few pennies more to buy a much bigger "sharing size" bar of chocolate or to upgrade to a large chips and drink. Highly processed food isn't satisfying or filling, and often salty or sugary - which makes it very palatable and easy to keep eating. The food companies are aware that selling bigger portions is a way to increase profits - by marketing them as something to share, people feel less guilty buying them, but often end up scoffing the lot themselves. They use sophisticated neuroscience to create and market super-palatable foods.

While willpower is undoubtedly part of it, there needs to be tighter regulation of how junk food is sold and marketed.

@Jaygee - your metabolism slows as you get older and you need less calories. Sad, but true

You are my people.
I went away with friends for 2 nights. We all ate the same meals (self catering) and snacks and drank about the same amount of booze.
When we came back, two had put on 1lb, one had put on 2lb and I had put on 4lb.

It sucks. And it feels never ending.
I am losing steadily on 1100 Cals a day.
I think when I get to target i might do 3 days of 1000-1100 (my workdays, when I dont really care) and then eat what I want (within a bit of reason) for the other 4 days and see where that gets me to.

I have an underactive thyroid and it needs a moderate calorie intake to support its function, that's why I have to lose weight slowly.

penutbuttercups have you actually read my thread? I said that my slim friends have a totally different attitude to food. I acknowledged this early on. They live to eat, not eat to live. It just makes it harder when literally all you think about is food when you know you can't have it. It comes naturally to them to stop when they are full, make healthy choices - I have been struggling for years to rewire my brain with no success.

In my opinion - which might be bollocks - the reason we can eat so much 'junk' type food, is that it has so little nutritional value, and our bodies are wanting to be properly provided with the correct amount of minerals, fibre, etc, so we just keep eating it. The only way to sort it out is to eat proper food.

Definitely do find that if stop eating junk food I'm obsessed with it for a wee while and then don't want it anymore - have to ditch everything unhealthy for that to work though.

I do think OP that it might help to realise that your slim friends would be overweight if they just ate what they wanted to. I don' think making healthy choices comes naturally to anyone. I need a lot of willpower, and even more so now I've at menopause. My advice to younger women is to try your best to sort out eating before you go through perimenopause because your body really needs to be in the best condition it can be to get through it!

I think we eat lots of junk food because it tastes nice.

I know how I'm supposed to eat. I normally eat healthily now, I don't eat crap, I restrict my intake of lovely, lovely snack and treat foods. I feed my body the correct levels of minerals, vitamins and nutrients - I still want the crap and have to stop myself.

Some people are lucky in that they do stop thinking about unhealthy foods if they don't have them for a while like ParisUSM - but it's nearly a year since I last ate a double chocolate muffin. I would love one right now...

'Tis a battle for everyone, some it's just harder than others. The bollocks about everyone can re-train their taste buds/appitite/stomach capacity doesn't help those who can't.

Its ok OP - we are both natural piggies, who aren't giving in to it today.

Sunday the OP was talking about binge eating disorder. That is disordered eating! Its something that needs proper help, psychologically to look at the root causes. The OP has already said that suggestions are unhelpful as shes tried everything. ( probably not veganism!)

But how do you know what’s going on in your slim friends heads OP? They may be eating healthily in front of you, they may tell you they don’t have a sweet tooth, have to remember to eat, have a naturally small appetite etc, but inside they could be facing exactly the same battles as you with food, they just don’t shout about it.

The website 'eat like a normal person', linked on another current thread, reckons that it is dieting which actually first sets off our desire to binge on sugary crap, because we are deprivìng our body of sufficient nutrients and it goes "Argh! You are starving me! Must eat millions of calories right now!" Whereas if we just ate nutritious food until we are full, we would not get those binge signals.

So my plan is.... 1) Eat 3 big healthy filling meals a day 2) When my body's got used to that and doesn't seem to expect me to starve it any moment, try reducing my portion size a little bit. I've been doing part 1 for 2 days and it's the first time in aaages that I haven't had to fight my desire to snack in the afternoon/evening. The key is eating your meal until you are actually satisfied.

Even if I lose little or no weight, a bit too much healthy food is still better for me than chocolate and crisps.