Morbidly obese but can't stick to diet.

[LEIGH350]

I weigh 25 stone and am almost 60. I have been trying to diet 40 yrs. Sometimes I have lost a stone or two, then I give up, eat normally again, and regain.

It's obvious that I have a slow metabolism but I think that just means I should eat even less and less until I find an intake that causes weight loss.

Despite being pretty much under attack from society 24/7/365, I still don't seem to be able to make myself stick to any diet. It's like there are two of me: the dieter and the rebel, and the rebel always wins.

I am currently supposed to be on Atkins. I keep to it at every meal, but then, whenever I have the impulse to cheat, I pop out (my street has shops) and grab a family sized bag of crisps, a giant bar of chocolate, or a litre of ice cream.

Afterwards I hate myself, feel a failure, sob in bed at night and make plans to re-start tomorrow and be REALLY good, no cheats THIS TIME. All night every night I play MP3s - hypnosis to make you stick to your diet, or hypnotic gastric band. But the next day I cheat.

When I was calorie counting and logging on MFP I allowed myself a treat size chocolate bar every day. I bought a bag of 12 with the intention of having one a day, the whole lot was eaten in 2 hours, so now I never keep treats in the house.

Why do I cheat? I honestly don't know, even after all these years. In the last ten years I have had three lots of eating disorder counselling, lasting about a year each time, trying to get to the bottom of it. None of this has worked.

I resent being told that I must eat only for fuel, whilst everyone around me is using food for pleasure and entertainment ("hey - let's go for a pizza!" and "break open the bubbly!" "ooh, cream cakes - yum!") Friends recount how they enjoyed the eat-all-you-like buffet they had on holiday or at a local Indian (things I never do) then tell me I have to stop overeating. I seethe when I look into the windows of pubs, cafes, restaurants, and see slim people scoffing cakes, pizzas, hot chocolate, muffins, McD's, fry-up breakfasts; I am cross when I see them buying cakes in Gregg's and eating chips in the street, because if I did that I am labelled "naughty" or told I have an eating disorder.

It's taken me ages to realise that it's not what I eat that is the problem. From observing close up the eating habits of my flatmates and friends who come to stay, I don't eat more than the average person. It's the effect it has on my body: clearly, I am still eating too many treats for my particular slow metabolism.

My GP says "lose weight or die young". I've had the same from everyone in my life for the past 30 years and some of them are getting really pissed off with me because they don't think I am taking their advice.

All my stats like BP, cholesterol, etc are good and I am not diabetic. I take no medication. Ironically, many of the slim people who issue these dire warnings to me about my health are themselves on insulin, statins, BP pills, etc, and some who used years ago to warn me about how I was cutting my life short by being overweight have since died of various illnesses, at ages younger than I am now.

GP has made an appt for me to begin the long series of meetings and consultations that lead to a gastric bypass. First appt is in a week.

I have read about this and it is a barbaric mutilation. I have read about several women who died of starvation afterwards. I don't have any digestive issues. Having a bypass causes chronic problems for the rest of life (reflux, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, indigestion, malnutrition). Even if I came out of surgery OK, the thought of never being able to eat a proper meal again for the rest of my life (bypass is irreversible) makes me feel I would rather die young but enjoy my food.

My basic diet is healthy, currently two big bowls of salad a day with mayonnaise and some kind of meat or fish or seafood on top. No sugar, and no wheat. I am also teetotal and I never touch fizzy drinks or sweeteners. But then I ruin it all by having "impulse treats": either sugary (ice cream), wheaty (cake or chocolate biscuits), or a family bag of crisps. I do not keep any of these things in the house - ever. I HAVE to go out and buy them.

Each day I get up with the intention to just have the healthy meals and not to give in to the cheating impulse. Probably 4 days out of 7 I fail.

After 40 years I still cannot work out why I am self-sabotaging my every effort to diet. Especially as I now cannot walk more than 50 metres, get upstairs, and my world has become extremely restricted as I cannot fit into cinema, plane seats etc. Predictably, I am still single. (Yes there are specialist dating sites for men who like obese women but they are fetishists who would sabotage a woman's attempts at dieting.)

I am literally making myself disabled, and un-dateable and I don't know why.

I want to live a normal life, get about and have holidays and a great love life, and yet why oh why isn't even all that proving to be an incentive to stop cheating? I want to live again, but it's like I am not prepared to pay the price of constant deprivation.

I am not sure if this is far too complex an issue for a dieting board made up of people who are just a little bit podgy from baby-weight, but I post in the hope that there is someone else out there who feels the same or is in the same position or has some advice on how to escape from this self-imposed prison.

What exactly do your salads consist of? Literally everything you put in and portion size?

Posting and running right now though I'll rtft later, as this all sounds very 'me'! I was always a secret binger as I had several siblings and parents who would buy very little food, so when I found sweets/cakes/biscuits/crisps I'd eat them despite the bollocking I'd get from the DPs later.

