Any tips for dealing with diet wreckers?

[pasqueflower]

Especially the ones you live with?

E.g. DD2 loves Chinese takeaways, DH will suggest opening a bottle of wine at the weekend. I can cope with one or the other, but not both, and have zilch willpower when it's in front of me, it's the weekend, and I feel I deserve a treat.

Plus it feels like being a real party-pooper when the rest of the family are tucking in or dh is downing the wine and I'm there with the mineral water.

Last night was ok because dd2 wanted a takeaway. I had one main meal - stir-fry chicken and prawns in a spicy sauce, didn't have any rice and counted the number of prawn crackers I ate - stayed within my calorie limit.

Dh was out, but I know if he'd been here we would've opened some wine and that would be another dieting day wrecked.

I don't have much weight that I want to lose btw (am already within a healthy bmi), but would like to get rid of the spare tyre before holidays in a few weeks time.

I'm better in work when the cake comes out on people's birthdays - I can resist that.

What are your coping tips?

i am finding it easier by doing the following:

1. buy only biscuits everyone else likes and i dont
2. dont have alcohol on in the house usually, buy one bottle of wine a week for treat night
3. one treat night a week - takeaway or homemade pizza etc
4. plan your meals for the week and then have a small portion of what everyone else is having with lots of salad/veg to fill up
5. always buy the healthy version where possible and make everyone have it

Thanks - I think the big problem is too many "treat nights" a week and no willpower.

We eat very healthily as a family - I don't routinely buy biscuits anyway, but dd2 loves baking so I frequently come home to find irresistible chocolate brownies cooling on a wire rack! (She has the time to play loads of sport, so is an extremely healthy weight).

In fact, everyone else in the family has a job/lifestyle which involves a lot more activity whereas my job is very busy but sedentary. Today I have played loads of sport and "earned" my wine!

On the wine, when I was seriously dieting I was "allowed" one treat a day - the treat coul dbe a small glass of wine. I would usually make it into s pritzer with sparkly mineral water, it didn't seem them like everyone was drinking huge amounts except me.

For takeaways, I just tried to work out the healthiest choice (so I would have stuff I knew wasn't too fatty, have a little boiled rice rather than fried, but would steer clear of the prawn crackers because they are deep fried in oil. Very difficult as I love them!)

Your baking DD2 sounds like my DS1 - my strategy is to have a tiny portion, maybe a quarter or a fifth of normal - a taste really is enough.

Can you control the frequency of "treat" nights?

sorry, proofreading skills truly awful -

it didn't seem then like everyone was drinking huge amounts

Hi Cruella - very good advice, thanks. I'm trying to limit alcohol to weekends only. It's the randomness of dd's cake baking that catches me out - very hard to resist when I arrive home to find something freshly baked!

I think I need to focus on my goals and develop more willpower.

I'm basically my own diet wrecker. I can be disciplined do a couple of days, but then get overtired or cross about a work issue and feel like I deserve a treat, then just don't stop. I can even have the thought in my head that I could just choose not to put the biscuit I'm my mouth, but do it anyway.

And yet sometimes something clicks and I'm suddenly more controlled. Why can't I be like this most of the time?!