To think I'll never be slim... I cannot diet

[Takiwatanga]

I have tried it all. The only thing that kept me slim was starvation or cigs. Neither appeal to me now as a mother! I am just so upsry with myself and lack of self control. I cannot diet, i literally cave after a day or 2. I hate diets. I try to eat sensibly but struggle so much with moderation. I'm so depressed with feeling fat and having no self control. I'm not obese, but I'm porkeier than I have ever been and cannot see a way out. I just wish I could view food how normal folk do. Aibu to give up and simply be a chubster for life.?

Dieting is hard, even harder when the kids are on summer holidays so I wouldn’t even bother trying until they go back.

I find exercising helps me to diet, I try and exercise every day (when the kids are not on holiday), either walk, gym or swimming. I then eat quite well, I try not to buy chocolate, crisps and biscuits, if I don’t have it in the house I can’t eat it. The kids have a cooked meal at school so they don’t need much else, because I’m not cooking them a meal I tend to have something smaller and I don’t have the problem of eating their leftovers.

I love this post:
It's awful that so many people torture themselves like this, sometimes for decades.
As long as it's not seriously harming your health, just do what men do - don't give a shit. You may also find that you actually lose weight as you're not focusing on food all the time.
PS: I'm 20 pounds overweight and couldn't give a fig

^ This. When you think about how many women have spent years or even decades dieting and beating themselves up about their inability to lose weight... And where has it got most of us? Nowhere. Most people seem to be fatter than if they'd never started dieting in the first place!

Get clothes that fit you now and make you look great now, and stop worrying about it. Being happy with who you are and how you look will (a) immediately make you look much better and (b) get priorities into shape better and (c) mean that you won't be passing on your insecurities about weight/food to your kids. Constantly dieting or feeling guilty about not dieting isn't doing you or them any good at all.

If it’s any reassurance they did a study. They took sets of people paired for multiple variables, one of whom dieted all their life and the other who didn’t diet at all. The dieters all weighed more at the end than those who hadn’t

I have realised that food gives me more joy than being slim does

This really hit home and is definitely the same within my group of friends. Most of them love food and cooking and although try to diet (and are generally quite slim) like good food too much to do without it.

I, on the other hand, don't have a great deal of interest on food and hate the drudge of meal planning and cooking. Hell, I'd rather clean the house than cook a meal! I'd much rather by slim than eat nice food all the time so I generally don't eat a great deal in the week but then have a few treats at the weekend. Not lovely big meals like my friends but the odd chocolate bar, snacks, etc.

One of the sad truths of life is that the vast majority of super-slim people are not eating nearly as much as they would like to.

Exercise is crucial for your health and looking good, but it will give you only a tiny bit of leeway in your diet.

When I find myself roaming the kitchen, I get out of the house and run some errands (I'm a weirdo who loves going to Wilko and buying fabric softener and similar). Better still with kids in a pushchair - walk vigorously.

I get a coffee while I'm out with full-fat milk and sugar-free syrup and this takes the edge off hunger.

I’ve been in tears this week for this very same reason; sixty years of trying to control my weight and here I am again - overweight, can’t fit into clothes and struggling now with arthritis which just makes exercising so much more difficult.
I’m saving this thread to come back to when I have time to read it thoroughly.

I wouldn't have described myself as having disordered eating, but surely constantly thinking about the weight/health implications of everything you eat every day is a form of disordered eating. And vast numbers of people suffer from it. Ultimately it just causes us stress but doesn't make us lose weight long-term.

I think my ultimate goal is to pick a couple of simple, non-extreme rules/guidelines, make them into habits and, beyond that, try to stop thinking about my diet altogether. I always thought the 'No S' diet had pretty sensible rules - no sweets (desserts etc), no snacks, no seconds, except on days
of the week starting with 'S'. Except I'm going to allow fruit as a snack if I really want one.

I don’t think ignoring it works - I have been doing that - you just get fatter.

I don’t know the answer. I know the problem which is that eating is the easiest way to feel better, albeit for a short, short time. It’s like the drug you actually can’t live without, but out of control.

I think from what I have read on threads, to be slim, you just cant eat a lot, and enjoy food. I get the impression that some people who are slim, just see food as fuel and not for enjoyment, who would enjoy pushing a salad around a plate. A diet must be easy to maintain, and have a little of what you fancy, all in moderation.

That is what i do, I went from a size 16 to a 12, I do regular exercise, Kickboxing, combat bootcamps, HIIT. cardio, I am twitchy so never still. I also eat my food from my daughters old child's plate. I love chocolate, so have a snack bar a day, and a little portion of cake with my tea. I have carbs, though little, I don't eat much pasta or rice at all, and try to snack on fruit and nuts. Don't deny yourself, just reduce the portions.

I think also, find a realistic weight you can maintain. I am 10 st, and 5ft 2, but want to go down to 9.5 stone. I will never be 7-8 stone, that is unrealistic for me, I would have to virtually not eat for me to do that, which is untenable, considering the amount of cardio based exercise I do, and I like food. I would not have any energy.

I got sick of eating the same kind of foods all the time : fat and protein. Particularly the fat on a daily basis. I do like the idea of lchf

This bit confused me a bit. Because most people on lchf say they get fed up of eating so many vegetables and eggs. How much fat were you eating ?

