To Stop Dieting?

[MessyMcDoogle]

I'm 17st 7lbs at 5ft 5 and I've been obese since I was 7 years old.

I've also 'been on a diet' since I was 7 with varying degrees of success, but my lowest ever adult weight is 14st so I've never been a healthy weight.

I've been doing some reading (books, not online blogs etc) and there's a school of thought that dieting actually causes obesity by buggering up your relationship with food. I feel this. I loathe myself whenever I eat and often wake up in the morning feeling guilty about what I ate the day before, then realise I had a good day and didnt binge so I dont have anything to feel guilty about

I binge eat in the evenings fairly regularly because once I'm "off track" on whatever diet I"m doing, I just think 'fuck it' and eat what I want, all the time feeling guilty for what I'm eating and therefore making the desire to binge even stronger. It's maddening.

I want to just stop. I don't want to track anything, I don't want to parse blame for my weight onto whether a particular diet 'works' or not etc etc. I just want to eat like a normal fucking human being and not feel bad about it and keep the accountability on me, not on a 'plan'.

My fear is though that I"m going to get even bigger. I really can't afford to do that, I'm massive as it is. I feel like by removing the restrictions on myself I'm just going to go crazy and have no structure to pull my eating back under control.

Is this a really bad idea?

But they lost 129lbs. That’s only slightly less than I weigh. I’m amazed the metabolic impact wasn’t more than 500 Cals personally.

Sorry- I misread it.

You need to read ‘Health At Every Size’. It’s lifechanging. (And absolutely anti-diet.)

Ok, I strongly recommend you read brain over binge. The author is an recovered binge eater and she's absolutely adamant (and I agree with her) that diets make you fat.

Reading that book was a game changer for me. I really recognise your frustration - I was heartily sick of trying different plans, having some success but then putting more weight on. Every time. Like you say, I just felt immense frustration that I couldn't eat normally.

I can say, hand on heart, I will never diet (or restrict my eating) ever again. I'm not perfect still, but my weight is healthy and stable, and I never binge and never diet, and that book was what started me off.

I have been overweight for as long as i can remember.
I think dieting and guilt over food has a lot to answer for.
10 years ago I stopped dieting. I don't know if i lost or gained weight, but i'm still roughly the same size. I still have the same dress size and have clothes from 10 years ago that still fit me.
What happened when I allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted was this: ibwent crazy on junk gor less than a week but i got a bit sick of stuffing my face with junk and made better choices naturally. I still eat junk food maybe once a week.
I started doing the things that I put off "until I was thin". And discovered that I enjoyed excercise when I could do it at my own pace.
Really, the weight is a bit of a red herring. If you subsist on burgers and chocolate without doing any excercise you will be less healthyband unfit. If you eat more fruit, veg and unprocessed food it's an improvement whatever your size.
The biggest improvement was to my mental health. Not constantly beating yourself up over your food choices is liberating. Wearing that dress you love is a confidence boost. And not apologising to yourself and others about the way that your body doesn't meet expectations is so so liberating.
Stopping the constant cycle of dieting was the best decision I have ever made.

Love your comment about recommending plans! “If you stick to it it will work”meaning it’s a diet plan. So so true. It’s the bloody sticking to it that’s the issue!

I trie Rebelfit for a bit but didn’t stick with it. There’s a surprise! I do agree with a lot of what he says however.

I found that article interesting too MiniPolarB - I actually have the book that the author of that article wrote. Just haven’t read it yet. I bought it as it was recommended when I was doing Rebelfit.

I also bought a book and workbook on Intuitive Eating which I haven’t read either! Must actually read them.

I too have tried everything. Am so so sick of feeling like a failure because I can’t actually stick to anything.

Wow. I've just spent ages reading the website linked to upthread ('eat like a normal person'). It's the most fascinating and sensible thing I've ever read about food and dieting. Read it and quit dieting, OP! I am going to follow its advice starting right now. Thank you to the poster who linked to it!

Yes, that's what this study found. No dieting, no counting calories, but people were encouraed to eat fresh, unprocessed, healthy foods.
www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/well/eat/counting-calories-weight-loss-diet-dieting-low-carb-low-fat.html

I've stopped dieting, after decades of a binge/purge - restriction - cycle. I'm seeing a therapist and have hidden my scales and am refusing to calorie count, for my own sanity. So I don't really know if I've lost weight, or how much, and I'm trying to focus on my health and wellbeing, rather than the weight aspect.

I can't deal with the intuitive eating stuff and trying to rely on my sense of hunger, as my decades of very distrurbed eating have completely messed up any "natural sense" I might have had, and if I just listened to myself and what I want, I'd eat nothing but crap, and a lot of it. Instead I'm trying to stick to three meals and a snack a day, without making it a strict rule, and focus on healthy foods, without making anything a banned food, either. It's a fine line, and I'm honestly not sure how well I'm doing.

The food writer Joanna Blythman has recently been writing about hoe diets don't work and calorie counting is always doomed to fail. She said that there is really one rule for weight loss: eat only fresh, completely unprocessed food and eat to satiety. Might be worth exploring.

Read Slim for life- freedom from the diet trap by Jason cake- worked for me

Jason vale!

@NeonLover that typo really made me laugh

Jason definitely isn't a fan of cake

That's what that 'eat like a normal person ' website says. Essentially - stop constantly trying to deliberately deprive your body of calories and nutrients. Your body knows that it needs them to survive. And it needs the amount of them that it's telling you to eat! If you give your body what it actually wants, it will stop making you crave chocolate.

