I'm so sick of being on a diet.

[Juliecloud]

I really am. I'm fed up with having to think about what I eat every single day and not being able to just eat what I want. If I do eat what I want, I put on weight. Quickly. I cannot seem to reach a point where I stay the same weight, it seems to be gain or lose.

I hate the thought of having to live like this forever but then, I hate the thought of being overweight forever even more so I know I have to do it. I'm doing WW just now, I've restarted it for the millionth time this week. I've lost 3lb so I know it works but I've eaten all my points for today and I'd love to have something to eat now! Not fruit but some delicious white toast with butter on it or some cheese and oatcakes. YUM.

Being on a diet sucks!

Ahh Julie, I hate this for you!!!

I wish diets didn't exist. I wish you could have the power to know that you DON'T NEED TO DIET. Diets love you, they take all your money, you fail and you go BACK FOR MORE! It's the only industry in which this happens. Can you see? They just want to make your money.

You need to be empowered to take control and do this yourself. Eat wholesome food, go walking/jogging/increase whatever it is you already do. Look at your food and think "is this going to help or hinder?" Write out everything you eat. Aim to eat: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner. Write it out for a week and then take a look at it, does it look like mainly fresh food? Have you eliminated packaged/processed foods? Can you make any changes here and there?

You shouldn't feel deprived eating 5 times per day, you will experience a "dip" in the first few days but push through it and the energy on the other side is great.

My only advice is to take the weightloss slowly. It's less of a bind to decrease your calories by 250 a day and lose 1/2lb a week. It'll take longer to lose the weight but it won't feel like so much of a diet.
Also the more you move and burn calories the more you can eat, maybe get a fitness tracker to motivate you.

Have you looked at why you want to eat? Food is boring, it's just fuel for the body, there are much more exiting things to do with your time than eat.

What about a Fitbit? Those things tell you where you're going wrong and what needs tweaking. Usually it's just not moving about enough.

Food isn't boring for the vast majority of people.

And diet plays a much bigger role than exercise.

Have you looked at why you want to eat? Food is boring, it's just fuel for the body, there are much more exiting things to do with your time than eat.

Not for the vast majority of people it isn't.

Op have you looked at expanding what you're cooking to include some more interesting healthy meals? I like the hairy dieters book, cook yourself thin and the slimming world curries are great. Eating more at mealtimes really helped me to lose weight-the stuff I like to snack on is high calorie junk food.

Good editorial on this subject in the Huffingtonpost today.

www.huffingtonpost.com/tarryne-west/fighting-the-wrong-weight-loss-war_b_9489090.html?utm_hp_ref=healthy-living

You really need to look at the emotional issues. Not only that, you need to decide what's a healthy body weight for you. Where does your body want to be? Are you active? is what you eat mostly healthy? are you depressed or stressed?

I have found slimming world works for me, mainly because it has really expanded the range of foods I eat and helped me focus. For me It's not a diet it's just a change of lifestyle.

really you need to lose the diet mentality, easier said than done I know, and make small changes gradually over time to change your ways of eating to something sustainable for life. Do you meal plan? I find that helps me a lot

Have no advice whatsoever but just wanted to add solidarity as could have written your OP.

I could have wrote your Op. I'm exactly the same
I'm forcing myself to get out in the fresh air for at least an hour a day
I'm writing down everything I eat. I fear though it's not so much the food but the wine so after Easter I'm going to cut it out completely I think.

You don't need to be on a diet, just need a healthy eating lifestyle and find an exercise you enjoy.

What does an average day of food look like for you?

I have never been on a diet, but I have always had a healthy eating lifestyle and it's never let me down. I am currently pregnant but still make healthy choices.

Breakfast porridge with berries
Lunch chicken salad sandwich, homemade flapjack square
Snack dried mango and a few nuts
Dinner vegetable stir fry
Dessert fruit salad with one scoop of frozen yoghurt

Check out the low carb threads.

You need a lifestyle change, not a diet.

I really know what you mean OP, it's very hard to change an ingrained mindset.

It's easy to say reduce sugar, cut out bread and don't eat pasta. Doing it is hard.

Maybe list a typical day's food and we can help?

Someone up thread mentioned it too, your body is made in the kitchen, it's 80% what you eat, exercise is to make you feel good. You'll lose weight quicker changing your diet rather than going crazy exercising.

I'm so with you, OP! It seems I can do weight loss and weight gain, but I'm crap at maintaining Last year I lost 60lbs which is pretty good, I was still about a stone away from my dream weight, but I felt good. Then Christmas and various family birthdays later (can't let that cake go to waste!), I'd put a stone back on again. Which I'm now trying to shift, but it's bloody hard work.
Thing is, in those three months where I didn't diet / watch what I ate, it didn't seem excessively crappy eating, just normal (cake aside). I'm a vegetarian so that cuts quite a few sources of bad nutrition anyway, and even so clearly if I don't watch what I eat, I gain.
It really really sucks and I have no wise words of advice, just wanted to commiserate!

What food do you particularly miss? Often there are good alternatives that don't involve inevitable weight gain.

At the moment I am low carbing mixed with a bit of intermittent fasting. It is good, the food is satiating - you don't get the 'sugar highs and lows'.

Thing is, you say it's working, but it's not, really, is it? IMO how well a diet works is more about how sustainable a diet is long term, than how quickly the weight comes off.

And look, the majority of diets fail. If you're feeling like this now, how likely do you think you'll be able to keep it up long term? Even with a diet you enjoy and are committed to, the odds are stacked against you.

so I think you need to rethink. Even if it's setting the issue of weight aside for a bit and concentrating more on improving your lifestyle.

