I’ve lost 52 pounds but I’m just kinda over it now

[Whis]

It’s taken almost a year. Lost it via diet changes- minimal carbs, no snacking, no takeaways, minimal wine etc.

But I’m just so over it. I’m just at a loss with what to do. I’ve had a wee cry. Just wish this was all done with.

I probably have another 20 pounds to go. I’m sick of being in diet mode.

I feel physically better. But it’s mental torture. I’m sick of being “good”.

A YEAR of this shit and I’m still not there.

I don’t want to think about food in this level of detail anymore. I want to go to the pub and eat a plate of fish and chips, with several glasses of wine and a slice of cheesecake. Without that fear and guilt. I have cheat days but they’re not worth the stress it causes so I just don’t bother.

it makes sense though.

Diets don't work! When you take "diet" in the sense of restricted food intake to lose weight, they don't work because people put back on the weight as soon as they stop, believing it's a temporary fix.

Diet as in, the kind of food you eat, is just how you eat, your lifestyle and way of life.

If you are in the mindset that you are temporarily restricting food and punishing yourself until you can over-eat again, it wont' work long term.

If you decide to live a healthy life, for ever, then it's just becoming your normal, not a punishment.

I think you have done brilliantly, amazingly well. Pause. Don't go and eat or undo your good work, but find some way of acknowledging and celebrating. Take three days of eating healthily - not over-eating - and then go again. And as other posters have suggested, take frequent breaks - without putting weight on - on your last journey. You just need to let the last year sink in. If you hadn't done what you have done, you would be more miserable. You have spent the last year actually looking after yourself and it's a tremendous achievement!

To me, a diet is restricting my intake from my usual daily eating habits to something more healthy and portion controlled. IE my usual daily intake would be coffee and pastry for breakfast, bag of crisps/bar of chocolate as a mid morning snack, meal deal type of lunch, constant tea and biscuits and large portion of say spaghetti bolognaise & garlic bread for tea along with snacking in the evening. Going on a diet would mean restricting my usual food intake to a coffee and pastry for breakfast, maybe a sandwich and a drink for lunch and smaller portion of spag bol for tea with a little treat in rhe evening. That to me would be on a diet. And it would work, if I stuck at it and was consistent. When people say diet, they don't necessarily mean porridge with water for breakfast, salad for lunch and salad for tea with no snacks at all.

This might sound obvious so sorry if so. But have you tried finding healthy snacks you really love and can look forward to. My favourites atm are melon with prosciutto. Or tomato mozzarella and basil. Or goats cheese with fig jam on pear slices (can add some prosciutto here too or walnuts).

Just really luxurious things which are not bad.

I have this book. I haven't read it all yet, but it is helpful and it might help you. I know exactly how you feel, but I think it will lead to you just putting it all back on again unless you do something. Equally it will be impossible to remain in diet mode for life.

I hear you!!

It's such hard work, daily slog of calorie counting and sometimes it is just miserable!!

If I was you, I would book that night off, go to the pub, enjoy yourself, have the cake, eat it, enjoy it and then the next day have a slobby, lazy day, watch a film, have popcorn.

Then get back to it, draw a line under the weekend off, it's done, you enjoyed it, it was great but now time to get back to it.

It really is needed sometimes and that's ok, we're human, perfectly imperfect and allowed to have fun.

Can you take slower approach and eat a bit more of what you like? Perhaps also add more exercise? You sound you are having a hard time at the moment.
How did you put the weight on in the first place?

This was me, 35 years ago. WW for six months, I lost about 30kg. I was SO SICK of measuring my food every day.

So I stopped, and put it all back on and more.

Being in consistent calorie deficit for a long period of time is hard on both your mind and body. Why not practice maintenance for a while? You will need to crack
this at some point anyway.

To me thats just eating more sensibly instead of rubbish.

When changing eating habits it needs to be a lifestyle change for life ! And it’s not easy getting a good balance but I think instead of beating yourself up give yourself a pat on the back and keep going but have the odd treat !
I got to my target weight in November a total loss of 3 stone in just over a year (slimming world )’and I get that over it part but u have so many health benefits of this weight loss that’s should be enough to keep you going !
I have found it harder to maintain than to lose weight but I keep going cus I know it will click in eventually ! It’s ok once in a blue moon to go eat those chips cheesecake and wine but get back on track next day u enjoy yourself and don’t worry about it !! ❤️

I'm in a similar situation OP only I'm totally screwed thanks to being diabetic (type 2). I have such a limited diet in terms of what doesn't send my blood sugar soaring, although I'm off most of my meds and actually some days I just want to eat something really normal like everyone else does. When we were on holiday, DH wanted to try Rick Stein fish and chips... so he had both. I had grilled fish, a green salad and tartare sauce I was quite evill watching him. My only sanity is remembering how shit eating dense carbs makes me feel for 24 hours. There's a grim satisfaction somehow in getting a normal blood sugar reading.

A treat now and again actually will do you good - it prevents any binging and you can keep going the next day.

It's about changing your mindset of what's normal. Having dessert several times a week or 2,000 calories in one meal sitting isn't normal.

What is perceived as dieting is closer to what we should be eating with the occasional treat thrown in.

Yes it's absolutely shit sometimes especially if your short, low metabolism ect.. as your body just doesn't need more when the world is telling you to eat. Once you view food as fuel rather than an eating experience it becomes so much easier.

