Saying NO to diets and YES to a healthy life!

[Bonnie152]

Hi everyone, where to start!

I've been overweight and constantly trying to lose it since I was about 13. I'm now 27 and sick and tired of the cycle. I've forgot what it's like to actually just eat normally, I'm either strictly on a diet or going mad and overrating. I'm the heaviest I've ever been (now a size 20 pushing 22: not sure of my weight, I'm too scared to look!).

I've done so many diets in the past in a bid to lose weight and failed that I've come to the conclusion that a diet is no good for me. I want a long term, healthy lifestyle. I want to drop the weight steadily, eat mainly good things and not deprive myself too much. I know I need to up my activity level too.

I have 2.5yr old DD and 8 month old DS and desperately want to be a healthy mum for them and do not want them growing up in a 'slimming' environment as I did and it's affected my relationship with food in a big way.

I'm starting as I mean to go on, I've done a 20 min workout this morning which actually felt really good.

Does anyone want to join me making small changes towards a new lifestyle?

Eat anything you like except processed foods. Fill up on soups and salads - yum.

Everyone can change their taste preferences - the more salad and veg you eat the more you'll choose it over unhealthy options.

Brush your teeth if you feel hungry.

Drink lots of water.

Think about the sensation in your stomach before you eat.

Try to eat slowly - make a ritual - nicely set table etc (difficult with a baby and a toddler)

Try to find other 'rewards' eg nice smellies, buy yourself flowers/magazine/lippy instead of chocolate etc

Very well done with your workout today.

I'm a firm believer in calorie counting. A lot of healthy foods still have calories (obviously) so make healthy choices of course but watch the calorie intake too. It's not fashionable to say 'count calories' but it is the bottom line, so keep an eye on that too.

I'll join you

I'm utterly rubbish at sticking to any kind of diet - they just make me obsess about whatever I can't have. I know tracking calories is the best way to do it but it makes me so miserable. So.... I want to try to just take a healthy approach to food and exercise and see wher that gets me.

I'm 5ft and about 68kg which I think puts my BMI around 29. My size 14 trousers are getting uncomfortable but I can't bring myself to move a size up - so I guess that's an initial goal.

My 4yo DD told me I have legs like Hagrid today - something needs to be done!

I will join you too. I am 41 and have always been a bit bigger than I would have liked, but in the past year after my marriage breakdown, my weight has crept up to 15 stones, with a BMI of 31 and a dress size 18. I absolutely hate what I see in the mirror and hate getting dressed in the mornings or choosing new clothes. I hate what my face looks like fat. I am just sick of looking / feeling / being like this.

And yet ... I can not stick to any kind of diet. I usually fail before one day is up and always before one week. I have tried Slimming world, MFP, fasting, juicing ... I know the theory, I just can't do it. I do well for a day, maybe 2, then I lose the will and binge. Usually to fill my emotional hunger.

So - tomorrow I will do a workout DVD and I will eat good, nutritious food (enough to fill my appetite, no more) and no crap. I will drink plenty of water and go to bed early enough to ensure I get plenty of sleep.

I am sick to death of punishing myself constantly and hating myself for being fat. I will treat myself with kindness.

Thank you for starting this thread.

Thanks for the replies

I know at the end of the day calorie intake is important but focusing on any kind if counting/synning/points has some kind of effect on me which makes me obsess and then crave all kinds of rubbish.

Spangle & Be careful : thanks for joining! Definitely agree with you about diets and weight gradually creeping up. The more I diet the fatter I get

I think one of the best things to do is listen to your own hunger. Knowing I'm not restricted makes me feel so much more relaxed around food.

We will get there with small gradual changes

Bonnie you're absolutely right about listening to your own hunger. My DH is naturally slim and I notice he is very good at not eating for the sake of it or because it's there. He happily leaves stuff on his plate if he's getting full, whereas I keep picking.

BeCareful I can identify with the feeling of self loathing. My rational mind tells me that plenty of people love me in spite of my size and that I shouldn't be defined by it, but there is the little voice inside that I must be stupid and lazy and greedy or I'd never have ended up like this. I think it's important we work on building our self esteem.

