Must not eat, must not eat, must not eat!!!

[HiccupHaddockHorrendous]

I'm not hungry, just bored and not really even bored. Tired, maybe?

I'm in such a terrible rut. I eat a ridiculous amount of crap and am trying to break the bad habits I've had for such a long time.

But, oh my goodness, it's hard!!

I have successfully put the babybel back in the fridge and the Pom bears back in the cupboard

Well done, both !!

I've been way under my allowance the last couple of days but don't feel I haven't eaten enough...just keep craving the bloomin chocolate orange tower that's in the kitchen for Christmas!!! Next month is going to be hard going so I'm trying really hard to get ahead while I can.

Jumble - I just tried to add you on MFP but it will only let me do it with email address or FB...my username is mogs0, want to try to add me? I've only got 5 friends and 4 have been inactive for months

Ohhh I know the chocolate orange desires, I ate the one I bought for DD and had to replace it

I shall fire up my laptop and add you now (if I can remember how!)

Sent a request (had to google to find out how to do it!) If you have a username you can go straight to that profile a la: www.myfitnesspal.com/insertusernamehere you learn something new everyday!

Thanks...I've accepted you

Jumblebee Have you tried looking at Paul Mckenna? I lost nearly 3 stone with him,also a very healthy eating plan. People are different and I've never counted calories or weighed food or eaten low fat 'diet' food or drinks. I'm maintaining well which is a first for me. I like being a loose vanity size 10 .

Paul Mckenna concentrates on the WHY, WHEN and HOW we eat (you never go hungry but you eat slowly and STOP you're full) also drink water as ops have said, or herbal teas.

If you OD on teas and coffees just giving up (or cutting right back on them and diet drinks\alcohol) will give your weight loss a kick start.

Hi ppeatfruit, does the above apply if you drink your tea and coffee black with no sugar?

Hi obrigada It's the caffeine I reckon, it seems to hold on to water, obviously milk and sugar will add up if you have a lot of it too.

When I first gave up a daily freshly ground coffee I lost weight immediately, it happens to dh too. The strange thing is when I have the odd one (every 2 weeks or so) It speeds up my metabolic rate beautifully. Often it's a cappuccino with soya milk and a bit of sugar.

Ppeat I was actually looking at his books on amazon because I've heard really good things about them, but then I thought 'it wouldn't work for me ' Is that silly? Stoping before I even start!

I drink a lot of caffeine at work, it's my go to when I'm hungry would switching to decaf help do you think? I've bought some because I don't think all the caffeine is helping my sleep problem but I haven't finished my old jar so it's not open yet!

Ref. Paul Mckenna it works for everyone even really large people. Yes a lot of people drink coffee and normal tea instead of eating and I KNOW it makes you gain weight !!!

Decaff is better but try green tea and mint (2 bags) which is a more tasty herbal tea it has a bit of caffeine, so helps the cravings, (even dark hot chocolate is better than coffee!!!! )they're both brilliant for weight loss.

Sleep deprivation is another problem with trying to lose weight because it stops yr 'fullness' signals!

Ppeat is that green tea and mint together (as in sold together)? Or do you put separate bag of green tea and bag of mint in your cup?

Hi, can I join you ladies please. This time last year I realised I was about to go over 15 stone and it motivated me to do something about my weight. By the end of March I'd managed to get down to just under 12 stone but immediately lost control and started going back up, this Monday I was back on the verge of going over 13 stone.

I've got theatre tickets booked for next March and I've set that as my goal, to get under 11 stone by mid-march. I know that it's going to be me looking at the gorgeous men on stage not the other way round but I like to day-dream a little bit

Welcome, zalen! Well done on your loss so far.

I feel far more motivated knowing I have something to aim for...although, I'm only two weeks in so very early days. I so hope I can have a similar story in 4 months' time

Also, how did you do it?

I love hearing how everyone manages it

obrigada I sometimes have the one bag when I'm out but I prefer to use 2 at home because it makes for a richer flavour, I leave the mint one in the cup but take out the green one after a short while (i don't want too much caffeine!).

ppeat thanks for the advice! I'm going to try and cut down! And I've just discovered chai lattes too sob

But after looking at the calories in a skinny chai latte compared to a normal skinny latte, it's probably a good idea to cut down!

Hope everyone is still motivated today, now is normally the time I'd be caving into cravings and I'm still going strong although last night when waiting for tea to cook (which took half an hour longer that scheduled) someone in Emmerdale mentioned pizza and my tummy was all 'oooh I could go for a dominoes!'

Thanks Hiccup,

last year, when I realised that I was about to go back over 15 stone, that evening I was doing my food shop and I found myself stood next to the Slimfast products in Sainsburys. I took that as a sign and stocked up on shakes and some of their snacks. I combined that with MyFitnessPal to make sure I really thought about everything I was eating. I tried to stick to snacking from the fruit bowl at work as well, instead of grabbing a kit-kat from the fridge. They're free in our office and it is really easy to build up to a 3 - 4 kit-kat a day habit without even realising it .