My thyroid crashed when I was 21 and my medication doesn't convert well, so I know my metabolism is sluggish. But I have an extreme junk-food-tooth and I don't help myself. I really relate to not being able to have one chocolate and put the others away!

The main thing I wanted to do was warn you against surgery. If you're fairly healthy aside from weight, it's best to keep persevering. My friend had the gastric sleeve procedure, and though she's lost weight, she can't eat much of anything and her body rejects a lot. She doesn't eat cream cakes or salt and vinegar crisps anymore because she literally can't. She has to take supplements to ensure she's getting enough nutrients, and it's not a reversible procedure, she's stuck with this.

I think for the likes of us, what bodybuilders call a refeed day could be good, but I have't tried it yet. It's when you eat, say, 800 calories 6 days a week, then on the 7th you go crazy and eat literally whatever you want. They say it assists weightloss because the shock of a lot of calories assures the body that it's not going into starvation. It fits with the biological model of humans not always having a plentiful supply of food, and pigging out when they could. It's something I'm reading up on, and think might be good for me psychologically.

But whatever you choose to do, as long as it's non-surgical, I'm happy to join in with you!

Leigh - I know the previous thread you're talking about, and that's not how I remember it at all.
Maybe a third of the posters on that thread said they dieted consciously and the others mainly said they ate stuff like cake and chocolate sometimes, but not regularly in large quantities.

Many posters - I was one of them - said they eat whatever they want, but they don't like eating unhealthy foods, so eat a range of wholesome foods until they're full.

I don't remember a single poster on that thread who said they ate like you described you'd like to eat upthread - a cooked breakfast, pizza for lunch and a takeaway for tea, with sugary snacks as well.

I could be misremembering, but what I took from that thread is that slim people generally eat til they're full, eat healthily and will eat less for a day or two if they eat something huge, like a takeaway.

You seem to want to believe that lots of people eat piles of junk food every day but magically stay slim. I'm sorry but it's not true. There is no magic formula. Slim people - as a general rule - don't eat more calories than they expend.

I'm sorry to see you being so miserable and hope you've managed to take something helpful from this thread. Lots of people are rooting for you. You can do this, and change your eating habits for life, but the only person who can make it happen is you.

I think for the likes of us, what bodybuilders call a refeed day could be good, but I have't tried it yet. It's when you eat, say, 800 calories 6 days a week, then on the 7th you go crazy and eat literally whatever you want. They say it assists weightloss because the shock of a lot of calories assures the body that it's not going into starvation. It fits with the biological model of humans not always having a plentiful supply of food, and pigging out when they could. It's something I'm reading up on, and think might be good for me psychologically.

Actually, I regret posting this as written down it doesn't sound healthy at all!!

Repent

Ishouldcocoa, I am not sure how a candida comes in to the OP's problems? And many of people with Coeliac's disease maintain a healthy weight or loose weight as do people who have a wheat intolerance (rather than allergy)

Sorry, posted too soon: sugar is well recognised to trigger responses in the brain akin to any other 'addiction', as do insulin spikes, sudden blood sugar drops (leading to more sugar cravings).
So coming off refined, added sugars can be a very powerful thing to kickstart feeling more energetic and loosing weight.

Leigh, I lost 6st with WW a few years ago. The method is kind of irrelevant, I found something that worked for me so it was easier to stick with.

What really helped me was some of the psychology behind it and some of the epiphanies I had along the way.

I realised I couldn't eat what I wanted and still lose weight. In fact most people can't and those who are naturally slim tend to self regulate.

I learned I would have to watch what I eat for the rest of my life and actually, I'm ok with that. Now I'm at goal I tend to stay on plan (although use MFP these days) during the week and relax a bit at weekends. I rarely gain and if I do, deal with it immediately.

I learned balance. I could have the cake or the wine but not both if I wanted to lose.

Most of all I learned not to let the occasional blip lead to me writing off the entire week. I got straight back to eating healthily again afterwards without killing myself trying to make up for it and most of the time, still had a loss or at least didn't gain.

I have the same relationship with sugar that you do. It just triggers a binge and I find it easier not to have any. Refusing it becomes habit and most of the time now I rarely think about sugary foods. Certainly not as treats, just as a wasted opportunity to have something better!

You can do this if you want to, you really can. As PPs have said concentrate on the best nutrition you can and forgive yourself.

You're not a failure, good luck.

Repent!

800 calories per day is way too little, and that one binge a day is not going to reassure the body at all.

My nutritionist told me even 1250 a day is madness as body will go into starvation mode then.