I managed a 20min dance DVD this morning. It was warm and humid in my living room and I was sweating so much I've not eaten too badly today. My intention was three reasonably healthy meals and no snacks and I managed it apart from a Solero mid afternoon, oops! We're at a festival tomorrow so I imagine some fast food and beer will be involved, though not too much of the latter as we'll have DS and DD with us. I doubt I'll have time for much exercise but I should be on my feet most of the day.

I want to try and follow some of these tips, know some of you will be sick of the sight of me on these threads. I have just come back from holiday and I tried to be sensible with food (bearing in mind it was all inclusive), I ate desserts, but made sure that I ate a sensible breakfast everyday (fruit and cheese which stopped me feeing hungry), also ate lots of salad and not too many carbs, but I have still come home 2 pounds heavier. Aims are as follows:

Keep up activity levels, youtube if necessary
No crisps
Lots of water
Reduce carbs
Almonds (small handful) as snacks
Keep up salad, veg and fruit
Try to cut down on although know will not be able to cut out sweet treats
Try and look after myself generally, in the hope that this will make me feel better and more inclined to value myself by not overeating.

I weigh 9st at the moment, I would dearly love to be 8st but think it is probably unrealistic - would be satisfied with being a more toned 8st7, but less would be great

Meant to say Bonnie, thank you for starting this thread. I am also of the belief tat dieting makes you fatter

Hello all. Thanks for starting this thread Bonnie. Could I join you too please?

I agree that healthy habits are definitely the right way to go. I have some ideas of what I need to change but I know sticking to them is going to be really hard. I'm sure being with a group of like-minded people for mutual support will help a lot.

It's probably a bit boring (sorry) but I feel the need to set out where I am now and how I got here..... Feel free to skip!

I have felt generally unhappy with my weight for some time and every so often I try to take action. After initial (small) success I loose motivation and fall back into my own ways. That wouldn't be so bad on its own if it weren't for the fact that I always end up a bit heavier than I was to start off with. I am 12 stone now. I am 5'9 so that's only just officially overweight, but I think this is the point where I really have to make some long term changes, as the weight has been creeping on for some time and I now can't fit into things which I could recently - despite my youngest - DD - now being 5 so I can't blame pregnancy. I now am very close to my immediately post pregnancy weight with DD and also my heaviest ever weight - which was in my penultimate year at Uni.

The full history - for what it's worth - I was an overweight child (from about age 7 or 8). Aged 13 I decided to go do WeightWatchers with my mum and got quite a bit slimmer (I was growing taller, which helped ). Looking back I wasn't overweight after that - about a size 12 I suppose, but I still felt bigger and heavier than most of my friends. At Uni I ate pretty badly in my third year and stopped sport, so I put on a stone or two, and then dieted with my also overweight boyfriend and got down to my slimmest adult weight of about 10 stone.

Basically it has gradually crept on over the 16 years since . I was 10 and a half when I got married (not to boyfriend!) 7 years later, and then have had a couple of pregnancies along the way and the change in lifestyle to stay at home mum all of which have had some impact.

The bottom line is, though, that although I don't eat unhealthily most of the time I have a sweet tooth, I tend to eat more than I need (picking at leftovers, that sort of thing) and I also eat unecessarily when I feel tired or stressed rather than hungry. I'm pretty certain that if life was more stressful than it is now, I would be even heavier, and I also feel pretty certain that unless I change I will be feeling the same, or worse, for the rest of my life - and just getting heavier and heavier. My mum is very similar to me - she watches what she eats but still the weight gradually piles on. I want to make the change now and not be repeating the same thing for years to come.

Well done if you've made it this far - thanks for reading!

I kept to most of my aims today. I ate natural yoghurt, blueberries and honey for breakfast. Banana for morning snack. Salmon salad for lunch. All delicious! Drank lots of water - probably 2 litres. Went to Pizza Hut for dinner (bad, I know) but only ate half my pizza (would normally stuff it all in) and no dessert. I didn't feel like dessert. I was listening to my hunger and stopped when I had had enough.

