To feel disgusted with myself

[justatealot]

Name change as i'm so ashamed

i'm overweight by a lot, and i've decided that this year i will finally get in shape.
It's been a day into the new year and i've already binged at least 2000 calories with chocolate and crisps and sweets
I feel so pathetic.
Please help

Planning, planning and more planning is what is needed to succeed

planning over the weekend what you are going to eat over the next 5 days (positive attitude by planning what you are going to eat and not thinking about what your can't have`)

then shopping for only the food you can eat, go to slimming word online and use there recipes or pinch of nom - then the whole family can eat these same meals

keep plenty of vegetable snacks in - chopped carrots, apples, celery, and learn how to make a chickpea dip without tahini, then you have some very low snacks to be reaching for when you need them. Also picked cucumbers and gherkins if you like them.

low calorie hot choclate is a life saver fro that sweet treat about 8.30pm

walking kills time rather than eating - so make a good swap and go for a 10 minute walk in one direction

forge healthy habits - its all about change and not giving up things

You still have another 364 days left this year. You have plenty of time to make the change you want this year. Don’t worry about today. Tomorrow is another fresh start. Good luck

@Whatsissname

To be honest I've always thought 1st Jan is a rubbish time to start trying to eat better as there is always so much left to eat up! I just start trying to buy better from new year - when all the chocolate and biscuits and cheese have gone then temptation has gone too :) Good luck and even tiny positive steps are good ones!

Completely agree with this - much easier to start from your next shop so you're not surrounded by tempting crap.

Every tiny positive choice you make is an improvement. Any movement is better than sitting still.

@saltinesandcoffeecups

Congrats OP, you’ve failed at an unrealistic attempt to lose weight. Now that this is out of the way you can get a plan for your success.

I am not an expert, but here are the things that helped me lose weight and keep it off now for more than a year now.

1. Make a food diary, nothing fancy, just a ratty old notebook or collection of loose papers will do. In fact don’t buy or use anything special for this.
2. Don’t change any habits, don’t give up any food, don’t try to do anything different.
3. Write down everything you eat and drink. Date, time, what was consumed, and your approximation of quantity or amount.
4. Do this for a week, start tomorrow when it’s not a holiday.

After a week...

1. Start your new week’s log. This time add measurements... weigh what you consume. Don’t change your habits. Just add the measurements.
2. At the end of the week do two things ...

A. Compare the first week to the second week. How accurate were your assumptions on the serving sizes after you measured them? Probably not that accurate if you’re like me. Did you pick up on some things that you overlooked from logging the first week? The spoon of sugar in your tea? That bite of food you had when your friend told you to try this fab dish? Great!

B. Have you noticed any patterns or habits? Maybe it’s the days you don’t eat breakfast, you have a ridiculously large lunch because you are starving? You are eating or drinking something out of habit- bag of crisps while watching tv before bed?

Week 3...
Sign up for MFP choose sedentary activity level and choose the absolute lowest rat of weight loss. Weigh and measure yourself and take a photo Trust me, you will want this later.

This time do your logging here, now is the scary part, you’re going to start seeing the calories. But now you are an old hand at logging, you’re being honest with yourself and you’ve gotten past the idea of a miracle weight loss idea.

Week 4... this is the fun part, this week you get to figure out what the easy things are. There will be something in your food choices that you can easily change or eliminate without any effort at all. Mine... I started using flavored soda water with my gin instead of tonic. Dead simple, tasted better, an eliminated 100 calories without missing a thing. I found other simple substitutions that meant absolutely nothing to me.

For this week you are going to reach your goal for the week, you’ll have good days and bad days, but you are concerned about the end of the week results, and you are using your daily goals as a tool to get you that weekly goal.

Week 5 and beyond... how are you doing? Getting the hang of this now? Hopefully you’ve noticed that you can still eat anything you want, you can have treats, you can have good days and bad, and still meet your goals. Now if you haven’t weighed yourself you might want to start doing this weekly. You’re going to have good days and bad days with this too... at some point your weight will go up ... do not beat yourself up about this... your weight will fluctuate from week to week...you’ll get stuck at a weight for weeks, you’ll have a week where it goes up, you’ll have some weeks where it goes down. How is it looking from month to month?

Now that you’ve tackled some of the easier things, maybe now you can try some of the harder things... emotional eating, habit eating, hormonal eating. Don’t cold turkey eliminate... manage them. Need chocolate, focus on quality vs. quantity... get one or two pieces of decadent chocolate and make a big deal about enjoying them. Sit down, put them on a plate, relax, enjoy them. Same with habit eating... do you zone out with a snack while scrolling on your phone? Put the phone down and enjoy the snack... put your head into it. Comfort eating? Do it! Just focus on it and log it. We comfort eat for a reason, it’s ok, it’s not the food itself, it’s usually the quantity.

At this point, you’re hopefully past the scary point between novelty and habit. Do you feel like you can do a little more? Accelerate your goal loss for awhile, add in some exercise, find non food ways to treat yourself.