Quint - the 8 week blood sugar diet starts off with aiming for approx 800 cals per day for the first 8 weeks. I can honestly say that I NEVER felt hungry during those 8 weeks. The whole idea of only 800 cals put me right off but the recipes are really filling and in fact, I felt I was having more indulgent meals for breakfast and lunch than my "normal" meals. Honest! I didn't feel deprived at all, despite giving up some of my staple foods - pasta, rice, potatoes, bread - altogether - coincided with Lent, I thought I would just try it for a fixed period but I was amazed how little I missed these things I'd been eating day in day out. Substitutes, like cauliflower rice and courgetti instead of spaghetti, really helped. Suddenly, eating my 5 a day was so easy - more like 10 a day, easily. And the weight dropped off - which in itself kept me very motivated.

I still have about 2 and a half stone to lose to be "ideal" weight but have lost about 3 and a half so far. Combination of the diet (and maintenance - essentially, low carb "Mediterranean" style eating) and the fitbit my DH bought me for xmas. That's what kickstarted me into losing weight and I can't recommend fitbit (Other fitness trackers are available ) highly enough. I have also started swimming regularly again which is good for body and mind.

Exercise on its own might not have THAT much impact on weight-loss but it definitely helps you to feel good about yourself. And walks in the countryside / park / wherever definitely help to lift the soul.

OP, would you maybe consider getting a fitbit (or similar) to get you moving more? It really helped to motivate me - slightly to my surprise, i must admit! I get a real sense of achievement from it (meeting my own daily target which I can set myself) and definitely feel MUCH healthier and happier than this time last year.

Oops, sorry! [blush[

FFS

I'm surprised no one here has picked up on the salads the OP says she eats. Op you mentioned you put meat in the salad? And mayonnaise? I don't think they are as healthy as you may imagine.
Salads can be very fattening if it's, a cesar salad for example?

What does it mean to loose a stone? How many pounds is a stone?

One stone is 14 pound

Ten stone would be 140 pounds

Sorry, posted too soon.

25 stone is 350lb

My basic diet is healthy, currently two big bowls of salad a day with mayonnaise and some kind of meat or fish or seafood on top. No sugar, and no wheat. I am also teetotal and I never touch fizzy drinks or sweeteners

You do know that mayonnaise is highly calorific don't you?

How much meat? How much fish? How much seafood?

More than the surface area of a playing card?

www.healthyfood.co.uk/portions-guide/

What kind of salad? Just leaves or a bit more creamy/sauce loaded/'substantial'?

I went for a round of High Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (depression) and, although we only touched on my obesity, it helped me see what I was doing to myself.

The vast majority of the obese don't have thyroid or metabolism issues, we have food issues.

You don't get to 25 stone and maintain that weight without having huge issues - sabotaging your own efforts at maintaining an eating plan is testament to your own.

It's easy to fixate on the weight and not look at the underlying emotions that you're choking down with the food, but you really must keep up with the psychotherapy.

Hi Op, I'm back. I was reading the rest of the replies (especially runninguphills who pretty eloquently explains how thinner people eat) and I think I should probably tell you my whole story and why I think you really need to get counseling before you even think about weight loss.

My mother very much drilled into me the importance of being thin when I was young. To the point I would regularly go through cycles of binge/purge. I couldn't help it, but entire thought process revolved around food and exercise. When I went to uni I lost weight, because I was eating maybe one meal a day (if that) and exercising up to 3 or 4 hours. That's because my mothers words to me before I went were "if you gain weight I'll kill you."

I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression at 21 and started on pills. It helped with the anxiety and depression but it didn't help with the disordered eating. I was about 8.6 stone at 5 foot 6 1/2, and while my BMI was healthy and everyone told me how good I looked, I felt like crap. I was cold all the time, I had no energy (despite forcing myself to exercise 2 or 3 hours a day).

When I met my DH he encouraged me to not be so hard on myself. What followed was me giving up the purging and just binging and no exercise. I went to about 14.8 stone in a year and a bit. I told myself I was eating well and excused away the wine and snacks that went with it. As we neared my wedding and my mother started putting more pressure on me to lose weight I started the binge/purge cycle again. I drank only sugar free redbull for two weeks before my wedding.

After DS and DD I did everything I could to lose weight. Followed every diet, exercised, everything. I would lose and gain, lose and gain. Because I never addressed how much I hated myself or the driving force behind my binging and purging and why I would get so caught up and impulsive about it. I simply couldn't resist my impulses to eat the whole tub of ice cream or the large bag of crisps (or often both). I was just like you.

Finally, after a session at a marriage counselor (because I was so obsessed with losing weight that nothing else mattered), it was suggested that I might have ADHD (not saying this is what you have). I've gotten counseling, been put on meds and spoken to my mother about her comments. Since this, my whole attitude towards food (and myself) has changed. I can stop when I'm full. I don't want to punish myself with junk that ultimately makes me feel sick. I'm not afraid to have a take away because I know it's not the start of some slippery slope.

