To ask for help with my awful diet?

[Wolfie11]

My diet is appalling. It always has been, I was raised on ‘beige’ food and general crap and it has continued into adulthood. I’m now at the point where I physically gag when trying to eat fruit and veg. It’s ridiculous and pathetic but I don’t know where to start to change it. I’m tired all the time, my skin looks like shit, my hair looks like shit, I’m verging on underweight, I’m starting to look older than my years, despite good hygiene my breath is staring to smell - I’m just really unhappy and feel horrible physically and mentally.

My diet consists of carbs, dairy, some meat and sugar. No fruit or veg whatsoever. I definitely don’t drink 2 litres of water a day. Most days I will have fizzy juice although I have tried to cut back on this. Today’s food was a Cadbury’s fudge mid morning, leftover meatballs and pasta in a sauce made with passata/garlic/basil/oregano, chocolate ball corner yoghurt, ripple chocolate bar, 3 slices of cheap supermarket pizza, 3 potato waffles, a custard doughnut plus a litre bottle of peach squash and a glass of milk.

I feel quite vile and sick reading that back. I need to make baby steps towards eating healthier but where the hell do I start? I’m also pretty skinny and would hate to lose weight. I worry that by eating healthier I will end up even skinnier considering what I eat now doesn’t put weight on me. I know if I try to do too much and change too much I’ll just go straight back to the same way I’ve always been, as pathetic as that sounds.

My only saving grace is that I’ve never smoked and only have the odd drink now and then. I think I’d be 6 feet under by now otherwise! Any help/advice/support would help massively.

Is there any vegetable or fruit you could imagine eating? Do you think you want a crisp texture or a soft texture?

Try googling the things adults do to trick their kids into eating veggies. You could blend some carrots and broccoli etc into the sauce for meatballs, things like that.

Quite possibly because I’ve been there and still doing it. OP did explain that she’s at the point of gagging when she eats fruits and vegetables. Your little meal plan and ‘open mind’ bullshit up thread isn’t feasible or helpful. It’s not that easy.

I'd start by looking at the positives - you've cut back on the fizzy drinks, and you eat pasta sauce and pizza so you know you can deal with tomato. Would you consider tomato soup for a lunch?

Can you add in a bit more protein, like scrambled eggs if you like them.
A bit more protein might help you reduce the sugar a bit. You could snack on nuts if you eat them.

Just make small steps, seeing if you could find one other veg that you might tolerate, or buying a chocolate cereal bar with some dried fruit rather than a doughnut say. Upping the water.

Keeping a food diary might help, but rather than feeling bad about yourself, maybe work out why did I eat that then, how much did I enjoy it, and things like that.

Wow that is a lot of sugar! You need to completely stop the chocolate and soft drinks because you will make yourself ill. Swap the sweetened yogurt for plain yogurt. Try to eat some pulses - baked beans are technically vegetables, so are potatoes. Can you manage to eat things that aren’t plain veg such as coleslaw or cauliflower cheese?

If someone gags eating fruit and veg I don't think coleslaw is going to be a goer to be honest..
The OP has food issues that will take a lot to get over and well meaning healthy diet plans are not going to help here. OP if you want to make some changes you will get lots of support but I think people have to be realistic.

I used to be a lot like this, though I did have a few fruit and veg options that I liked. I started mainly with soups and blended up sauces (roasted butternut squash blended with some stock and mixed herbs makes a really nice creamy sauce). After that I moved on to leaving my soups and sauces a bit chunkier so there was some more visible bits of veg. Then I would eat veg that had been cooked really soft and drown it in some kind of sauce because it was easier to eat than veg by itself or had really finely sliced pieces of vegetables in a stir fry and the size also made them easier to eat. I also made some swaps occasionally for things that were close to things I knew I could eat, like I knew I was fine with roast potatoes so I would try sweet potato instead or I would add parsnips to my mash, things like that. Eventually I was able to include a lot more veg but it did take me a while to get there. I absolutely love veg now and eat loads of it with loads of variety (except mushrooms which I’m never going to like). I also gained weight once I started eating healthier. I still don’t eat much fruit other than apples and berries unless the fruit is cooked really well in something, like banana that’s gone mushy in porridge.

First of all op well done on realising that your current diet isn’t ideal. I think the key here is slow and steady. Try adding purred veg to your passata sauce (you won’t get the full benefit of the veg but it’s baby steps). Then slowly start adding a few very finely chopped veg (work out which texture you dislike most, is it slimey/soft/crunchy and avoid these initially. Slowly start to add slightly bigger pieces and tiny bits of other textures. It might be a very slow process, say a year,but it doesn’t matter the changes are for the rest of your life.

Meanwhile swop out refined carbs for things like whole meal pasta, brown rice.

Fizzy drinks for carbonated water with some fruit in it (you don’t need to eat the fruit).

Can you try some home baking for sweet treats rather than chocolate, maybe look for some low sugar recipes?

Just go slowly and look at this as a plan for ever so it’s a marathon not a sprint, every marathon starts with that first step, then the next then the next, just think about putting one foot in front of the other.

Once you’ve progressed in one area look for other small baby steps, believe you will get there. Each morning Set aside 5minutes to think about one slight change you will make that day, think how good you will feel when you make that change, how it will help your body, feel how it will make you feel, if you get to the end of the day and didn’t manage it, don’t fret, draw a line under that day and think what you will do differently the next day to achieve it (if it’s still important to you).

Don’t worry about losing weight, you can still put the same amount of fuel in your body, it’s just better quality fuel that will protect your body much better and make it work better and for longer.

Good luck. You’ve got this.