Have you noticed that this is a long drawn out process? It is, there’s no hurry to lose weight, you don’t need to do it fast, nobody gets extra points for quick weight loss. Seriously the people who have had the most and sustained loss have figured this out. That is the biggest and most boring secret out there.... forget fads, forget quick, don’t listen to anyone else (yes I caught the irony of this statement) figure out what works for you and keep at it even after you stumble.

This is fantastic advice.

"and learn how to make a chickpea dip without tahini"

^^ This. Also easy to make a fab hummus substitute with lentils if you don't fancy chickpeas or can't get hold of them easily. Chop and cook down an onion til its soft, add a cup of red lentils and two cups of chicken or veg stock. Cook for 15 minutes then chuck in a couple of cloves of garlic and blend the lot. You can add a little lemon juice, olive oil, chilli or black pepper to taste.

I think hardcore restrictive eating works pretty well actually. The low carb 800 calorie one is bloody amazing.
Because so many diets are about “food” it ends up being all you think about. What can I have, what can’t I have, when can I eat this or that. Eating the unlimited foods on a diet just makes you realise you didn’t really want 20 cucumber sticks and then you end up eating Pringles.

It’s a breath of fresh air when the advice is actually just stop eating.

Three meals, no snacks. Enough to keep you going, healthy food full of nutrients and no sugar or carbs.

I did it properly for maybe six weeks and looked and felt amazing. Then I didn’t count the calories but stuck to the no carbs. Inches stayed off. I pigged out during lockdown because I didn’t need the self control, But I’m back on it for 2021 and aim to be back into my 10-12 clothes by half term.

I lived on quark, herbs and sriracha dip first few weeks😁

Be kind to yourself. It's a process - tiny changes will soon add up.

Eating is the secondary problem. Being disgusted with yourself is the main issue, because it is destructive and will destroy your efforts. If you're very overweight and really don't want to be, I imagine this cycle has been going on for some time.

If you can work out where the self loathing is coming from, it will be much easier to deal with the over eating.

Everyday is a new day. Stop beating yourself up about it. You can try again tomorrow or better yet..for the rest of the day eat healthily and have loads of water.
Maybe do cardio if at all possible. If not don't worry and start fresh tmrw

@crapcrap

Have a look at Courtney black on Instagram. There's also a Facebook group which is really good. She has an app and honestly, people's transformations are insane. She is a really positive young girl from Essex who started with an eating disorder and has transformed her life and many many others. It's inspiring watching all these people change their lives and mindset. Just be gentle with yourself, don't beat yourself up. Good luck x

I second this. Courtney Black is brilliant- so motivating & enthusiastic. The workouts are hard so start steady, but it does work. Her app is cheap too (compared to gym membership) and has some delicious easy recipes. Good luck, just take small steps x

The worst thing you can do is say “I’ll start the diet in the new year” or “I’ll start again on Monday”, or tomorrow, or whatever. Start from RIGHT NOW. So say, “OK, I’ve eaten crap so far so I’m going to have a salad for dinner and go to bed early”. And when you go wrong again, which in all likelihood you will, just do exactly the same thing.

Whatever you do don’t think oh well I’ve ruined today so I may as well stuff myself senseless and start again on X date.

Lifelong binge eater here, speaking from the vantage point of 50 years of yo-yo dieting - and after successful weight loss during the pandemic, almost in the healthy weight range for my height and determined to stay here. A few observations:

1. Try not to tell yourself you're disgusting. You're not - there's no morally good or bad foods. To get yourself into a place where you can lose weight safely you need to see it as something positive you're doing for yourself, not a punishment for being bad.
2. At first, set tiny, achievable targets, and remove the possibility of failure. Tomorrow, see how long you can go without snacking on empty calorie foods. Manage to last until 11am? Great. The next day, see if you can go half an hour longer.
3. Make sure you eat healthy, balanced meals. Don't skip them as a punishment because you've already eaten 2,000 empty calories. Your body needs the nutrients.

Once you've established this, you can then move to some kind of calorie-controlled weight loss plan. Don't be afraid to experiment - there are lots of plans out there, and different ones work for different people. Have a look at the Mumsnet diet & weight loss threads, and jump in on one you like the sound of. You'll find loads of support and advice from people who've been there before you, and no judgement.

The year is 12 months long. Please spend the first month working purely on your self worth. Treat yourself with love and respect, and remember no matter what you look like you are enough!

What foods do you actually like? I don't mean the ones you have because they're there, but the ones you actually enjoy the taste, texture and how they make you feel both during and afterwards?

I realised that I knew I 'needed' something, but I couldn't articulate what it was, but eating what was in front of me stopped me having to think about my feelings or what it really was that I wanted.

Now I can feel out of sorts, tired, hungry or bloated/hormonal, think 'what do I need?' and the majority of the time, I will be able to say something that's relatively healthy/nutritious and can be made for the next meal. Sometimes it's more that I don't actually want anything, it's that I need to move around, to do something more interesting, to get a moment's peace and quiet. And sometimes it's that I need a packet of Pom Bears for the salt (low blood pressure/POTs) and the nice, light crispiness.