I'm now about 11.8 stone, still overweight but I'm fit, happy and most of all mentally healthy.

You need to address the self hatred, and the reasons you binge, or you aren't going to be able to stop.

I also agree with others to stop dieting. Dieting does not work.

I hope that helps.

I haven't rtft, but OP, from your latest post, I would say that without what you want to eat changing it is too much to expect of yourself to keep control over what you do eat.

I don't know many people who would want to eat a pizza and doughnuts for lunch and then have a takeaway for dinner even though they would enjoy either of these things on separate days.

If you really stop and think about it, do you enjoy eating a pepperoni pizza (where every mouthful tastes the same) more than say a roast chicken dinner with potatoes, vegetables and gravy (where there is more variety)?

I'm prone to eating a whole packet of biscuits etc., so I never buy them in the first place. With other eating, I try to stop and think before I choose to eat that, because I know that it is easy to be in the habit of just having something to eat for the sake of it and then not really take much notice while I'm eating it, so I can hoover up a big bar of chocolate and barely notice.

Try to be very conscious of everything you eat. I don't mean feeling guilty about it but make sure you are aware you are eating and that you are enjoying it.

Is it really more enjoyable to eat six slices of toast than two?

As long as you think you want to eat vast quantities of stodgy food, no diet will help and will just make you feel worse as every diet eventually fails.

I could have easily gone down the path of eating stodge and far too much of it, but at the point I left home I happened to live with a guy who loved food, loved cooking and his enthusiasm for different flavours etc. really had an impact. Rather than just shovelling food in I started actually tasting what I was eating and realising that I enjoyed all food equally. I still love a pizza or fish & chips, but I don't actually love them more than a dinner of nice meat or fish with a salad or with potatoes and veg.

If you can stop and think before you eat something (especially the 5th cake from the pack) and buy yourself some time you might be able to realise that you don't actually want to eat it, it's just that you have formed a habit to demolish the lot.

I read a book called 'French Women Don't Get Fat' a few years ago. I wouldn't particularly advocate following all of the advice to the letter but it helped change my thinking on a few things, particularly on how to enjoy food and the more you consciously are enjoying eating something, the less chance there is of following it with a rubbish snack.

I think you might be in a bit of a trap of thinking that because your main meals are generally healthy (And by the way, there is nothing wrong with putting meat in a salad) that you 'deserve' or 'can get away with' all the snacks in between. Try to enjoy your main meals as much as possible.

I started using full fat everything (milk, yoghurt, cheese etc.) about a year ago. I haven't put on any weight because my meals are more satisfying now so I'm less likely to snack in the first place.

Bellabelly, fantastic that this is working for you!

"my diet" is about making a change that you can sustain without yo yo ing. I am sure yours is good for you, as otherwise you would not have felt so good and lost so much weight. I could not eat so much veg and invest so much time in cooking, like cauliflower rice.
My diet is good for me because it allows me to eat pretty much as I am used to, with only some modifications to my existing diet. Portion size is key. My weightloss is supposed to be slow, I should not lose more than between 0.5 -1 kg per week. But I reckon this would be different for somebody who has more to lose!

I hope all these success stories will give OP some ideas to try.

I also wonder if OP thinks all the thin people indulge all the time, when she sees them out in restaurants, etc. I think she has caught them at one offs.

My thin friends always decline offers of cookies, and chocolates, snack on carrots and apples, eat salads for supper with tiny thimbles of wine. On occasion when we eat out, they might just order two small starters and a side salad, or they decide to indulge in a bigish meal, but never with both starters and pudding. I can honestly say I have never seen any of my thin friends just eat an ice cream. We are talking ONE biscuit.
I dont have that type of self control myself.

My cousin who is a size 8-10 (and exercise 3-4 times per week) will never have a whole slice of cake, she will split one with her daughter, and her daughter happily eats several slices as her mum never restricts HER, as she is a hungry teen who is practicing lots of sports. For pudding, my cousin will serve up a fruit salad, or a bowl of berries (no sugar), with low fat low calorie vanilla Skyr on the side, or fat free vanilla ice cream. She has always been like this, and has spent her life slim fit and healthy. I wish I had made the same choices myself. Now I think, it is not too late. I can still do it. Whereas I can happily devour nearly a full Manchego cheese (my favourite), she will restrict herself to two slithers and be satisfied.
I think portion control is key.

I hope you dont mind me being a bit blunt, but you may not get the help you need to be successful just from a slimming club or other posters on here. Your local county council will have commissioned some specialist weight management services(probably from the NHS) and they could be a brilliant place to start. To get the specialist weight support (which includes psychological support too) you usually need to be referred by your GP, so its probably worth starting there. If you do it this way, you'll get much more intensive help than any other way, usually with input from a psychologist, oh and its free.

You may have to meet certain criteria eg a certain%age of weight to lose, but it might be worth exploring?