Why can't I do the one thing that would make my life easier

[cakefortea22]

And lose weight.

It sounds shallow but everyday I struggle with what to wear. And then go around all day looking at myself in mirrors and reflections in windows and hating what I see. It's so hard to dress this body and feel confident in it. I know from experience that when I weighed less everything seemed simpler and I actually liked seeing my reflection and in photos. Now I sit down and have this massive bulge of a belly in front of me.

It's totally my own fault. As Mimi Maguire says - I am a fucking fat fuck. I love eating. I binge eat. I drink wine a couple days of times a week. I have huge portions. I love carbs. I don't know exercise. I know what I need to do to improve things but I just don't want to because I hate exercising and I love food and wine.

I see countless weight loss threads on here with people listing the fruits and veg and fish and grains they eat and I just think it sounds rubbish. Maybe it's because im not an accomplished cook but i genuinely don't know how I could make those foods feel more appealing to me than a pizza or a Chinese.

I'm starting to think it's something psychological because I don't want to be like this but literally week in week out I repeat the same behaviour. Why? Just why?

I lost half a stone in July eating this way.

It’s not a treat if you have it all the time! Think about how you feel after it rather than at the time of eating it. If you eat something healthy it might not feel as good at the time but she’s after you’d feel good! Easier said than done though I know from experience but these are things I try and tell myself!

You don’t need to exercise to lose weight (I read that you’re weight is 90% diet, 10% exercise) but a brisk walk every evening would still make a difference - you DO have time. We all work and have kids!
Regarding the eating, try to eat for health rather than to lose weight. Increase variety, a rainbow of fruit and veg (there’s a rainbow app that helps - if you eat more good stuff, you’ll naturally eat less bad) and really try to think about nourishment.
Finally, money. Takeaways are so expensive. Is there something you want to save for? I love Chinese etc, but always end up saying ‘no, I’ll just cook instead’ because I can’t face spending that much £ (we’re saving for an extension).

That still sounds like a pretty low cal diet. Do you still need to be in a deficit with IF?

To be honest I can take or leave breakfast so this might work for me, providing I can still have a coffee in the morning?

@cakefortea22 it's hard. My dc are 6 and 8 now snd I finally feel like I'm coming out of the fug. I'm a single parent and have barely any child free time that I'm not at work. I too really struggle with exercise at home, although I had started to do it.

I'm focusing on breakfast and lunch,cutting down snacks, and a family dinner together.

Yes you do need to be in a calorie deficit with IF. The point of it is that it's easier. You basically skip a meal - usually breakfast, and then can't snack at night so you are eating two good meals a day and still coming in at only around 1400 cals. But if you troughed steadily throughout the 8 hour window, you'd lose no weight.

Im same as you op.

Ive been honest and admitted to myself - i love and enjoy eating food including carbs, desserts etc, more than i want to be very slim.

It's a simple as that

Fit exercise into your life in small ways, take stairs, not lifts, walk, cycle if poss, keep moving

Sounds like you’re eating for the dopamine hit. One solution would be to find others ways to get this. What do you LOVE doing except eating and how can you do more of it?

You can definitely still have the foods you love but a healthier version of them that believe me doesn’t taste rubbish!

I think calorie counting really really works, it doesn’t restrict the type of food you can eat but the amount. The first couple of weeks you have to REALLY push through the cravings but then they disappear and you just get used to a new way of eating.

My suggestions would be

• Decide how many calories you’re going to eat over a week and stick to it. I suggest weekly as it allows you to still have the pizza and Chinese you love (but restrict how often you have it) and reduce calories on other days to compensate
• Make healthier versions of the food you love. You could literally have Chinese and pizza and dessert and carbs etc every day and lose weight. Healthy food is not just salads etc
• Fill your life with things you love that are not food or food related activities

I don't know, I can't cope with counting calories so I don't.
It is plenty of food and yes you can still have a coffee.
I'm starting again, use zero app to help with timings. It's quite satisfying to say kitchens closed and start fasting on the app. No temptations in the evening cos you tell yourself you're not having anything. I will clean my teeth, that reduces the urge to pick on evening snacks.

I found listening to the Brain over Binge podcasts really helpful. She describes a simple concept and explains that 'all' you have to do is resist the urge to continually eat/overeat/binge. I'm listening to it almost daily to keep it fresh in my mind and it really really helps. Recommend by lots of people on here. As you learn to consistently resist the urges, you rewire your brain and it becomes easier.

As previous posters said - planning simple meals you enjoy and eating the same breakfast everyday, same lunch, helps get into a routine and sets you on autopilot. I also find tracking the same handful of meals on nutracheck really useful - but this time I'm tracking with a much much higher allowance than I ever would have, which takes the pressure away and makes it easy. The weird thing is I'm finding I often come in lower anyhow and psychologically I'm doing well.

It's all a bloody mind game - it's all about the brain - you need to learn about the lower brain, and the higher brain, and the natural urges and survival instincts we have. Brain over binge explores all this. The wonderful thing is that the switch is almost instant, almost like a lightbulb moment. You can change very quickly! Without any therapy and without doing anything crazy.

I started intermittent fasting recently too and have lost 5kg so far so it's encouraging! I don't count calories (I was just thinking to myself yesterday that I would hate logging calories in an app or something!). My DD naps until around 1-1.30 pm so I just drink black tea (I've never drunk tea with milk so it wasn't an adjustment) from when I get up until after her nap then we have lunch. I eat normal meals for lunch and dinner, snack in the afternoon if I fancy it. I'm usually back downstairs from putting the kids to bed around 9pm so just drink a cup of tea after that too. So it's roughly 16/8 (ie 16 hours of fasting, 8 hours eating "window") but is usually more like 18/6.

