If you have given up dieting, what happened?

[3LittleMonkeyz]

I'm sick of the yo-yo dieting cycle. I want to trust that my weight will level out and that I won't gain like crazy if I just eat when I'm hungry. Have any of you given up dieting? What happened? Did you lose, gain or maintain? Was it liberating to not be counting carbs/syns/points/calories?

Thanks

Echo’ing everyone else but I put the weight back on. I’d love to be in a place where I can forget dieting but every time I do it just creeps back on. I am now back to being 4.5 stone oversight again having lost nearly 3 stone by low ish carbing and giving up obvious sugar. I find it all very depressing especially as I was slim, size 10 could eat anything pre 3 children but I honestly don’t think I will ever be able to go back to not watching what I eat again if I want to be healthy

The only way I can lose weight isn't cutting all refined carbs. But it's just not something I can sustain and then the weight piles back on. I hate it.

I don't diet and have never been on one and I also don't have scales in the house, I only ever know my weight if I'm weighed at the doctors. I cut back when clothes feel tight and I've never really eaten breakfast.... which is now called Intermittent Fasting (although to me I just didn't eat when I wasn't hungry). I'm naturally slim but when I was little my mum never spoke about her weight or my weight which means I've never over analysed how much I weigh.

I'm not sure if the way I eat can be easily replicated as it is a mindset that I've been brought up with. I know I'm very lucky.

I was a WW gold member.
I lost several stones, but it wasn't a hardship to get there.

I'd still say that dieting is healthier than what I do now - not dieting.

I need the 'control' of calorie counting/portion control.
Yes, it isn't healthy to be fixated by weight, but at 46 I now have high BP/heart rate, with a BMI of nearly 30 and this whole pandemic has reminded me that this is not healthy, so I'd rather be in the dieting cycle than this.

However, I still lack motivation.

@Sameold2020

That's what I try to do and put the emphasis on hydration, nutrition and exercise for fun. I do as much exercise as I can and involve my kids in that, but that has zero effect on the scale for me it just makes me happier (and hungrier!)
But my eldest is very smart and so I'll be putting protein cheese on something and she'll say "oh, that's high in protein and really low in fat so that much better than normal cheese." Or we'll have red or green top milk and she'll say "well that's good because it's lower fat." Or we'll have diet soft drinks "that's got zero sugar so that's better for you isn't it." Etc

It is very difficult to change a dieting mindset. I am 52 and have struggled with my weight my entre life. At 10, the GP weighed me (I remember I was 5ft tall and 9 stone) and I ended up at some kind of fat kids outpatients at the local hospital. I managed to get down to about 8 stone, by which time I had grown a couple of inches and was slim. But when I went to University, I put loads of weight on. I didn't drink, but ate whatever I fancied and then some! I have yoyoed as an adult between 9 stone and 20 stone.
15 years ago, i was referred by my GP to binge eating disorder group and it was brilliant. They encouraged the 'eat when hungry, don't diet, listen to your body' etc but because I was in my 30s by then , and entrenched in a lifetime of dieting behaviour, I actually put a lot of weight on.
Over the years, i have joined countless SW/WW groups and I did lose 7 stone with SW some years back, but regained it all.
Last year I weighed 18.5 stone and was really struggling so instead of rejoining a diet club, I just decided to eat what I thought a slim person would eat. I started my diet on Ash Wednesday so that when work colleagues asked why I wasn't eating choc and crisps etc or DH asked why I didn't want him to cook with cream/cheese or whatever, I could say I had given it up for Lent.
I lost 8 stone BUT I constantly think about my next meal. I do allow myself treats but lie in bed at night fantasising about my favourite sandwich etc
I have a healthy BMI now and look perfectly normal. People in cars aren't driving past, beeping their horns and shouting insults at me anymore but I am still a slave to my unhelathy attitude towards eating and have come to accept that isn't goingto change.

