Can't stop eating

[eyeballpaula56]

I am 12 stone and 5'7 with a BMI of 26ish so technically overweight but not so much that I could get medical assistance.

I have such a greedy, ridiculous attitude around food. I just crave beige, convenience food always. Today I had 2 sausages in a wrap, bread with cheese, loads of crisps, constant picking at crackers and nuts. Had a relatively balanced tea with one veg but only because it was a Gousto meal!

Everyday I promise myself I will change my habits for my health more than aesthetics but when it comes down to it and I'm hungry I just don't want fruit and yogurt or any of that. I want carbs and stodge.

I buy fruit for the dc but never eat it. I sit at night feeling disgusted at what I've eaten but that feeling only comes when I'm full and satisfied from eating junk!

I'm worried about my health but really can't fathom how people eat healthily and nutritiously everyday. I need a massive overhaul and don't know where to begin, doesn't help that I'm a rubbish cook.

Does anyone have any tips?

Meal planning ahead is your friend then.

I also have pcos but I am significantly more overweight than you. BMI of 41 I think, possibly higher.

I am taking WLI, and it is helping but I did have success when I was younger in meal planning and prepping. I wish I had stuck with it.

I used to always have a little cooled lunch box with chicken, broccoli, green beans, and a sauce of some sort and protein heavy snacks like beef jerky, peperami sausages, boiled eggs etc on me at all times.

Also ditching hormonal contraception. I was a different person on hormonal contraception. That was my mistake the second time around and it didn't even work.

I wouldn’t try and lose weight initially. Try to eat at maintenance and gradually change what you are eating. I would add protein and pulses and veg in to what you are eating/try and improve your diet gradually. Targets for protein and the number of fruit and veg a day are good. Don’t do any mad things like cutting out whole food groups.
look up the hunger scale. If you won’t eat certain things when you are ‘hungry’ then you probably aren’t really hungry and are eating for reasons other than hunger.
are you stressed and using food to cope? Weirdly if you are very short of time I think some ready meals can be helpful as it may be healthier than the other type of food you might be tempted to grab. These are just a few of the things that have helped me

*Stop buying junk - if it isn’t at home, it’s going to be much harder to eat it! There are so many other snacks available these days that are lower in calories - you don’t have to stick to fruit/veg. Popcorn, vegetable crisps, high protein yoghurts, protein bars.

*Don’t cut your carbs but make a conscious effort to add protein to these meals - egg, chicken, tuna are all easy and quick to add into sandwiches, wraps and pasta.

*Do eat a good breakfast, with high protein - a protein shake mixed with oats, cottage cheese or eggs on toast/bagel.

*Eat before you become starving.

The above are such easy and small additions to your current routine and will make a big difference.

An entire lifestyle overhaul will be too hard - small changes each week.

12 stone and 5'7 is really not a great concern.

So much great advice on this thread! Just chiming in to confirm what worked for me as a former carb junkie:

• Allowing myself one bread portion a day, then pasta/rice etc at dinner. This really helped with step 2:
• Plan Plan Plan. By planning your meals, and by this i mean sit and properly write them down to start with, you'll make sure you are planning stuff that you actually have time in your lifestyle to cook. If you type in 'easy breakfast' or 'easy lunches' along with 'BBC goodfood' there's loads of sensible stuff on that site, and there's some real 'beginner' meals if you aren't a confident cook.
• I have to echo the 'see what you can add in' it's been a game changer for me. I found it just ended up naturally eating less carbs because I didn't have room to fit all the protein and veg I wanted to eat as well.
• Also if you are like me, and nothing really tasted as good as carbs did, focus on the protein you know you like and the veg you can tolerate to start with - you might find it a lot easier to say 'okay, how can I get spinach and red pepper into my day' every day than try all the veggies under the sun at first. I at first chopped everything up super small (or whizzed it a bit in a small electric chopper) to add it in - it made it a lot more palatable!
• drink loads more water - trust me.
• assess your sugar intake and see if you need to try and cut it. I know some people function better on 1 square of chocolate a day, but I have to go cold turkey - the first week sucks but eventually the fog clears.

I am basically recovered from where you are to the point where potatoes sit really heavy for me now. I still love bread (god, i love bread) but it bloats me so much if I have too much now! You essentially have to retrain your gut so that you don't crave it. It's tough, but if I can do it you definitely can!

No but I am definitely carrying more weight than I should. My belly is a problem area and I'm bloated in my face.
But as I said it's more about general health than weight. I want to fuel my body with good nutritious things.

I found moving dinner to 5pm curbed the afternoon/early evening mindless snacks. If I do eat something after dinner it's not as big as the 4 and 5pm snacks were when dinner was at 6.30 or 7. We have lunch 12 to 1pm.

I make a fruit and veg smoothie in the afternoon instead of coffee and chocolate or biscuits and it perks me up.I put a frozen banana, frozen pineapple and mango, flaxseeds or frozen spinach and orange juice, almond milk or water and blitz in nutribullet. Sometimes i add dried prunes or dates. I know the calories and sugar are high but im trying to gradually change my lifestyle, normally it's 1 or 2 lattés with 2 or 3 bars of chocolate or some cake as a pick me in the afternoon!