The clue is in the name though - LCHF - Low Carb High Fat. You are supposed to eat lots of fat!

I have a couple of friends who have just embraced their curvier figures and I have to say they seem pretty happy about it. They went from refusing to buy new clothes because they were determined to slim down into their old ones, to throwing all their small clothes away and buying nice clothes and feeling better and they have said it's been freeing. They seem to be able to naturally maintain their heavier weight so it doesn't seem to have led to them getting bigger and bigger and they're not constantly chastising themselves about their weight anymore. Both friends I have in mind are both attractive but they've got more attractive since deciding to stop trying to diet because they just seem happier. I do think it can suit some people to take this route but it does involve making a determined choice to change how they view themselves which hasn't been an overnight thing. They've had to work at it but they now seem genuinely happier.

My recommendations are:

1. To cut down drastically on these foods (or ideally, avoid them altogether)

sweets, cereals, biscuits, crisps, cakes, bread, rice, potatoes, sugary drinks, syrups, jam, anything else that's sugary or anything high in carbohydrates.

1. To eat as much vegetables as you like.
2. To eat as much poultry, fish and cheese as you like.
3. To eat red meat in moderation and processed meat occasionally.
4. To begin main meals with a bowl of soup (it will mean you eat less

afterwards).

1. To avoid eating snacks.

I've seen this type of low carb diet work miracles for people, such as losing over 5st and keeping it off, reversing type 2 diabetes, improving mood and curing acne.

I find conventional dieting is counter productive as when I've lost weight in the past particularly if I've lost it fast, it becomes a reason to justify overeating afterwards, as my brain tells me it's ok to pig out cos I can just go on a diet again the next day (and tomorrow never comes!)

I read something in a book which stayed with me 'you think you are paying off a debt (by promising to diet the next day) but really you are opening a line of credit'.

I was the worst for bingeing today on the basis that I would start a diet tomorrow! must have put on lbs that way!

Losing weight slowly/naturally does not allow for this little trick my brain plays on me to justify the pig-out!

I second the poster upthread who talked about restricting the times you can eat. I try and stick within an 'eating window' of 8 hours, from apx 11-12 am to 7-8 pm. I'm training my body not to expect food outside of those times, and eating healthily within those times.

What worked for me is not thinking about food. If I want to eat an ice cream or chocolate bar or cake I will. But I will eat one portion. And not open a second. For me, all I did was started to move. First day, went for a 10minute walk. Next time upping a little more. TRy to do something every day and just aim to get sweaty. If you don't get sweaty, you need to do more exercise. Get a fitbit, they are fab. So simple easy measures. Will mak3 a massive difference.

80sMum - the trouble is, everybody knows that cutting out sweets, biscuits, cake, crisps, fizzy drinks, large quantities of carbs etc and eating loads of veg will make them lose weight. They simply don't have the willpower to do it long-term!

Don’t diet. You’ll just end up hungry and frustrated. Start by reducing portion sizes a bit (3 roast potatoes instead of 5) drop the amount of alcohol and use My Fitness Pal app. It’s anazing how the most tiny amount of the wrong food can give you the same amount of calories as a massive portion of good food (like lean protein) and fill you up for much longer. Good luck op.

My suggestion would be give up dieting: it makes you miserable and it also drives bingeing behaviour.

How about just eating good food, fresh ingredients, and building in more activity to your life? You might not end up slim, but you’ll be fitter and healthier, and you won’t waste your life on diets which rarely work long term anyway.

I am terrible with leaving something unfinished. So I have to buy small/low cal options and if I buy a bar of chocolate I look at the total calories instead of the portion size. I think it's related to my OCD/anxiety.

What I do is buy sugar snap peas as my snack and I've had to reduce my fruit intake. I've tried diets but it took a lifestyle change to get me to lose weight. I went veggie/plantbased to limit my options. I am one of those people who now obsess over calorie intake.

I lost weight a few years ago and kept it off by following the no s diet www.nosdiet.com/

It worked for me as I could eat what I wanted to as a meal but no snacks, sweets (puddings) or seconds. Except sometimes on a Saturday and Sunday. I weighed myself once a week and if I wasn’t loosing weight I reduced my portion sizes a little, I lost about 1lb a week so it was a slow process

However I put the weight back on when my we lost my parents in law and my job became more stressful. I stared comfort eating a lot. Now I am in a happier place I am just getting back into following it (started yesterday)

Good luck with whatever you try

Diets don’t work long time like other people have said. I’ve tried them felt deprived and caved within days. What helped me the most was starting to run. I started with the couch to 5k just over four years ago and I’ve run regularly ever since. I find I can eat what I fancy now though still within reason and that’s what helped me, as the running makes me feel happier too so I’m less likely to want to snack. It’s not always been easy but it worked for me.

One of the sad truths of life is that the vast majority of super-slim people are not eating nearly as much as they would like to.

The 'vast majority'? Where on earth did you get that from?

The vast majority of 'super-slim' people I know, just have smaller appetites than the overweight people I know.

Of course some people will eat less food than they would like to, to stay slim but plenty of people just get full up quickly.