All the bargaining - that’s a brilliant way to describe it. I’ve never thought of it like that before.
For me, I have spent most of my adult life on or off a diet. I know how to eat healthily, count calories, macros, you name it - none of that was the problem - it was staying on the weight loss plan long enough in order to make a serious dent in my weight. So I’d ’start a diet’ on Monday and by Thursday would be hankering after carbs or cake or ice cold Sauvignon (pick a thing) but I was never able to just have a bit, nope, it had to be a full meal with all the treats. I’d bargain/tell myself I’d been good for 4 days so I deserved a treat and I’d get back on it on Friday but of course, Friday is nearly the weekend and you can’t be on a diet over a weekend. I’ll start again on Monday and so on.
The thoughts were so powerful it just wasn’t possible to swot them away. It was constant, perhaps almost like a form of intrusive thinking. Once I’d decided I was going to have that ‘treat meal’, wild horses would not have been able to stop me. I would then think there was something wrong with me, did I have some kind of OCD/chronic self destruct button? And that would make me feel like a failure too and of course, the best antidote for feeling rubbish? Food, of course! It’s so weird and hard to describe but it is/was completely exhausting and self-defeating. I’d say that for most overweight people, their struggle is far more likely to do with the mental challenge rather than the physical one.
Within 24 hours of starting MJ, the silence in my head was almost gloriously deafening. I could feel physically hungry and I just think, ‘I’ll have some chicken and salad’ instead of drooling over the thought of chocolate eclairs or a roast dinner. Even now if I fancy a treat, I can have a small bit and not feel remotely like I need to finish the lot. Incredible really! Have lost 4 stone and have another 2 to go. I’ve changed my whole approach to eating and have also started with a PT. I hope that my newly developing love of my emerging body will be what I need to keep me on track post MJ.
Anyway this is not the point of this thread!