I think binges are triggered by an unsatisfied need. The initial taste helps, but then eating it all doesn't resolve that need, so you look for something else, and then something else, and then that doesn't work, you feel more anxious because it's not working, so you then look for something to soothe the anxiety, and so on, until you're feeling nauseous, your blood sugar level is going apeshit and on top of your original, still unmet need, you've now got a need to not feel so unwell from eating to quell a hunger that wasn't in your stomach in the first place.

The odds are that if you could think about it, it's not the food. It's the feeling you're chasing from it.

If that's the case, well, you live and learn. Next time you feel like that, maybe you'll be able to say 'I want the feeling of curling up with a mug of soup and then having a nap with a purring cat', 'I want to go outside and feel fresh air on my face and keep moving rather than be stuck in here' or 'I want a lovely bowl of strawberries' instead of trying to swallow your emotions and end up feeling even worse afterwards than you did beforehand.

@Fr0thandBubble

The worst thing you can do is say “I’ll start the diet in the new year” or “I’ll start again on Monday”, or tomorrow, or whatever. Start from RIGHT NOW. So say, “OK, I’ve eaten crap so far so I’m going to have a salad for dinner and go to bed early”. And when you go wrong again, which in all likelihood you will, just do exactly the same thing.

Whatever you do don’t think oh well I’ve ruined today so I may as well stuff myself senseless and start again on X date.

I second this! I started weekend. Mid day if I remember correctly.

It’s a rubbish day to start you want to see the takeaway I just demolished 😂😂

My advice to you as someone who lost a couple of stone last year is start small don’t take on to much to soon as you will likely fail ! It needs to be a steady change in what you eat / excersize etc IMO rather than like a crash diet

Also bear in mind that your weight doesn't give a flying fandoodle what you eat on one day. Days are a bit of an irrelevance. Your weight is based on averages, so if you spread those 2000 calories (or the calories you didn't need from the 2000) over the next month, you can actually calculate your way out of this misdemeanour over a short period of time.

Food companies hire psychologists to make their food irresistible. Big food companies have created global obesity in a generation. You are up against an enormous challenge.
Understand this and try to make the shift to as much minimally processed food as possible. It will help you lose weight and lose profit for the big food companies. Try to increase your good fats and protein and add fermented foods like Kerfir, sourdough, natural Yogurt. Lots of onion and garlic too.
Men have made millions targeting women and making them feel chocolate is the answer, it's manipulative and harmful and you deserve better x

I've got alot of Christmas chocolate to get through before I can think about healthy eating. I'm not giving it away, I'm not throwing it away, I'm eating it.

Can you start by adding things into your life before you take away things (iyswim).

Add in healthy foods (don’t stop eating anything at the moment)
Add in a rule you’ll get 8 hours sleep
Add in some exercise (nothing too intense)
Add in plenty of water
Add in a treat once a month (a new nail polish, a book etc).
Add in social interaction while exercising

Too many people try to make changes by deprivation first. Also watch the catastrophic thinking; I’ve eaten 2000 calories, I’m so weak, I can’t do this...the reality is today’s 2000 calories alone aren’t going to make too much difference and the road to change isn’t straight. You can do this but give yourself a break and make your changes part of a long game and more pleasure than punishment. Keep the goals small and near future; like trying to lose a kilo by the end of January and don’t look too far beyond that for now.

Give yourself a break.
New Years day is meant to be a celebration. I am very much like yourself and I have decided on self care rather than another failed diet. We have all had a tough year and none of us are perfect but we deserve some self love.
There is a book called Self Care for Witches on Amazon and it has some really caring and healthy information but mentally and physically. The title may put you off but it has helped me. I have a daily notebook that I will start tomorrow just to note how well I have treated myself by eating healthy and taking care of myself.
Today has been a lazy day but I will enjoy tomorrow eating healthier and not being under pressure from the Day One rule.
Please be kind to yourself, and take the care that you deserve.

@ancientgran

I've got alot of Christmas chocolate to get through before I can think about healthy eating. I'm not giving it away, I'm not throwing it away, I'm eating it.

Me too. I finished a 750g Toblerone in 3 days, along with 12 mince pies. You're not alone OP. You don't have to beat yourself up. In fact, if everyone who had overconsumed over the past couple of weeks was beating themselves up, we'd all be too bruised to go back to work on Monday!

I've been there. And it'd be easy to say just don't have chocolate sweets and crisps in the house (that does help), but in our house we still have tons of junk left over from Christmas. I've started a diet as well today and did fine until dinner but ended up having more than a few Cadbury's Heroes and the end of a tin of Pringles afterwards. I'm fasting until lunch time again tomorrow so I'm hoping that helps and this year instead of sabotaging my diet I'm getting straight back on the wagon. It'll definitely be easier when all the chocolate is gone out of the house though!

@Eckhart I think it will be February before I've cleared the chocolate but January is a miserable enough month so I'm happy to wait another month before I take myself in hand. The way things are I can live in pyjamas for the next few weeks so there isn't any rush.