please help

[helpme1h]

I suffer badly with depression and anxiety all my life, spent long periods unable to get out of bed. I got in the habit of eating crisps chocolate etc just to not have to move to cook to get up. Now I havent eaten normal food in over 20 years, I never liked it much to begin with, but now i,m trapped in this hell letting my body slowly die, i weigh 16 stone, am 5'4, junk is my only comfort, nothing brings me joy, i dont know how to stop, someone please help me 😥

You can sort this. How old are you? Do you live on your own? Have you got support?
Be very gentle with yourself, and make your tiny tiny changes. You can do this.

Are you ok @helpme1h?

thanks so so much for replying, i'm 45, its just me and my son with special needs, i function around him but as soon as he goes to school or bed i'm binging, my parents are nearby but they have a lot of health problems too :(

One small step at a time. I find if I only eat junk food that's what I crave. The more healthy food I eat the more I want. Start with a very easy goal - maybe one piece of fruit a day and one vegetable. Set a challenge that you'll cook a meal from scratch one day a week and build up from there. I'd also see a GP. I'm sure there's support out there.

Just make such tiny steps. So tomorrow, don’t do anything except drink a glass of water. That’s it. Then the next day, drink a glass of water and eat one less snack than you usually would.
I think contacting your gp is a good idea too. Is it easy to get an appointment?
Be kind to yourself. Speak to yourself kindly, not judgementally. Pretend you are talking to a friend.

Well, hopefully, to be positive, you can fix this problem - it's not like you've got to build a nuclear reactor or anything incredibly complex or hard is it? You are stuck with habits that aren't healthy. What do you think is the smallest possible change you can make that is going to help you go in the right direction? It's got to be something you can keep up with, i.e. do it every day because what you need is "new habits" that are not as unhealthy. I did 5:2 for a year and actually found it quite easy but I think my situation was very unusual - a long story for another time - it was for research. The single most important thing I did was stop eating bread. Then I started cutting down on rice, pasta and potatoes. My tastes in food changed. I started eating a lot more pickled food as snacks - cornichons with chilli, red chillies, pickled onions mainly for snacking on. To kill hunger I found that a boiled egg or an apple, as is often recommended, actually worked well to keep hunger at bay. I could write pages about this - what I ate and when, etc. There is a Scientific American article that was one of the first to explain why rapid weight loss is inevitably very hard to maintain - I didn't need to lose much weight - I lost 12kgs - 90kg down to 78kg roughly in about 10 or 11 months - I'm probably around 85kg so I would suggest that you think more positively about the slowest way to lose weight and not think that rapid weight loss what you should aim for if you want to keep the weight off - hopefully that makes the task seem less intimidating. Start with one thing that you think you can manage to keep up with - eating off smaller plates IMHO does work - it's a gradually process of training yourself to eat less - that's part of the tactics - you do have to get used to overcoming hunger but it is something you can get better at. You can't suddenly dramatically change your eating habits - it would be daft to try and doomed to failure IMHO. So I'd encourage you to think very positively about making very small changes. There are set backs and lapses - it's important not to best yourself up about this because it's so important to remain positive and hopeful about being able to achieve what you want. Sorry I can't write more ATM. Good luck

How are you today @helpme1h ?
Have you thought of something you can do?
Hoping you are ok. Take the first little step. Everything will be ok.

Hope you have started your journey @helpme1h

Just to be clear - I want advocating 5:2 - it works to restrict your calories for 2 days in 7 - some people do 6:1 - personally I think the weight comes off to quickly in 5:2 and I think that's what makes it unsustainable - ideally you keep up the 5:2 or 6:1 once you've reached your target weight. There is also 16:8 where in a 24hr period you make sure all your eating is fine in an 8 hour time period - this means that for 16hrs a day you are not eating - usually you will be sleeping for 8 hours of that and sleep, you will keep reading, is also needed to help keep weight off. I have done and still do 16:8 - I try to put off eating anything until about 11:30am and try not to eat too late in the evening. Honestly, the slight feelings of hunger I get don't bother me at all - it's no great effort to skip meals or Friday them - it's something you get better at the more you do it - it really doesn't take a lot of will power now for me to not snack on unhealthy things - when I ignore hunger is surprising how quickly I forget about it for a few hours especially if I'm out walking the dog or doing something that's keeping my mind on other things.

I know all this sounds fine if you have the motivation but you have a much much harder starting point if you are feeling depressed and anxious and your son must make life so much harder too - don't kid yourself - it's a tough gig being a parent at the best of times. You've really got to be kind to yourself about this - how you feel is perfectly understandable - but go and try and get your GP to give you as much help as possible - you've definitely got to start with that.