To think that losing weight shouldn't be this hard?

[whoknowsmeinreallife]

I just can't stick at being healthy. I will do a few weeks and then have a bad day and then just think 'fuck it one more day' and so it spirals out of control. I am about two and a half stone overweight for my height, and am so uncomfortable in all my clothes and in myself. However I just can't muster the willpower to stop eating! Please help! Any advice gratefully received.

Get the 8 Week Blood Sugar Diet or Fast800 book. If you follow the eating plans properly, you should lose a lot of weight in a few weeks and that'll spur you on.

Have you lost any weight?

I could have written your post. :(

Im the same OP, I can't even last for a few days. I am a very greedy person and if there is food there I will eat it. I'm not actually over weight (apparently) but I feel uncomfortable in my clothes. I've been considering the 5:2 diet. But just don't think I have the will power.

I think you have to hit rock bottom to be honest. Last summer I was so unhappy. After a few months of dreaming about being fitter and healthier, I finally joined the gym and sorted my diet. It helps that DH is doing it too. Do you have a friend or partner to do it with? It pushes you to try harder because you are accountable to someone and don't want to be the one not losing weight.

Slimming club with a weekly weigh in. It works for me.

@AntiHop @Drogosnextwife it's so hard isn't it. I think with me it's partly comfort eating and a lack of confidence in myself. I know that when I start and see some results it will spur me on.

Both me and DH are so greedy. We are as bad as each other. If one of us falls off the wagon the other happily follows. It's starting to get serious now, he's really overweight too and we are both so unhappy.

Thank you everyone for the ideas and messages of support so far xx

What ever diet you're doing, look at it like this:

If you're doing it most of the time, then you'll get there. 80% don't they say? So:
8 days out of 10.
8 hours out of 10. ect.

Be gentle on yourself.

Think of the long term. Don't punish yourself for slip ups, just get up the next day and try and make that one a good one. Or just a better one.

I'm going to look mad here, but here's the way i think about it when i'm in the zone and want to plough on: i think of weight gain or weight loss like a slow heavy train. It takes a while to slow down, stop, and slowly start to go back the other way. Nothing you do today will make any impact straight away. That goes for putting it on or getting it off. When you've done a couple of good days you've slowed that weight gain train down. If you can make it to a week you've probably stopped it - push on and it'll start back the way it came and you're finally losing.

When i think of it like this it helps me see my hard work is not worth the taste of a bit of chocolate, or a pile of chips.

But if i do slip up it's not ruined everything - carry on next day.

5:2 works for me because I can spin it around to say, "I'll have that tomorrow" (and that's about the extent of my willpower!). The main thing is finding an approach that suits you/identifying your triggers for overeating.

My dp is terrible, he's always bringing in cakes and sweets it's hard when it's right under your nose.

Read Brain over binge by Kathryn Hansen. You can diet til the cows come home but if you don’t change your habits and challenge the bingeing (which I assume from your posts is the problem?) you’ll never really address the underlying reason you’re overweight.

I understand OP it’s really really hard. No advice I’m afraid as I am struggling myself at the moment

Maybe, it is possible, that you're trying to restrict yourself so much that it's too easy to give into temptation.

You need to think long term. You need to make manageable and sustainable changes and make food choices that are mostly healthy but that you can live with. Download myfitnesspal and give that a whirl.

Have you considered surgical options?

I understand the yo-yo-ing on various diets. I’ve tried every weight loss drug and subsisted off the shakes for months at a time. They all worked and I was miserable the entire time. I find I had to starve myself or exercise obsessively to be at a certain weight.

At some point you need to accept that it is a medical condition, that it’s impacting on your health and to book yourself a consult with a surgeon.

The main thing is finding an approach that suits you

Exactly this.

The 'fat' photo on the fridge.
Brushing your teeth or drinking a big glass of water before allowing yourself to eat what you're not meant to be eating.
Buying something to work towards wearing.
Writing down everything you eat.

All these are used by some people. None of them help me at all mind you! I just need to hit rock bottom as described by pp and then do the 'most of the time will get you there and don't spoil your hard work' mindset. If i can get through the first month and i feel a bit slimmer it'll spur me on.

Can I recommend Eating Less by Gillian Riley? Great read

It’s sounds a bit like anerexic thinking, but for me I do have to equate being a bit hungry with the same pleasure as I did scoffing a pasty.

The Blood Sugar Diet was amazing. Stayed thin for two years and it came of my middle. Starting eating sugar again and weight is creeping on and I need to do it again. Only problem is, as ai know it’s so quick I keep putting it off.

I hear you, sista! I'm about five stone overweight now, and it's much, much worse than 'uncomfortable'. But I still can't do it. Situation not helped by my gluten-free, IBS, allergy and asthma issues; everything 'healthy' - fruit and grains, plus a raft of random stuff like sulphites - is off the menu or the repercussions are days of feeling very poorly indeed.

What can we do to just say to ourselves 'this is rock bottom, something needs to change' and actually DO IT? Wish I knew.

The best way for me to start is to just stop buying the junk in the first place. Try to plan meals in advance and go to the supermarket just for those ingredients, plus fruit for snacking, or cucumber and hummus or whatever healthy options you prefer. If it’s not in the house, it’ll make you think twice.

And make dinner the last food you eat before bedtime, let your stomach settle rather than sitting eating extras like chocolate all evening on top. At first you will feel hungry, but it stops after a few days.

Intermittent fasting has worked for me, I usually do 16:8 so eat for 8 hours a day, for example skip breakfast, lunch at 1pm and tea around 7. No snacks and plenty of tea/coffee/water outside of eating window. I try to do at least one day a week where I do a 24 hour fast. Tried lots of diets in the past and never been able to stick to any of them for more than a few months. I still eat whatever I want including pasta and cheese everyday, meals out at weekends and I drink once or twice a week. Have lost a stone and a half in around 10 months and I didn’t have a huge amount to lose.

newuser no decent surgeon would even consider surgical/bariatric intervention for a person 2.5st overweight. It really is a last resort for those who are morbidly obese or BMI 40 or above (35 with comorbidities).

laiste I like that train analogy. I'll make a mental note of that.

Op, I lost 3st doing the no-s diet. You get to relax at the weekends and get back on it on a Monday. So you only ever have to wait a few days to eat whatever it is you are craving (if the craving even lasts that long).

So I reckon official planned days off could maybe help you?

All diets work, but the only one that will work for you is the one you can see yourself doing for weeks.

Read up about various approaches and see what you like the sound of, then give it a try.

My bit of advice is that if you can, try and find a plan that teaches you how to change what you eat for the long term. In my opinion, there is no point using shakes or other meal substitutes, or cutting out a whole food group because no one can eat like that for the rest of their lives, and you're just setting yourself up to fall off the wagon. If you can find a plan that helps you fit in a bit of your favourite foods every so often, it's easier to stick with it.

I'm with you OP. It's so hard. I am so uncomfortable in my body, I think about being fat all the time, think about how I need to change... but somehow still just ate a packet of biscuits. Literally none of my clothes fit right, I feel grotesque... so why can't I JUST STOP EATING SO MUCH. I try not to hate myself for my lack of willpower, because self-flagellating just has me reaching for more comfort food, but oh my God when I look at myself the way others must see me I'm so humiliated.