I am now in bed ready to get quality 8 hours sleep. I find if I haven't slept long enough I eat utter crap all the next day.

The one thing I didn't manage today was exercise. Although I did shampoo my carpets which was quite tiring. But not as good as a proper workout. Must do that tomorrow.

I tried not to hate myself too much too. I did my hair in a new way and for once felt good about how I looked. I was kind to myself.

MoreVegLessCake - let your name be a mantra for us all!

As long as you eat dinner like a pauper (preferably no later than about 5-6 pm) you can breakfast and lunch like a queen or princess interchangeably and you will lose weight and keep it off. In my experience anyway.

Welcome octopus and moreveg - definitely a good mantra!

Microferret - that's sound advice and strikes a chord with me. I tend to want food during the middle of the day and just something nutritious to fend off hunger later on, but my lifestyle and my DH lean towards the opposite. DH eats a light breakfast and lunch and wants a big meal in the evening, ideally after the DC are in bed. Often this means we actually sit down to eat (in front of the TV, bottle of wine alongside us) somewhere between 8.45/9.00pm. By this time I'm sometimes past caring about eating, but because I've cooked it, because it's generally the most nutritious meal of the day, and because, well, it's there, I eat it. And because I've had a long day (on my work days I get up at 5.40am) and have stressed through bedtime to race to get the meal served as quickly as possible I generally drink too much wine. That then means I go to bed too late and sleep badly, meaning I crave carbs in the morning. It's a vicious circle.

So - I've told DH it's going to change. With the exception of Friday nights, dinner is going to be served between 6.30-7pm (if he prefers his later, he can reheat it or cook something else) and some evenings will just be something like soup or omelette. I'm not quite sure how well this is going to work since we/he (depending on whether it's a work day for me or not) don't get in until 6-7pm and then have the DC's bath/bedtime to deal with. But I'll think of a way around it because I know it will have a big impact on my health, and sanity!

Sorry that's so long! It's been on my mind for the last few days and it's helped to get it down.

Morning everyone. Yes, can you tell I changed my name specially ? I am an occasional poster on various topics, and have been lurking on the weightloss boards for a while. But I have posted quite a bit on local boards which would easily identify me in real life so thought I'd adopt an alterego for this. Not that it isn't a topic lots of people would identify with.

I agree that habits about mealtimes seem really important. I have a similar issue with timing of dinner SpangleMaker. My kids have not yet (hoping this may change soon) been old enough to eat once DH gets home in the evening. So they eat at about 5.30 and we eat at 8 ish after they are in bed. I find it really difficult to get from lunch at 1pm ish to say then without a snack. One snack would be ok - but often its grazing on and off which adds up a lot. It varies from day to day but I seem to feel hungry very frequently from about 4pm when I get back from school with the kids until actual dinner. And preparing their tea and sitting with them and not eating is hard! Some of it is real hunger (so I can justify it to myself) but some I'm sure is just that 4pm slump.

SpangleMaker - your new dinner plan sounds a very good one. Will that mean eating with your DCs? How old are they, if you don't mind me asking? Mine are 7 and 5 and for the littler one, lights out are about 7pm, for DS its more like 7.30pm. DH gets home at 6.10, all being well so time is rather too tight until I can push back bedtime a bit I think.

Good luck for your Sundays everyone . We are visiting my in-laws. Lots of good food likely to be on offer. I will aim for moderation and avoid being sucked into things I don't really want or need (pre-lunch nibbles, seconds of pudding, afternoon scones!)

Can I join? I too have changed my name in homage to this thread .

Bonnie quote "but focusing on any kind if counting/synning/points has some kind of effect on me which makes me obsess and then crave all kinds of rubbish." This is me too. I also find that weighing scales are the devils work; they show a loss, I want to celebrate. They show a gain, I want to eat .

I've been watching my sugar intake because sugary 'food' is a waste of calories and seems to trigger me to eat too much (can't stop till the biscuit packet is empty WTF).