The trouble is, we believe we have no control and that if we allow ourselves to eat 'intuitively', we will have no off switch. But the reason our off switch isn't working is that we aren't eating enough proper nutritious food to activate our off switch.

I'm off to make a huge batch of chicken and vegetable curry with full fat coconut milk. For dinner I plan to eat literally as much of it as I want. And then I hopefully will have no desire to eat biscuits or ice cream.

I can't deal with the intuitive eating stuff and trying to rely on my sense of hunger, as my decades of very distrurbed eating have completely messed up any "natural sense" I might have had

I thought this too, until I read the eat like a normal person stuff. Every time I heard the phrase 'intuitive eating' I thought "Yeah, but what if my intuition is telling me to eat loads of cake and crisps?!". Anyway, it's got me convinced. I'll see how I get on...

I've downloaded brain over binge, thanks for the recommendation it looks great.

I think if I approach this very matter of factly and take responsibility for my intake, I can do it. I want to have children at some point and I'm terrified of passing this on to my kids.

Mum put me on a diet at 7 years old. It was a powdered milkshake diet for 2 meals a day and a 'sensible' meal at night. Unfortunately, her idea of a sensible meal was an adult sized portion if i'd been "good" during the day (just had the milkshakes) and a childs size if I'd been 'bad' (had a snack or other food).. hence food became a reward and my mentality is now "i deserve this food because I've been good".. then when I eat it it's "im an awful person for eating this food"... soooo fucked up.

I'm planning to eat mostly unprocessed foods because I"m less controlled on anything hyper palatable, hence I can't handle a lot of sugar or salt without over eating. Weirdly I don't binge on fat at all and can feel satisfied after a coffee with cream in it for several hours (learned that one on low carb). The more shit I eat, the more I crave it so I reckon it will only take a couple of weeks to make it easier to avoid. Next 2 weeks or so will be hellish though while I adjust :(

I started a thread exactly like this a few weeks ago, so I totally know where you're coming from. Since then, I've thrown out our scales and have veered between being very healthy to eating what I want (at times very unhealthily)! But the way I see it, I'm a work-in--progress so I'm being kind to myself as I begin this process of stopping dieting, even though I can feel my clothes have got a bit tighter - but I think that's my body reacting to come off another diet, as I always gain the weight back. I second reading Brain Over Binge - a lot of good info in it.

Op there is no harm in trying your approach, if you find yourself gaining weight then you stop,it's that simple.

My personal opinion is you do need rules or structure as you are unable to eat normally and healthily and it's a very hard thing to teach yourself when you've had food issues since such a young age. Many of us do need rules.

Right now, you don't want rules, don't want to get bigger, can't see a therapist and deep down know if you've no rules you will get bigger. The mere though of a diet or structured eating makes you feel "stabby".

Until you're able to move past this, I suggest you try it with no rules. Eat as you please. If it works, then you've cracked it. If you haven't, you will either stop before you get bigger and fall into a woe that works for you, or gain enough weight to make you wish to find a woe that works for you. Right now though you are not in that mindset. You don't want to diet, you don't want structure, you can't get therapy, you wish to eat as you please. So really the eating as you please is the only option available to you for now.

Diets aren't the way forward, if you do something like slimming world, slimfast, weigh watchers, Cambridge diet, juice plus....just think in your head, will I do this for the rest of my life. Yes, weight watchers ams slimming world you can do.for the rest of your life but I know for me it wouldn't work as it still feels like a diet.

I tried the 5:2 and found it that bit to strict for me and I knew I couldn't do it forever. I now do the 16:8 but twice a week I do it 18:6. Its the only thing I've ever done that doesn't feel like some 'plan'. And for me personally I find it easier to know that I simply can't eat anything at certain times rather than calorie counting everything. I will do this for the rest of my life.

To be harsh, you will never lose weight if you carry on what you are doing. You have to do something and fond what works for you. I also used to binge eat quite badly. Once a week I still have a treat and eat whatever I want on a Saturday... But all within my eating hours, never out of them, ever. The rest of the week I eat two huge but healthy meals a day and some fruit and tea/coffee between but again, only on the allocated eating hours. I feel great

thanks blunt, I don't think you're far off how I feel. I'm just completely fed up I think.

How much would this kind of therapy cost? I have around £200 spare at the end of each month that's currently going into savings but I could use that? Can't touch the savings.

Maybe you need a break from thinking about it?

I've no idea how much therapy costs, but it might be worth trying to get to the bottom of your relationship with food.

Isn't their free groups? Like over eaters anonymous or something?

You definitely need to take a break from thinking about it, by the sounds of things.

It’s no wonder you struggle with food OP, I think being put on a milkshake diet at 7 would leave most with food issues. While I’m sure your mum thought she was helping, it was the wrong way to deal with weight issues in a child so young really as it was bound to cause food issues.

Why not try your no diet approach? If it doesn’t work out you can stop and look at diets again.

I don’t diet as in follow a plan but I try and be mindful of my eating and do have my own little “rules” I follow, like i try to limit bread to once a day so if I have eggs on toast at breakfast I will have omelette, salad or soup for lunch so I’m not eating bread again. I also make sure I have veg with both my lunch & dinner in order to fill me up. For me personally I need a few little rules to keep me in check if you see what I mean.

That's really sound advice from PinkHeart5914. Having stopped dieting, I can see that at some point very soon I should/will have to introduce some personal rules, like eating only fruit between meals and only if I'm hungry. It won't be a diet, it'll be just my way. But for now I'm just enjoying the mind break.