Has anyone ever worked out why their demon was being fat?

[bluetrampolines]

I know how to diet. I know how to exercise. I have every aspect of my life nailed. Almost. Apart from being fat.

Why is this my demon? Can anyone help?

I've just lost some weight, reached my target, my BMI is finally within the green zone. But.... It's like my mind is telling me 'well done, you've achieved what you wanted, now you can stop going to the gym and exercising, and hmmmm, eat that chocolate cake too as you've worked so hard and earnt it!'

It seems harder to remain motivated to snack less, and to continue to work hard at the gym or even to force myself to go regularly now that I'm no longer overweight. All I want is to remain at my current weight but my mind tries to sabotage me. Things containing loads of sugar and cream are just more delicious than a healthier option.

Glad to have been able to help. I don’t really have fat thoughts much these days. Sometimes have days where I feel bloated and sluggish but I think that’s more hormonal bloating and I can recognise it for what it is. I don’t feel slim either as am not, think you’d look at me and can see I could drop another stone but i’m not in the market for that at the moment.

One thing I noticed is that you have to manage people around you, as large weight loss changes the dynamics. And it’s not always the friendships you think it will be either! At one point I was only being honest with a very small number of people about how much I had lost, for the rest I halved the real number as I found people would hear the figure and regardless of what I looked like get hung up on it and start the whole you don’t want to lose too much thing. And then when you get to a certain point and you end up a bit smaller than some of your friends that can get a touch tricky.

Might be selfish but I wasn’t prepared to deal with other people’s issues whilst I was doing it so just found it easier not to engage and then if pushed would just say I don’t care about what I look like, it’s Doctor’s orders, I’m doing it for health.

My new crutch is exercise I think. Having spent a life time avoiding it I’ve discovered I rather like it - not necessarily at the time but love the feeling after and like the psychological discipline it’s given me of learning to push through things that I find me using in other aspects of my life. Also like being outdoors in all weathers as blows the cobwebs away and I feel more connected to the seasons which sounds a bit like hippy crap but I find that very grounding and was reading something about what was described as ‘nature disconnect’ discussed in Horticultural Therapy literature where they were talking about the changes in our lives in the last 100 years and how that is like a minute in evolutionary terms which I thought was interesting and made me think about our bodies, lifestyles and modern life.

Thank you all so much for sharing. There is so much to think about. Pp I don't suppose you could link the previous thread that set you on track?

No Post it's not hippy crap at all. Too many of us live either in our cars or in front of a screen. that certainly doesn't help us lose weight!

Post

What was the biggest shock with the people around you? Long time ago I experienced that to.

Too

“you've worked so hard and earnt it!” I think this is the crux of so many unhealthy eating habits. Food is a reward and a punishment. Eating salad for when you’ve been naughty, eating cake as a reward.

When we treat food like that, we can never be healthy.

I know I have zero will power and can be very self destructive. I have therefore spent a lot my life avoiding things that one could become addicted to. Never smoked, never done drugs, gave up on alcohol about 15 years ago.

But I can't avoid food. Hence I am fat.

I my experience the people who are effortlessly slim have brains that say they are full (make them feel satiated) before they have precisely matched their energy expenditure.

People who find it impossible to loose weight seem to only feel satiated when they have eaten more than the energy they have expended.

Some people have to force themselves to eat extra in order to maintain weight...some people have to seriously deprive themselves (go hungry/feel hungry) in order to maintain weight.

I think that is more relevant than fast/slow metabolism. After all you can have the fastest metabolism on the block, but if your brain is constantly saying you are hungry and you need to eat when you don't, you are going to end up fat.

A very close friend struggled at first. We’re an odd couple as friends and she always used to say I am the brains. It kind of left unspoken that she was the glamorous one and she was always the fit one. She defined herself by her looks and has always said she’s ‘thick’ (she really isn’t) I know she found it quite hard along the way to adjust- tried to give me food when out, would sometimes still pop round with chocolate, started with the ‘you don’t want to lose too much weight ‘ thing.