Moreveg - evening logistics are difficult, aren't they? My DC are 6 and 4 so both will be in school come September. They'll have a hot meal at school and as they'll be hungry much earlier,than we can organise family dinner, and because they are fussy sods (a whole other thread!) they will have a sandwich tea at 5ish. On my 3 working days my Dad comes over and gets them so I have to leave something in the fridge for them anyway.

The real problem comes from the fact they are hard work to put to bed and, though we've always intended to have lights out before 8pm it just never happens. That's one reason I've never tried to have dinner when we got in - I've just focussed on getting the place tidy and bath time underway. Again, that's probably a whole other thread! So I'm now thinking sod it, I'll sort my dinner out when I need to eat it and maybe encourage them to sit at the table with us for warm milk/snack to indicate it's nearly bedtime. It also won't hurt them to go without a bath some nights, and I can probably try to leave work a little earlier and do some bits in the evening if necessary (I work compressed hours and have a commute, which is why my working days are so long). As I said, I don't know how well it'll work - I'll certainly need some quick-prep meals, but I feel I need to try something different!

Welcome all! Lovely to have you all along for the ride!

Octopus - well done on being sensible whilst on hol - very difficult! Your aims sound really good. I especially like the last one about general self care. I always find I eat better when I put more effort into my appearance so that's something we can all try to do.

More Veg - my story is very similar to yours! I joined WW with my mum when I was a teen and looking back it was just puppy fat and probably would've come off naturally with time but that diet set the cycle for a lifetime of starve and overeat. My mum also has an unhealthy relationship with food and I'm terrified of passing that onto my own DD.

Be Careful - well done! It sounds like you had a fab day. I think eating out occasionally is fine. I'm trying to live by 'everything in moderation'. There are times in life for having a treat :)

Stop faffing - Welcome! So agree about sugar! Biscuits are my danger food!

More Veg & Spangle - I think meal times are important too. At the moment I'm at home with the two little ones and generally have dinner ready for 5:30pm when DH gets home. But I've had all day to prepare and get it sorted. But I'm hoping to go back to FT work in January so I am wondering how meal times are going to work when there is so much else to do and organise!

Just picking up on a couple of people's comments about how their own mum's yoyo dieting has influenced their own relationship with food. I think this is certainly true for me too. I remember my mum dieting (and overeating) throughout my childhood and she was rarely at a weight she felt happy with.

I have two young DDs (7 and 3) and the thought of passing on my own issues to them is depressing, to say the least. So that is going to become one of my main motivations for saying NO to diets and YES to healthy habits!

How's everyone's days been?

Mine has been good sensible breakfast, lunch and dinner. We were going to go for a stroll in the woods but the heavens opened so we stayed in so have been pretty inactive. Will go for a walk tomorrow afternoon with the DC.

I've been looking over on the style and beauty board and feeling I need to groom myself more and in turn I'm hoping this'll make me eat better and look after myself. There's some good threads about skincare/clothes/grooming etc. with that in mind I'm going to do my nails and eyebrows whilst watching tv with DH.

BeCareful - yes it definitely seems that our habits have stemmed from parents. Definitely need to break the cycle!

Bonnie sounds like a good day. I need to get over to S&B too. I had a look at the 'fit for 40' thread and meant to take some notes, although at 44 I've missed the boat there! My skincare could do with an overhaul and I reckon some better fitting bras might take a few pounds off me - visually at least!

Considering I've been out at a festival today I've not done too badly, although too much bread was involved. I had a lovely chargrilled chicken flatbread for lunch and declined crepes when DH went to get some. According to the pedometer on my phone I did 11,000 steps so a pretty active day for me. Pizza for tea but I ate less than usual and added more salad.

Hope everyone else has had a good day.

Evening everyone.

Well done Bonnie and Spangle for your good (but not too diet-like ) days. 'Sensible' - that's a good word Bonnie. I feel good about today too. We ended up going out for lunch but I did not overeat and got from lunch at 1ish until dinner at 8pm without nibbling (despite feeling hungry from about 6pm).