I've never directed, but I am.aware of what I eat. During lockdown I've exercised daily- kettle bells, cycling, running- but I'm still fatter than I was. This is because I now. Have 2 or 3 clubs after lunch every day and probably a cake after tea. Then drink.from thurs night. That's it. It's purely sugar that does it to me. Don't do takeaways, chips once a week. Portion control.is an.issue cos dh cooks is though we're both down t'pit for 12 hours a day.

How active are you? I am a naturally very restless person and so I find it easier to lose weight than some of my friends (I recognise that I am very lucky - no thyroid issues just probably slight ADHD, as I can't concentrate unless I have been active - in terms of my natural pace).

Rather than trying to plan your meals religiously (which actually makes me feel I should eat "in case" because I am almost eating in anticipation of being starving later and makes me hungrier because I then just think about food all the time), could you reduce it to:

• no snacking between meals unless truly feeling actually empty, not just maybe peckish - then small piece of fruit etc
• home cooked meals with a focus on lots of colour and quality protein, but things that you actually like to eat. Food is fuel not punishment.
• no eating after dinner
• very little processed food/sugary "treat" food, save for one or two items a week that you choose on days on which you have been physically active and where you really enjoy one portion mindfully
• keeping your fluids up to ensure you can distinguish between thirst and hunger

So basically just trying to eat mindfully - not good or bad food but making healthy choices most of the time, eating for hunger and really taking time to enjoy more "treat" foods. Plus more physical activity.

Then see how it goes?

To give you another insight. My mum was always on a diet of some description. I remember longing to go to the meetings with her when I was a child. I was slim and I remember lots of comments about what a lovely figure I had. With my mum she would diet seriously, lose weight, put it back on and then diet again.
I remember our meals being completely dependent on what diet she was doing but I also remember the times she wasn’t on a diet and binging on buttery toast.
My relationship with food is fucked.
I can’t escape the reward/eat - punish/starve mentality. Even though I’m not in the overweight category I’m unhappy with my weight and I’m always looking to loose half a stone.
I have this obscured view of slim=successful and large=failure.

With hindsight I wish she had kept her dieting away from me. I wish she hadn’t shared this cycle with me.

FWIW she was on a diet her whole adult life and when she died she was still overweight.

We don't do low fat or diet stuff either. Isn't is better to do the proper version? Can't remember why.

If I need to lose weight, like now, I'll start small:1 pitta bread instead of 2; few less chips; no lunch cake; have my first drink a bit later. Takes time, but more sustainable.

I have come to the conclusion that 'eating like a normal person' doesn't exist. I always compared myself to an imaginary person who doesn't have to worry, can eat cake one day and not think of it the next, eats what they want but their metabolism is faster than mine etc.

Giving up that idea has been the only one to help me and to concentrate on finding out how I need to eat and do that forever.

Mistaking hunger for thirst is a potential pitfall. If you can eliminate thirst before you put it down to hunger you'll be amazed at how little you actually 'need' to eat . But I'm still not convinced that given the amount of interest others take in what and when people eat will allow you to use this as a method .

Unless you have no outside influencers. I upped my exercise, reduced my portions and drank more squash and water and the weight cane off and then levelled off .

OP, sounds like you are teaching DC healthy ways.

I grew up watching my mother eating 'Limits' biscuits and Ryvita, constantly weighing herself, shaking her head that she was too heavy at 9st.

I asked to go to WW with her when I was 16. I had just becomw veggie and back then the diet didn't really cater for vegetarians, so I'd go to weigh ins having followed my own diet of 6 slices of 'Nimble' bread a day. My mother encouraged this - I can't imagine endorsing that with my own DC.

Even now when we go out she'll insist on sharing a teacake "ooh I couldn't possibly eat a whole one" or spend a meal commenting on how she "shouldn't" how "the diet starts Monday" and I feel guilty eating normally. I do anything I can to avoid giving her the excuse to talk about the calories. She is very thin now, too thin and she definitely has an eating disorder.

