Help! I have diet fatigue

[Dietordietrying]

I've NC for this one, as I want fresh perspective.
I'm really suffering from diet fatigue and want to know if anyone's ever lost weight and kept it off without following a structured paid-for diet (ie, WW and SW), or strict calorie counting, fasting, etc?
I know deep down those kind of diets don't work in the long term – far too many people regain all the weight (and more) for them to be a resounding success (you've only got to read these boards to know that!) – so I don't want to attempt another. I have been been using an app to track my calorie intake (My Net Diary, which I find more user friendly than MFP) but it's not helping me get to the root of WHY I'm overweight, which is that I eat mindlessly when I'm bored/hungover/happy/sad/any excuse. I'm so sick of thinking about food and weight though. I've been dieting since I was 15 and I'm now 45. That's THIRTY YEARS of this shit and I've had enough.
However, if I give up and decide to embrace my current weight (which at 13 stone is 1.5 stone over what the charts say is healthy and I'm 5ft 8) and ditch the scales, I respond by eating anything I can lay my hands on, which is what I've been doing all this week.
Is there another way to manage a healthy weight? I'm open to anything except doing another sodding diet!

[Arapaima]

Hi OP. In response to your questions: I assume I haven’t gained weight as my clothes feel about the same. I can’t be sure, as I genuinely haven’t weighed myself for months. I haven’t chucked the scales out, but I’ve just got out of the habit of using them - this is a person who used to weigh herself every day!

I’m not really reconciled to being this size. I would still love to lose weight, but I am glad to have got off the yo-yo dieting cycle of losing and gaining. It is more relaxing not being on a diet, but I still have days of overeating and feeling cross with myself. (I guess if I didn’t have those, I might actually lose some weight!) So the equivalent of ‘breaking my diet’ in the old days has been replaced by just knowing that I have eaten more than I need to.

I’m not really tempted to go on a diet again, in the sense of a recognised eating plan like WW, Atkins, 5:2 etc (all things I’ve tried in the past), but I haven’t lost hope in sorting out my head (mindfulness or similar) and dealing with the root cause of my food issues. Maybe that will be what I’ll achieve in the next 12 months!

Good luck OP.

[Dietordietrying]

Thanks for answering my questions, Arapaima. When I've been between diets before, I've never been satisfied with how I look and that's what I want to change this time, because that's what panics me into dieting again. I've just downloaded the Embrace documentary from iTunes, which is about an Australian woman who gave up dieting and learned to love her body. I hear it's really empowering. Like you, I want to sort out my head before I freak out again about my hips.

Have you read trees post too? That's how I dream of being with food. I guess what I'm realising is that this isn't going to be an overnight change, that I need to see it as a long-term thing. I'm really, really glad I posed now though - everyone has been SO helpful and I'm feeling encouraged again.

[Dietordietrying]

Posted, not posed!

[DianaT1969]

The decision making around food is exhausting. That's why lchf works for me. I buy approx the same food each week - fish, seafood, eggs, ham, bacon, cheese, cream, berries, avocado, tomatoes, courgettes, broccoli, celeriac, steak, chicken, mushrooms, peppers, spinach, lidl protein rolls toasted, haloumi, 85% dark choc.
That's what I eat... ALL the time. Including packed lunches and the same when out for dinner.
Plus the occasional soya latte.
I feel free. No decision making or beating myself up. I'm never hungry and am steadily losing 1lb per week. My food is delicious and I don't feel deprived. Have lost 16lb with about 10lb to go. I'll never go back to a high carb/high sugar diet. I'll maintain with a few more varieties of veg, fruit, nuts, sauces etc. I know what I ate that caused my weight gain - and it wasn't large portions. It was carbs and prosecco 😄

[Dietordietrying]

Yep, it really is exhausting DianaT1969. Well done for finding a way that works for you and that's freed you up from obsessing about calories and counting. I think that's why I'm so loathed to follow another "formal" diet, so to speak. I can't bear the idea of following someone else's rules about what I should put in my body, whereas it sounds like you've worked out what works for yours all on your own.

[fishonabicycle]

www.eatlikeanormalperson.com

Read this. It's very sensible.

[Dietordietrying]

It's a great website, fish. Thanks!

[PippinOrange]

So here was my approach. I didn't have a goal to lose weight but to get in touch with my natural appetite and have a normal healthy relationship with food. I regarded it as a long term strategy and accepted that I would fail at times and this was ok and part of the process, and not a reason to have recrminations against myself and give up.I did not exclude any foods from my diet (as my goal was to have a stress free attitude to food). I set a structure around what I ate. This was, I ate three meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The goal of this was, long term, to learn to recognise hunger and to know when I was sated and could therefore stop eating.
It took about over a year at least, But I now do have an unstressy relationship with food

So agree - and has been my approach for 2 months now. Have lost some weight, modest but real. Haven't been hungry. Am less up-and-down with everything, and am generally more relaxed. Have gradually made some good changes too, including dropping sweetener!