Try and be a bit kinder to yourself. What is one change you can make? it could be I will eat one piece of fruit a day this week or something was that you think is achievable. Then next week you can add in a second thing such as I will drink water instead of fizzy drinks.

You could aim a little bigger with I will
eat a healthy breakfast and then pick 3 breakfasts to choose from. Make these ahead if you recognise you reach for whatever is easier due to lack of time / having waited to long…

Small changes are sustainable and easier to manage.

I love carbs, would literally just eat carbs and be very happy. But as I get older I realise it's not a particularly healthy way to eat. I do Noom which I really like and is useful for tracking what you eat but for me I had to consciously reduce carbs. As time goes on I don't really miss them. My weakness is when I'm very hungry, something carby seems easier to grab and stuff in my mouth. So I try not to get to that point. I think you have to set up deliberate strategies so you don't just reach for a biscuit.

Don’t buy the crap and don’t have it in the house. Make sure your family are on board and supportive and get an exercise buddy to keep you accountable.

Shift your thinking so that from now on whatever you buy in a supermarket and keep in the house, consider it "eaten".

If you buy crisps and chocolate and wraps and other ultra-processed foods and take them home from the supermarket, who is going to eat them? Realistically, you are.

I know the psychological trick that we try and play on ourselves: "I'll buy these crisps for my husband/whoever", "I'll buy these but I'll ration them out/save them for a treat"- well it's not happening, is it?

Stop buying these foods and half the battle is won.

Cooking extra at dinner and then having it for lunch the next day. I like warburtons high protein bagel thins its really filling. If your wrap is stuffed with chicken or hallumi and salad, humus that also has protein or like a bean burrito (filling premade and ready in fridge) then its harder to want a second one. Its when the filling is so measely like a little thin spread of hummus or cream cheese, it feels like eating air and i could eat 3 or 4 wraps and still have room for crisps.

'High volume' eating is good at this.

If you eat crap food your body craves crap food. Your gut bacteria will be geared towards it, the people who make it know how to make it addictive.

when I don’t eat it, I don’t want it. So the key is just starting.

the first thing is a decent breakfast. I enjoy scrambled eggs, so most days I’ll have that on toast.

then for lunch I like something like a tuna pasta but I have it with cheese rather than mayo and put in loads of veg, sweetcorn of course but also onion, cucumber and pepper.

dinner is just a balance meal. Protein, carb and veg.

my junk food generally comes from snacking and not every day. Yesterday I had a cupcake. The day before I had dark chocolate. The day before a hot chocolate. But nothing the previous few days.

Popcorn, vegetable crisps, high protein yoghurts, protein bars.

Protein bars are junk! As are many, or even most, "protein yoghurts".

Are you eating because you're hungry - or
out of habit
routine
because it's there
because you deserve a treat?

Equally, I eat too much and need to follow this advice more... but asking yourself if you're hungry before you eat/grab food can help.

Yes PCOS causes insulin resistance which makes you hungrier, harder to lose weight and makes you crave carbs as it messes up your blood sugar regulation. Taking Metformin helped me control my appetite and lose a bit of weight, I'm still overweight but now I'm chubby instead of FAT so it's an improvement.

The problem for me isn’t just cutting the carbs it’s the constant savoury food. I just don’t want everything I eat to be non sweet. I don’t like obviously sugary things (no sugar in tea or coffee, no sugary doughnuts etc) but the constant savoury mouth taste just gets on my nerves.

Greek yoghurt? I have it with berries and cinnamon, or grate dark chocolate over it
If you're going low cal rather than low sugar then crush up a meringue with it, or have a solero for about 100 cals

I have Greek yoghurt with fresh blueberries and/or raspberries every morning for breakfast. It’s just later in the day when I get sick of the savoury options (even though I actually prefer savoury over sweet generally). My taste buds just get bored with it. I am going low cal and low sugar, I bought some 10 cal jelly pots last week and that has helped.

Could you tell me which one this is please?

@BunnyLake light squirty cream on the jelly pots is good, or a protein shake (get like a chocolate brownie flavour) blended with ice as well

Me too!

I am like this too.

I don’t crave sweet things but lots of savoury food, including carbs.

I just can’t bear the feeling of hunger or feeling unsatisfied. I can’t concentrate on anything when I feel like that.

Cinnamon powder (morrocan tagine) couscous with sultanas, herbal teas and sweetpotatoes, coconut milk curries with white rice have some sweetness.
Peanut butter tastes sweet to me even when sugar free, its nice on sourdough bread or with veg/apple sticks.

Actually, when I do get a craving or am sick of the savoury mouth taste, I’ll get a spoon of peanut butter and lick it like a lollipop 😁 I tried eating a spoonful in one go but it clogged up in my throat, so I won’t be doing that again 😯