I like what @Friartruckster said. As tough as it is now, I personally find it even harder to make the decision to start than to carry on once I'm in the throes of it. I think you're more likely to regret not carrying on now when you are so close!!

And fwiw you WILL stop thinking in this way once you are able to. Again, in the throes of it I always think I'll count calories for life and feel miserable and guilty with it too, but when I'm happily maintaining I am able to switch that back off.

I hope it's the same for you too!

Do you realise you won't be able to eat fish and chips and cheesecake in order to remain a healthy weight?

Well done op. I'm the same, I've lost 4st in 1.5yrs with medical help and still have 1-2stone to go. I have been eating treat food and drinking alcohol every week (probably why it's taken me so long) but I've had to fast to "afford" those calories which means I'm consuming fewer nutritious foods.
I'm not a yoyo dieter and have been obese since my late teens but I have been able to maintain my weight for decades but have been so unsuccessful in actually losing weight without medication.

I'm much happier being a size 12-14 rather than a 18-20, I do love clothes shopping now but can't go mad as I do plan to lose more. I feel at a weird in between stage where I can't fully enjoy it and still have to consider every morsel of food and drink.

I'm trying to focus on improving my overall health and fitness instead of getting bogged down with dieting. Also wellness, self care and taking time out and naps when I need them rather than burn out. I'm considering taking up a sport or martial art in my 40s as a newbie because I'm no longer lugging around those 4st. Overall positive changes instead of focusing on dull dieting.

Of course you can

I hear that Op. I tend not to have cakes ,
pastries or cookies in the house as I’ll possibly eat a fair amount in one go 👀

I’d say that assuming you’re meeting up with friends for a coffee 3 or 4 times a month as opposed to every day you should feel free to have that cake in the cafe . Or maybe ask said friend to share a slice of cake with you.

As I said I can’t have them around the house unless it’s for guests but if I’m in a cafe it’s manageable. A slice of cake in a cafe won’t lead to me ordering ten slices more.

I also keep ingredients for cake & cookies in my house and I’ve learnt one portion recipes which I make in my air fryer. Takes 2 minutes to mix one egg, milk, a few tablespoons of flour etc and frozen fruit then throw it in the air fryer for ten mins and there you have a tiny portion of cake. I’ve made cookie dough that I can store in the freezer too so I can tear of a little bit and air fry or bake it each time I want one cookie. Whereas before I’d have made a whole batch and ate at least half of it!

It sounds like you’ve done such a great job with losing weight in a healthy way though. So congratulations on the changes you’ve made with your health and making progress to your weight loss goal!

Yeah exactly. I was 9 stone most of my
adult life and very much ate chips, white bread, cake and ice cream etc regularly. The issue for my weight was when it got out of control at a certain stage as I was under a lot of stress coupled with the fact my daily activity had went from 15K steps a day and the gym twice a week to barely moving.

I lost 35 pounds gradually while also eating those things.

I am definitely committed to a healthier diet nowadays, so I do aim for reasonable portions , wholefoods and non UPF as much as I can and will always do that even when I get down to my target weight.

It feels way better to eat healthier, and be kinder to my body basically, but I will still have frozen pizza, takeaways and cakes now and again!

She absolutely can eat fish and chips and cheesecake and remain a healthy weight. Just as long as they are eaten very, very infrequently! A blow-out as a one-off would be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It's whether it would remain a one-off that's the issue.

OP, I absolutely hear you on 'the fear' around 'treat' foods. It can become quite paralysing. I found it happened a lot to me when I ate low-carb, which was fabulous in terms of the weight falling off but terrible for me in terms of categorising food as 'good' or 'bad' and developing a real hangup about the 'bad' food. I would literally feel panicky if I thought I was going to have to eat high-carb food, ridiculous really but there we go.

Tracking food is boring, time consuming and irritating, especially when we live in an environment where tempting snacks or glasses of wine are always ready to ambush us! I actually really resent it at times. But I resent being overweight, bloated, sluggish and hungover with crappy skin more, so...

I use Nutracheck too. It's got a easier day, eat out options, magazine and lots of other features. For £34.99 for 12 months it's good value.

I lost 5 stone a few years ago and I definitely had times where I just had to focus on maintaining for a couple weeks/months as I was ready to give up altogether. It worked and sometimes I had it in my mind to maintain for a few months but after a few weeks I was ready to restart x

Absolute nonsense. As a treat and a bit of portion control there is nothing you can’t eat. Miserable.

OP, if you are an all of nothing gal and like your treats, then you might want to look into 36 hour fasts.

When you are on a 36 hour fast, it means not eating for the waking hours of an day book-ended by dinner the previous day and waiting till brunch/lunch to eat the day after. I find it easier psychologically to accept that today is the day of no-eating if I know that when I wake up tomorrow, I can eat normally. I do these fasts twice a week to maintain my weight but if I had to lose weight, will do them 3 x a week.

This allows me to eat freely on non-fast days (including fish and chips) which I time so that they coincide with the days I know I have to eat normally like going out for a meal with friends, a family get-together or in my case, the days I go into the office to work. If I skip fast days (e.g. I was on a 4 day work trip), I can make it up later.

I am not very scientific in my approach. I see it as no different to weight loss drugs without the drugs because the drugs make you not want to eat and that is how you lose weight. For 36 hour fasts, you are not eating either, but just on certain days. I do exercise so as to maintain muscle.