So it's been a fairly "easy" change to implement so if you're not that fussed about breakfast, it could be good for you too? Black coffee is still fine. I found I also started to think about my food choices too and say no to things that I was eating just because it was there (that cake MIL baked and brought round? I knew it was stodgy and I would regret it afterwards, but I'd still eat it anyway!).

Good luck! It's difficult to make changes when you're not getting enough sleep and don't have much/any time to yourself. Have you got any support IRL? I keep telling myself the little kid stage doesn't last forever and it'll get better!

I typically go between 10 and 11 stone. 11st is when my clothes get too tight so I usually let myself go bit more at 10 and tighten up my diet at 11 so my clothes fit well again.

For me it is about exercising willpower. I frame it as choices:

• do I want to watch tv for an hour or exercise? Which will I feel better for afterwards? Can I combine these activities?
• I wont remember or regret missing out on eating that biscuit/cake tomorrow but next month I will feel sad that my jeans are too tight
• skipping junk for one day makes me feel empowered, day 2 is easier as I dont want to break my streak.

Someone else gave good advice about how losing weight has to be a goal you apply yourself to and to do that you need to put yourself first sometimes.

Now I'm getting older, I'm starting to reframe it less about looks (in all honesty that does matter to me though) but more about health.

I worry about sugar rotting my teeth and spiking my bloods and causing actual diabetes, I worry about my arteries getting fatty and causing serious health problems.

I dont want to be 60 and look and feel 90. I want to be able to retire one day and travel the world and look after my grandkids and frankly I'm in the critical years now when I lay the foundations for that. I don't want to be hobbling to the doctor because I've taken the view that I'm not fat enough to worry about my health whilst my knees have slowly given out.

This isnt a dig at you OP. Or anyone else. But for a long time I had it in the back of my mind that I would lose weight when I was older or had more time but tomorrow never really comes.

You need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. There’s no other way.

IF is one way of achieving that by reducing the window of time in which you eat. All diets do the same. SW encourages you to eat low energy density food (ie food that has a smaller number of calories relative to volume) so you feel full for a smaller number of calories and consume fewer calories overall.

If you do IF but still manage to eat enough calories during the window to maintain weight, you won’t lose.

I know exactly how you feel. For me it was a gradual mindset change that you can’t just click your fingers to achieve - as I started to cut out snacks and move a bit more (which did take some initial motivation) I observed how I felt better, not just about my body but health and energy and money wise.

For me it comes down to “how do I want to make myself feel?” I can choose to make myself feel worse (binge/overeat) or I can choose to make myself feel better. I still had to sit with the discomfort of change and allow myself to feel it.

I know it’s easier said than done though.

Also, I struggled with not finding healthy food appealing at all as well. I’m picky and childish with food and get easily grossed out so prefer plain, salty things.

But for me the thing was not allowing food to be so important to me - for a long time it was my primary source of happiness. Of course eating good food is one of life’s simple pleasures and you deserve to enjoy what you eat, but also it’s good to recognise food is just fuel and sometimes it just has to do the job of nourishing you, it doesn’t always have to be amazing or to be your source of happiness if you know what I mean?

When I used to diet everything still revolved around food for me so I would look forward to my little dinner all day, build it up in my head and inevitably be disappointed and still desperate for something else after.

I hope I explained that properly as it is a subtle difference

You're right. It is an excuse. Everyone who says they don't have time to exercise is fooling themselves. How much time do you spend watching tv....?

Yet another person who's just not willing to accept that in order to maintain a healthy weight, sacrifices have to be made. You can make all the excuses you like, the bottom line is, you need to exercise some willpower and decide what you want more - a body you are proud of or eating and drinking whatever you fancy and living with the consequences.

No one said it was easy. It's bloody hard to keep your figure as you get older. And it gets harder every year. And yeah, it may well be a lifelong struggle for some people but it still comes down to willpower and wanting to be fit and healthy more than having another cake.

I don't agree @Mojoj

The drive that leads us to eat more than we need is primal and subconscious. To alter it requires the kind of discipline that lets people hold their hand in a flame, or the various mortifications religious extremists follow. It's damn hard, and not compatible with a life filled with demands from other people.
I have had some success, but not until my children had left home and various other stresses I had no control over were off the table.

Rebuilding a 'normal' life while maintaining my healthier weight is not straightforward. I'm having to renegotiate relationships, reorganise clubs and hobbies, and generally completely change my life- and the lives of people around me.

It's not just about self discipline. There are things I can do, that you'd struggle with, as well as vice versa.

I'm not a more disciplined, more successful, more controlled person now I'm thinner. I just have fewer other pressures allowing me to focus on myself and my needs for a change. Something a lot of women have little opportunity for.

Sorry but exercising some willpower is akin to holding your hand over a flame...? Bit dramatic, no? We all have stresses throughout life. Some choose to eat their feelings, others prefer to deal with stress in more positive ways. But, as I have said previously, we can make all the excuses we like (and I've read a fair few on this topic) but, medical issues aside, you either practice some willpower or you stay fat and accept your lot.

Meanwhile I'm eating 2.5k calories a day and not getting fat....

(whilst lifting lots of weights)

Op I knew this would be weight related. I feel exactly the same!
However I can cook, I do know how to make delicious salads and so on and I'm still over weight by about 3 stone.

Hand holding.

I understand completely. I am
The same. I can cook and make nice carb free chicken curry with salad. Which I do really like. But I crave wine, crisps, peanuts, mashed potato etc. I could eat and eat, easily.

Taryn Truly is a size 18? Nah, I dint think so. She's so polished and knowledgeable. I can't see that her figure is actually an 18 though.

I am not tired. I don't agree with midge either : "shifted your diet to something healthier your body appreciates it and changes it's messages to you."

Nope. That didn't happen to me.