Or something like 5:2, which is brilliant imo, and the best, easiest diet I've ever done. The fact that it's only 2 days a week has been massive and the health benefits are not to be sniffed at

Julie "I'm fed up with having to think about what I eat every single day and not being able to just eat what I want."

this is the key bit of your statement really isn't it - I see pp have talked about diet industry but it's not that is it.

for me, it's the fact that 3 square meals a day, of a kind I will actually enjoy and that fuel my regular workouts, still leave me overweight. It's very frustrating. I am slowly losing weight but I regularly wonder about packing it in. Really I only do it because the doctor wants to switch my contraceptive if I don't.

In reality I think I will keep trying and when I hit menopause I will just eat what I like!

I also used to be underweight which is even more irritating! I really miss being underweight. And well meaning friends ask me what happened - nobody knows! Doctor did every test under the fucking sun. Age happened I guess.

lorelei9 there's lots of studies that say that once you put the weight on your body works extra hard to keep it there. The thing is, our bodies are designed to hold onto fat and make fat, to keep us going during times of starvation. They haven't evolved to shed fat quickly. Some studies say that someone who has once been overweight will always have to eat less calories and exercise more then a person who has never been overweight. Who wants to actually live like that their entire life? Not me.

Plenty of evidence also says as long as you live an active lifestyle and generally eat healthy then your chances of getting obesity related diseases drops to normal levels.

Despite the fact that I'm about 2 stone overweight, I know I'm healthy. My doctor confirms I'm healthy, and says my lifestyle is great and I should keep doing what I'm doing. But the voice in my head that makes me keep going on diets is the one that tells me being overweight is ugly. So for me it's totally about vanity, not health. I'm trying to shut that voice up.

I know what you mean about vanity
But I do miss being tiny in relation to workouts, particularly anything involving dance or swimming.

I miss the physical feeling of it.

Like you I used to be underweight, and I do get where you're coming from. I miss the way clothes just fit, I miss how comfortable with my body I used to feel. I think a lot of its in my head though. Because I feel stronger and healthier now.

Fit fatty, I can't say I feel different in that way though I feel the cold less.
It's the underweight to overweight very fast that makes me wonder about the science of all this. It's like someone flicked a switch. I said on another thread I ended up with a wardrobe with hardly any middling sizes in it because it happened fast, fat enough fir the doc to send me for a bunch of tests and then be shocked because they couldn't find anything.

Ugh I might come off this thread, it's so depressing.

Good luck OP. Sorry if I derailed.

Sorry, fast enough, not fat enough!!

Thank you for all the replies. I know I eat crap food when I am stressed or tired. I piled on the weight when I was doing my finals, when pretty much all I ate was pizza at 2am and flapjacks the rest of the time. I lost the weight after I finished uni and kept it off until I had kids. Now I'm a mother of 3, one of which doesn't sleep. I'm BFing my youngest. So I'm constantly tired and I crave chocolate. I would be embarrassed to admit to how much chocolate I used to eat in a day!

I walk loads but don't do any extra exercise. I have a Fitbit but I stopped using it as every day I was doing 12000-16000 steps.

I know I need to look at the emotional reasons behind my eating. I hate the way I look at the moment and I am determined to change that. I have stopped buying chocolate as I couldn't stop myself from eating it. I've started buying nakd bars instead, which are very filling.

I would love to do a bit more exercise but I struggle to find the time and energy just now.

That was me about a year ago, Julie! BFing makes you so hungry, and being tired makes you crave chocolate, so...
I honestly think cutting the crap out will help you more than exercising. You already walk a lot; now you just have to reduce the intake! I think not buying the foods you know will make you binge is a good start.

For me, I can't completely live without chocolate, so I tend to buy small, individually wrapped things so I can have one a day.
Naked bars etc are still very high in sugar and calories - it might be better to just have a few raw nuts instead; or dried figs if you crave sweet stuff (they're also high in sugar but having just one stops the cravings I find, and they are reasonably healthy).

I'd use MFP initially until you get an idea of what portion sizes and how much in general you can have. It helped me a lot (as mentioned above lost 60lbs doing that).

The only way I maintained my target weight was to keep trying to lose weight! I was eating the exact same healthy low carb meals but I guess my body had adjusted and no more weight was coming off so I maintained. If I introduced unhealthy food then I'd put weight on. It's easy to think that once we get to the golden weight then we will be free from restricted food, but it's not the case (for me anyway!). I know that probably sounds depressing but I eat tasty food so don't feel like I'm missing out too much. I've realised that I'm someone who puts on weight very easily so I will always have to watch what I eat... I do have binge days but then I'm straight back on it.
It's sad but it's the way I have to be... My body can change so much in the space of two weeks if I eat what I want.

Hi OP. The trouble is that this treadmill of dieting and gaining never goes away! I feel for you.

I have been dieting on and off, gaining and losing from ages 17 - 60. In the course if all this I am 3 stones heavier. I was 7st when I started all this food obsession, and was definitely not fat but I felt fat and feel exactly the same level of fat but now I am fat!!

The other day I just thought ENOUGH!

I have devised a plan around the foods I enjoy and can fit into my life (I live alone) and allowed for some treats to stop me bingeing that will always be there, so no dashes to the local shop.

I've done it all. Low carb, SW, WW, calorie counting and I am vaguely still counting calories but not so low I can't sustain it.

Its been an obsession my whole life and am sick of it! Plus it gets really hard the older you get. Good luck.