As do I! I eat too much

Conversely, my husband can eat what he wants. Stick thin, a fast metabolism. If we go on an all.inclusive I put half a stone on a week. He stays the same whatever he does/eats.

Also definitely no fizzy diet drinks and food etc. That just reinforces the diet idea - try to move away from needing things like fizzy drinks on a regular enough basis to need the diet versions, if you see what I mean. There are very good health reasons not to drink fizzy drinks that don't relate to weight - they are terrible for your bones. And sweeteners are not great for your metabolism in terms of diet food etc. And low fat cheese etc has more protein/less fat, but also less fat soluble vitamins or lower absorption of them - studies in Scandinavia have shown that eating higher fat dairy is actually correlated with being slimmer.

Breaking the "reward" "famine" cycle is very important.

I don't think I'll ever be able to eat normally.I tend to binge if left to my own devices so the only way I can control it is by calorie counting.Its shit.

I put on 2.5 stone . I'm now obese. I'm back on a diet.

@PrincessHoneysuckle I'm exactly the same.

I’ve got fat. Very very fat.
Sigh.

@Nottherealslimshady is crap isnt it

I'm a big believer that you can diet yourself fat. Ive been on two diets in my life and each time, around a year later i have been heavier than my pre-diet weight but eating less than my pre-diet diet! There is some evidence that someone who was 11 stone and diets down to 9 stone will always have to eat less calories to stay at 9 stone than someone who was always 9 stone. Im just not prepared to eat that little forever although other people are and thats great for them. i havent gained any weight at all after the initial post diet weight gain. It platued. I am heavier than i would like to be but i eat a healthy diet and do moderate exercise.

Mistaking hunger for thirst is a potential pitfall

True, but unfortunately hunger is only one of many reasons why people eat.

@PrincessHoneysuckle yep! I'm always obsessed with food either way. I just want to eat and eat. As a kid I'd eat my whole advent calendar in the first day then start on my sisters!

After over a decade of yo/yo dieting and unhealthy eating patterns culminating in a severe eating disorder, I had to completely stop trying to restrict my food intake in order to recover.

I now don't diet, and I eat what I want, and I've maintained the same weight for the last year. I'm a size 10-12 - by no means as slim as I would like to be, but I haven't continued to gain weight either.

For me the biggest turning point was that by allowing myself to have whatever kind of food I wanted and as much as I wanted, it took away the power that had for me to want to overeat. It's now easy for me to turn down a biscuit if I'm not actually hungry, or have a few crisps but not the whole bag.

But you do have to be aware of your hunger levels and listen to your body for what you actually want, not what you think you want - I would describe it as eating mindfully - not restricting yourself, but being very aware of what you're eating and how hungry you feel and when you've had enough. I read some books too - How to have your cake and your skinny jeans too - is quite a good one.

It is a complete mindset change and it's not easy. And to be honest, I think you have to get rid of the 'diet goal' in order to do it. I had to let go of the idea that I could be a size 8, because although I can, I know now that I can only achieve it with restrictive dieting that isn't healthy or sustainable. It was HARD to give up on that aspiration. But it's incredibly liberating now not to have my headspace taken up all the time with what I am eating or not eating and feeling guilty for every choice I make and worrying about a number on the scales.

I tried a diet once and it was miserable. I woke up thinking of food and went to bed thinking of food. Not necessarily hungry, but constantly thinking about it - meal planning, whether to save my one glass of wine for Friday or Saturday etc. I soon realised that this is no way to live your life and imo too many women spend their entire lives in this torment.
Now? I keep busy and don't think about food that much. I'm a couple of stone overweight but couldn't give a flying fuck. I'm a lot happier.

And when I say that I'm overweight that's by official measures. I don't know what exactly I'm overweight for. I can't think of a single thing that I would like to do that I can't. I don't particularly want to run marathons or climb sheer rock faces.