She’s doing much better now and has adjusted though there was a comment a few months ago that i’d Look anorexic if I lost a stone (I really wouldn’t) I think seeing me take up running and have better cardio fitness stung a bit as first as she insisted she couldn’t run. However she has got to grips with it and decided maybe she could run a bit and did her first km the other day when we were out, has started to think of herself in different termsand I think we’ve found a new equilibrium where we’re both really proud of the other.

The other surprise is that with a couple of my always been fit friends, I now am part of their lives that had always been there but I had nothing to do with. One of my longest standing friends I was at school with 100 miles away. She’s always been really sporty, sports coach etc. Earlier this year we went running together which would have been unthinkable. And I somtimes go to Parkrun with another friend and we were discussing interval training with her DH the other day which would never have happened.

One friendship did go down the drain though. I went from being the largest in the group it second smallest which is what she was before and she became very confrontational about every small thing. Got a bit much, decided she wasn’t the person I thought she was so after trying for a bit I have taken a step back.

I used to be thin. When I was thin I automatically ate smaller portions, chose salad as a starter and fresh fruit as dessert in restaurants, skipped meals. Took zero willpower. Because the payoff was instant: stay this slim - look good in any clothes you put on, get compliented dozens of times a day, get preferential treatment in shops, taxis etc.

I stayed that way for years and years. Then a change of circumstances in life and severe ill health meant I was bedbound for a long time and got fat, ate lots, got fatter, stayed fatter. I've levelled out at two stone above my natural weigth and three stone above my slimmest ever weight.

Now I'm fat I find it so hard to diet because the pay off is months away. Whereas the instant pay off of nice tasting food is right here. Wish I knew the answer.

I would highly recommend "Why Diets Make us Fat" by Susan Aanodt. It discusses all the scientific reasons why diets don't work, the reason you gain weight after dieting, the hormonal reasons and even genetic factors.

It's really interesting. She's done a TED talk too.

Excellent thread OP, and such wise words from pp's.

I actually feel scared... Scared that I'll be missing out on food. Angry in fact. I eat to excess. I want to FEEL full. To the brim. I feel sorry for the food I shouldn't eat, almost.

And then, I feel cross that I have to miss out on eating the whole plate because I know I've had 'enough'. (I over fill my plate, eat more than my thin DH.)

I eat and then I loath. Not crap, we eat very healthy balanced food. I just eat enough for 2 people and not one (5ft 3") person. My family (the women) are all big, except one. Low carb for 20+ years...

It is terrifying peeling back the many layers of this. I just hate the fact I have to restrict to lose weight. It's maddening! Why can't I just be leaner without all this turmoil.

I know that when I am single I am thin, I wonder if my eating when in a relationship is so I can hide behind it. Like I wont be seen. but now I know my size makes me even more visible. It's a very odd feeling... and very sad.

I've read this thread with interest, three times now. I hope I can find my answer.

I think your size makes you more visible and invisible at the same time gustofwind. You’re more visible as there is physically more of you but some people just see that, not who you actually are. Years ago I worked on a hospital in a clinic and spoke about 45 mins with a patient, was administering a questionnaire. I was big but not as big as I later became. Spoke to one of the participants on the phone a few weeks later and he was talking about the lady he had seen, had been eating an apple as he came in (had been snatching food in absence of lunch break), though the lady must have been trying to lose weight. No comprehension that person on the phone was the same person he had spent 45 mins talking to and the only thing he seemed to remember was the apple and his assumption it was for weight loss. I’ve also noticed that when smaller people notice me more and are subtly more friendly, subtle but there.

With the food on the plate we have smaller ones now as ours were huge and I get on well with Nutracheck and use their portion sizes (small, medium or large depending on how hungry I am ) as a guide. The Virtual Gastric Band app I tried ages ago said food is wasted whether you eat it or not which was something that stuck with me.

Yes Thisis That reward mentality is very much a parent\child thing too. You know mum says " ooh you've done so well at school lets have a cream cake on our way home" That stays with us.

