Weight-loss for the mind?

[Partyballoons]

Hello,

I am finished having children and have lost most of the weight. Apart from 7-10lb. This would mean I could wear my own clothes and not feel self conscious.

Im really active and completely understand a healthy diet and yet feel completely powerless to make the choices I would like to make.

I know I ‘eat’ my feelings and that is one issue. But I suspect there might be other such a food as a reward or even when bored ( actually maybe these all come under the heading of feelings). I think there are also some self esteem issues too.

what I am looking for is a book or a podcast which deals with my head space for acting out the decisions I want to take eg I’ll make a meal plan. Get the ingredients. But then just feel like I want toast with loads of butter instead and the veggies go bad in the fridge and then I fee even worse as I’ve let myself down and wasted the food/ money.

i dont know how to get myself out of this rut? Are there cbt podcasts or books which change self sabotage in the diet sphere?

any ideas oh wise folk of mumsnet?

You could try saying to yourself, I'll have veg today and toast tomorrow.

I don’t know about podcasts but getting out of the house as much as possible helps. So avoid WFH five days a week, get out and about - commuting, walking, running etc.
Be busy, basically.
Not having time to think about food is the best diet.

Lots and lots of water - sometimes hunger is just dehydration.

I know how hard it can be. I put on weight studying for exams a few years ago and my whole life was shit. You’ll have people come on here and tell you not to care so much about your looks and embrace your body as it is, but every woman - or man - knows what their optimal size/weight/shape is, and when we can’t get to it, it’s pretty fucking miserable.

I’ve tried the ‘just do this for today speech’ and my brain always just replies ‘fuck it- you’ve earned/ deserve/ need to eat x’ and I fall for it! Then the next day wake up full of regret. It’s such a horrible cycle. I feel if I could just get one week under my belt I’d stand a good chance of maintaining it as a healthy lifestyle choice.

@Usernamen i think you’re completely right! I can’t often leave the house cos of the kids / husband’s shifts etc. but when I do it’s definitely different. It certainly helps

You can have it, but you choose not to.

Make a batch of food with the veg, e.g. stew, and have stew and hot buttery toast with it.

There are loads of YouTube videos with healthy recipes and the like. I always end up buying / eating what I see people bang on about on there 🙄, so I reckon if I watched enough healthy recipes on YouTube I'd end up making them.

There was also a time when everyone swore by hypnosis tracks to convince yourself to eat healthier. Paul McKenna did a course. Maybe worth a go

I found ‘Atomic Habits’ good for changing m mindset.

The only thing that ever worked for me is Gillian Riley's Eating Less approach to overcoming overeating.

https://eatingless.com

It is based on her original experience supporting people giving up smoking.

It's described as nothing to do with food or diet, but I found that eating high fat, low carb made it a lot easier to establish the new ways of thinking

It didn't change my way of eating overnight but over time I could unravel all the non-food related reasons for eating and stop those unhelpful behaviours.

It's not easy, but it really is very simple. Hope it works for you, too.

I think a lot of it is stopping the cravings for the buttery toast. And the clue is in the toast, once you cut the carbs and up the protein you'll find your cravings reduce for it and you're more in control of seeking out much more nutrient dense food rather than carb dense food

Carbs make you crave carbs. Swap a carbohydrate heavy breakfast for something with protein in it.

ESG fitness podcast. Brilliant for helping you change mindset about eating.

Some really interesting ideas- and I think the carbs do make me crave more carbs. When I’ve been eating healthily in the past once I’m on board it’s been easy and just how I eat but I can’t get back into that way? I can’t even do a day at the moment. Although, just writing about this yesterday stopped me from munching my body weight in chocolate which I would normally do at night. I suppose I was just more mindful having got it all out in the open and processed it more rather than it all just being in my head.

the only question I have is : is this all carbs? Or are rice/ grains / sweet pots different or will they keep me in that cycle to just by being ‘carbs’ or is it processed carbs?

tell a lie i have 2 questions! What the heck do people have for breakfast?!

Shahroo Izadi's work is all about the mental/emotional side of why we self-sabotage and overeat when we've promised ourselves we would stop. Her book, The Last Diet, might help you.

I think I must have tried almost every 'diet' going. I'm currently pinning all my hopes on these ....
I had brilliant success with the Allen Carr 'giving up alcohol' book, so 🤞.

@Partyballoons
For breakfast try eggs or cheese on low carb bread.

For breakfast I have coconut yoghurt with frozen berries, chia seeds and sesame seeds. I try to have an egg too. At weekends, avocado and egg on sourdough. There's a course called Body Slims - it's online but it covers the whole mental/emotional side of weight loss. I've had surgery so can't do it for a few wks but some of my friends have had good long lasting results on it.

The so called 'breakfast foods' of cereals are a relatively new invention, interestingly they were invented when food manufacturers spotted that low fat, high carb goods can be highly addictive to some people, while being very cheap to product and having a very long shelf life. Ideal if you are manufacturing foods, less so if you want to keep healthy.

Eggs make great breakfasts, eggs Benedict on a bed of spinach rather than a muffin is my favourite weekend good of the gods.

Leftovers also work well for breakfast.

Actually, eating low carb high fat means that I rarely feel real hunger and just need to keep an eye on my portion sizes. Otherwise I just eat whatever I want. Once off the carb rollercoaster, I'm happy to skip breakfast and 'break my fast' around lunch time.

I used to eat breakfast in order to avoid being tempted by something carby like a croissant or whispers a doughnut mid morning. I love how low carb high fat means I'm just not interested never mind tempted by junk any more.

By 'carbs' - I mean things like bread, potatoes, rice and pasta, and flour-based products like biscuits, cakes, breakfast cereal, and things like sweets and chocolates

Egg or beans on toast for breakfast will keep you going a lot longer than a bowl of porridge or cereal, and you won't be reaching for a biscuit or something between meals.

Eggs with spinach will be better still.

I think it's the carb+fat combination that is the bad one. carb+protein+veg not bad.

This may be a wild suggestion so please talk to your doctor beforehand but Ozempic has changed my relationship with food forever.

@Partyballoons if you have Instagram it's worth following Petronella Ravenshear and the HBDers.I followed her in lockdown and have started following the plan this year. It has had quite amazing effects - 8kg shed. Worth buying her first book which explains the science of nutrition in very simple language. Then you'll understand what is happening with your body. Re breakfast. Typical breakfasts are eggs, spinach, mushrooms. Or Greek yoghurt (full fat) with cherries, or stewed apples with seeds. This gets you away from the cereals and pastries or bread which don't actually satisfy for long. By following and reading about it I think I committed my mind and it all makes sense. 3 meals a day, gut health, space between the meals to let your body digest. Try it! You won't regret it.

I got the Paul McKenna "I can make you thin" book and for me it was a game changer

You read the book and then listen to the hypnotherapy each night as you go to sleep which is really lovely and relaxing

I got this three years ago, and revisit it every time I need a top up if I start to slip with food

It's a breath of fresh air as it's all about eating what you want, but only when you are hungry, and enjoying every single mouthful and stopping when you are full

Diets and restrictive eating aren't sustainable as you put the weight back on whereas this is just reprogramming you to actually listen to your body and appetite