Makes me realise that before children, when I typically didn't get home from work until 7ish, I did feel hungry quite often between lunch and dinner, but by and large I didn't snack because I didn't have food readily available. I guess though it was also a conscious habit not too. I know its pretty easy to get into the habit of going for a biscuit or 4 in the tea room, or buying a kitkat on the way home. I suspect when I think about it I have allowed myself to get out of those good habits since having the children - I need to get back into them.

Lots of interesting ideas to think about here. Also about how to pass on good eating habits. Thanks everyone, I think this thread is going to really helpful for me. Hope others feel the same. Good luck everyone for tomorrow .

Okish day today, didn't do loads of exercise but did a lot of housework.

Haven eaten - Nature valley bar
2 pieces of seeded toast with peanut butter (sugar free one)
A bit of fruit crumble
2 chicken thighs marinated caribbean style (not oil) with corn on the cob and salad with pizza express light dressing
I am now just having some Strongbow cloudy cider
Know this isn't perfect, but for me it is an improvement and I feel that I have eaten according to my hunger

Lovely to read about all your positive days. Had a good day here too.

In my house, pancakes for Sunday breakfast are a tradition. I enjoyed my pancakes but I only had 3 instead of my usual 4, and I topped them with a teaspoon of honey and lots of fresh blueberries instead of a tablespoon of syrup.

At lunchtime I made a picnic for me and the DC to take to the park. They had sarnies, crisps, veg sticks fruit and cake. I had sarnies, veg sticks, hummus and fruit, therefore avoiding crisps and cake. Ate enough to fill my hunger and felt totally satisfied. Spent the afternoon active in the park and for drenched in the thunderstorm

Also had a sensible and delicious dinner of fresh fish, roasted veggies and cous cous.

BUT - I messed up a bit late this evening when my resolve is usually at its weakest. At about 11pm had the leftovers from dinner, then a bar of chocolate. And now I'm in bed too late, with a 2nd wind (probably due to eating recently) so will be tired tomorrow and more prone to eating crap.

My aim tomorrow is to not eat crap and to not eat food I do not need late at night.

Good luck to everyone for tomorrow.

Hi can I join?

I have to be careful with diets; I have a history of anorexia and bulimia and relapsed very badly at the end of 2013. I've had a lot of therapy this year and haven't purged since the 8th June and haven't had a proper binge since July.

The relapse has led me to gain 2 stone (lost 3 to begin with, regained 5 in total). I'm borderline overweight BMI so not in desperate need to lose weight but I don't feel comfortable with myself and I have lots of lovely clothes that don't fit anymore. Prior to relapsing I felt happy in my own skin for the only period of my life, and it's still a healthy BMI (140lb at 5 foot 8) so not an unhealthy weight.

Diets are hugely triggering for me; either I find it impossible to let myself have ANYTHING unhealthy or I start binging. I've finally gotten to a point where I'm not obsessed with chocolate and I can stop eating when I'm hungry again so I don't want to undo that good work by calorie counting or something.

My main problem is unhealthy snacking; my meals are generally good but then I crave chocolate ect. I used to buy an individual chocolate bar for desert everyday (can't keep it in the house!) but I felt like I needed it and would go out of my way to get it so I'm trying to break that pattern.

My meals COULD be a bit better; I want to try some different lunches as often end up having sandwiches/nuts or crisps/fruit which is fine but works out higher calorie and less filling than other lunch options, and I rely a little too much on preprepared food for dinner. Dinner will change naturally I think, at the moment I live on my own an struggle with time and motivation to cook for myself (although it's always bulk cooking when I do), but my girlfriend is moving in with me in a few weeks and as I enjoy cooking and she prefers cleaning we figured I'd be in charge of the cooking.

I'm pretty active as have horses, work with them and have dogs but work is a bit slow at the moment. It's picking up a lot over the next 5 weeks which will help but I'm trying to walk the dogs a bit more and would like to do some running again and the odd exercise dvd. I also do aerial silks and pole dancing. But did a tough mudder on sat and still nursing my broken body so may be a few days until the exercise kicks up a notch haha!

I'm trying to not weigh myself too much in order to not make myself obsessive :)