Also being forced to eat vegetables by well meaning parents doesn't help us either. We see broccolii or whatever as a punishment because we forget that our parents were trying to make us healthy. it doesn't generally work!

I don't have time to catch up properly with this thread at the moment but can't wait to read all of your wise words later. It is all really helping. Thank you.

This thread is very interesting thanks for sharing

@dottydotagain... I have had a rubbish day and what you wrote has absolutely turned it around.
I am so glad I inspired you but don't forget you did it for yourself. Bloody marvellous.

I sit on my arse after the kids have gone to bed and watch telly whilst eating copious amount of shit food... I’m good as cold during the day

Aww Redjellybean I'm really glad - life's a pain in the arse at times so it's great we can support each other when we need it - even if we don't know we're giving it!

Hope your week gets better and thank you again for your very wise words and inspiration when I needed it

Today was meant to be day one of the new me. Logging everything on MyFitnessPal, not exceeding etc.

Did really well. Kept to the planned meals. Went swimming!

Went to the shop on the way home and binge ate 4 mince pies and 2/3 of a bag of jelly babies. Now feel sick and won’t sleep well, but the panicky feeling and the intrusive thoughts about eating have gone away, replaced by the old familiar self hate and resolve to do it all differently tomorrow.

I hate this cycle and actually prefer how I feel when I throw it to the wind and just binge every day mindlessly

And I know why I’m doing it. Same reason I am failing to focus at work and spending half the day on mumsnet. Same reason I am spending loads of money online shopping even though I know I’m miles down my overdraft for the first time in years. I’m grieving for my mum and am seeking distraction, any distraction, from the intrusive thoughts about her death and my own guilt. Why does KNOWING that, having that self awareness, do NOTHING to mitigate the power of the compulsions? I feel helpless in the thrall of my own weakness. It’s a horrible horrible feeling.

Have you had grief counselling?

On the list, Jellybean - although the amount I've spent on donuts the past 4 months I could probably have gone private by now...

Work have arranged me 6 "solution based sessions" (second one this morning) so hopefully that can help. Apart from that I'm just trying to build in barriers to stop me - leaving wallet at home so can't but shitty food, setting up website blocker so I can't live on Mumsnet etc. Just need to survive it at this point, but god I wish this wasn't the way I dealt with stress....

I’m so sorry about your Mum Ennirem You’re right, it is a question of getting through it for now and really important that you don’t beat yourself up further about food on top of everything else. You’ve got some strategies in place which is a good idea and hopefully will be able to have some grief counselling in not too distant future.

I know it didn’t go as you had planned yesterday but there are some definite ‘wins’ from the day - 3 well balanced meals and a swim, all of which great for health and health is the name of the game. We talk a fair bit on the 100lb thread about deprivation and the fuck it button going off. A fair few of us in the past have had (and continue to though generally more controlled now) with binge eating and have found that too much deprivation tends to trigger the fuck it button so things are built in to try and minimise the feelings of deprivation and stop the fuck it button from going off.

I know you probably woke this morning and felt shit about yesterday but it’s gone now and despite everything you’re dealing with you did some very positive things during the day and it’s important to remember that. If you can maintain your weight for now then that’s huge progress as that’s the difficult and any changes you can make, however small help towards that. My allotment neighbour used to ask how you eat an elephant, answer being not in one go and that definitely applies to weight loss. It’s a process and a question for most of us of changing our mindset and behaviour, both of which take time and practice. Each positive choice reinforces this, any negative do not cancel them out.

Some people are able to start doing this and just hit it and do it. Bit like a car journey, straight down the motorway A to B. But I think they’re the rare ones. Most of us use the back lanes and the route is much more twisty . And sometimes you end up getting lost, go through Eurotunnel, off the UK map completely for a bit but that’s ok as you get back eventually and can pick up where you left off. KOKO is the name if the game (Keep on keeping on). Small changes really add up over time. 100 cals a day (around a slice of bread) less is around a pound a month less. Easy to think ‘just a pound’ but time passes whatever you do and just a pound a month is nearly a stone . Pick that up and it’s actually bloody heavy .