I also workout quite a lot as I train in martial arts and usually do a 75 minute class each evening Monday to Thursday so that gives me quite a few extra calories to play with on MFP as well as occupying my evenings so that I don't sit around at home in front of the TV and snack.

Zalen you've already done so well so you'll get back to where you want to be although coming from someone who has lost a lot and then gained it all again, it's hard to get into the right frame of mind isn't it?

I don't know how, but the last time it was just a switch in my brain and suddenly piling in all the crap just didn't make sense anymore. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't the worst thing I'd ever done. Now I'm waiting for that little switch to happen again so that dominoes doesn't make sense anymore!

On a happier note I've just been given an impromptu day off so I'm heading into town for some dreaded Black Friday shopping gulp luckily I'm not a major shopper so won't be going crazy in the sales, I'll probably have a wonder round the Christmas market and maybe treat myself to a hot chocolate

As I said Jumble I lost all the weight I needed (and if I was rushing about more than usual then too much !!!!) without counting calories or any weird stuff at all !!!!!

Of course eating fruit when you're hungry is a brilliant thing to do . Especially for breakfast; I have a seasonal fruit and almond\linseed smoothie on one day; I make enough for 2 days then put pumpkin seeds in it. In the winter I put in warm water so it's not cold.

Thanks for clearing that up for me Ppeat .
Chocolate is my downfall as well Zalen, I never really had a sweet tooth but in the last few months I eat chocolate at every opportunity. Not sure if it's a habit these days or an actual desire for chocolate

Thanks Jumble, what worries me, and what is motivating me to take action now, before I pile too much back on is that this isn't the first time I've lost a good deal of weight. In January 2000 I weighed 13 stone, due to my car being stolen on boxing day I ended up buying a push bike and cycling to work for four years. In the first 12 months of cycling I lost 3 stone but after that it slowly built back up and up until at my largest I topped 16 stone.

Still, between Slimfast and Graze I'm hoping to drop another 3 stone for a total of 5 stone off since 18 November 2013, then starts the hard part, keeping it off.

I know exactly what you mean about the switch in your brain though, it just seems like suddenly losing weight is almost easy, making the decision not to pick up a kit-kat or order a dominos becomes more natural. I need to get back into that zone again and stay in it as long as possible.

Hi Obrigada, Chocolate is a killer for me diet-wise, that and ice-cream I can easily finish off a tub of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice-cream whilst watching a movie.

At the moment I'm trying to decide between going cold turkey on the kit-kats, or trying to control myself a bit more. I'm trying control for now, I'm aiming for 3 snacks a day, 2 graze snacks and 1 kit-kat, I even managed without one at all yesterday so that's an improvement with 3 kit-kats this week instead of sometimes 3 a day. Fruit on top of that which I will have to regulate if the weight doesn't keep coming off.

Today I've not been good, Friday is tradionally sausage sandwich day in my head and I've indulged this morning. That's going to have to stop but it'll have to be from next Friday, now I'm going to be on damage control for the rest of today and over the weekend.

Zalen, I succumbed to a sausage sandwich as well this morning ... ooops

Zalen that's exactly it! I've tried dieting since I was 13 and NEVER lost weight. I used to go the whole day having just 2 cans of diet coke until dinner time and it was awful. I never kept up with it for long, thank god!

Are you still cycling a lot? Even if the scales don't budge you'll still have good fitness levels which is a big plus!

I do very minimal exercise. I can't really afford to go to the gym (and don't have much time anyway with DD) but the thought of running outside terrifies me! When I first did c25k I went at night along a back track with no lights which from a safety point of view is ridiculous. But then I got more confident and didn't mind going out in daytime because you would just come across walkers, runners and cyclists. Now I've moved there's nowhere like that to run I did go out last week to this small grassy area where it was dark and no cars (next to a main road but hidden, iyswim) and after approx 3 seconds I fell over on uneven ground and hurt my ankle. All because I'm too self conscious to run on a well lit street!

Obrigado, a sausage sandwich on Friday has to be done occasionally, I've just accepted it and am hopefully moving on. I just have to be sure not to accept and move on too much, that was the start of my downfall earlier this year, too forgiving of myself.

Jumble, I don't cycle anymore, I would like to start up again but I now live 10 miles from work at the top of a great big hill, instead of 3 miles away in a fairly flat area. I keep meaning to cycle more, I even bought an e-bike to help with that hill but I'm having trouble motivating myself to use it. Still with the martial arts I'm fairly fit I hope.

I tried running for a while but got out of the habit, still I've noticed the Leeds half marathon next year is on a day when I won't be working for a change, so I might try to motivate myself to run and train and go for it, I did take part once before but walked the last 9 miles or so and took a time of 3.5 hours . I used to run in the early morning, no-one else around really except other runners and so less to be self-conscious about and it does set you up for the day , might that work for you once your ankle has recovered?