However last couple of days its all gone out the window. I'm tired, unwell, and probably the cold is also making me hungry. I've eaten so much more than usual! Like Tallesttree says I'm gonna try and not beat myself up about it, and get back on course. Its a lifetime thing. I would love to be slimmer, and I hope I get there, but would like to do it in as relaxed, healthy way as possible.

[Dietordietrying]

That's so encouraging to read, Pippin, thank you. I'm guessing that the difference for you now, having done so well for two months, is that you know these few days of additional eating are a blip as opposed to you failing at a diet. I really want to be in that mindset! If you don't mind me asking, what got you doing this in the first place? Was it because you were fed up with dieting too? I'm coming across so many women who are reaching that point after decades of obsessing about their weight.

[PippinOrange]

Yes DietTrying I was fed up with diets. I have tried them all. Literally. And I think they are all flawed. And the "diet on" / "diet off" yo-yo mentality obviously can create havoc with your health, your personality, and your wardrobe.

Since then, I have felt more comfortable around food. Even made a cake and ate some of it on my birthday (something I'd never normally do I'd be so terrified!). But of course I still have the tendencies and habits I had before and these require time to change so I think we have to be patient and the first-port-of-call is never denial but to treat ourselves well.

Its still a process though and still work-in-progress for me. Its like a discipline and a liberation, all at the same time. Perhaps after a year one is more established and the gradual changes become second nature. Very recently I gave up artificial sweetener (because I've read it still plays havoc with your insulin levels, so you may as well have sugar!).

I shudder when I see the threads on Very Low Calorie Diets or drastic lets lose a stone in a month diets. As well as water they also make you lose muscle in higher proportion to fat, compared to a more moderate approach. Who would want to do that - where you are doing something that will actually make you fatter in the long term? Intermittent dieting, at least when done to an extreme can have negative hormone consequences for women. Very Low carb diets can make you depressed and also "bingey". And so forth. I can never "do" diet rules and plans made by other people either, just Zzzzz at the thought, and I find I am then too focused on food.

Of course it would be nice to lose a stone for my Summer holiday swimsuit. But you know, if I don't, I'm still beautiful, I'm still me. Viva!

I wish you every luck in your future plans.

[Dietordietrying]

I agree with everything you say about diets Pippin. They are all flawed and most, if not all, leave you off in a worse state than when you started. Maybe not straight away but certainly a few months down the line when you find the rules impossible to sustain.

Your post gives me such hope though. I want to be where you are now and eventually where Tallesttree is. I'm not underestimating how hard it might be at first and how, like you, I've got ingrained habits that might trip me up. But I'm really excited to be starting and I've never said that about starting a conventional diet before!

[MakeMineADoubleGin]

I could almost be you! I first started "dieting" in my early 20s when at uni and the diet of pizza and beer started creeping up on me. Atkins was the first thing I tried, in combination with exercising like mad.
That said, I'd never been comfortable with my body, being one of those girls who hit puberty around 11-12 and ridiculously self-conscious about it.

I went to weight watchers with my mum when I was about 25 I think; I'd hit 15 stone (and I'm 5'4", and squeezing into 18s, I was really a 20) and got down to about 11 stone. I'm now 40 and have bounced around between 10 and 12 stone for the last 15 years.

I've done WW, SW, Atkins, Harcombe, calorie counting, the Body Coach 3 month plan, the blood type diet, GI diet, Carol Vorderman's detox thing...blah blah blah. Always the same pattern. I do ok for a while, lose about a stone and then get bored/complacent.

So...yes! I feel you with the diet fatigue. I am fed up of my relationship with food. I don't even know how I got this way. I KNOW enough about portion sizes, nutrition, exercise, etc...but I can't seem to maintain at the size I want to be, which is a comfortable 10-12.

I'd love it to be 'automatic' and have some more indulgent things when I fancy them but instinctively cut back when I've had those treats. I am working on it and I don't know that I'll ever actually get there. However I did have some hypnotherapy from a friend who's a trained practitioner - she's given me some tools to use to help me address willpower, cravings, listening to my body/tummy...and also being kinder to myself.

I am on weight watchers at the moment, but this is more to give me a bit of structure and a challenge...and I'm already fed up with it. But I'm using it in conjunction with some of those hypnotherapy techniques and I think I am getting somewhere this time. Yes it is steady and slow, and I have blips but I'm only a stone from where I want to be, and I feel like I will get there...and be able to stay around there more easily.

[Dietordietrying]

Oh MakeMineADoubleGin, your story is exactly the same! So many years of putting yourself through the wringer to lose weight.

One point in particular really struck home reading your post - I KNOW enough about portion sizes, nutrition, exercise, etc... This is what has baffled me most about myself: I know everything there is to know about losing weight, so this should be easy, right?! Except I've forgotten how to eat normally. You should read the posts by Tallesttree and Pippin if you haven't already, as they are really inspiring. Yesterday I ate three normal meals without fussing about carbs, protein, calories, fat etc and I ate what I wanted and I felt full up enough that I didn't need or even want to snack in between. It was a nice sensation!
Incidentally, what sparked this post was signing up for WW at the weekend in a fit of self-loathing. Because they don't offer a free trial, I bought a month's subscription. But on setting up my account I took one look at the food diary and burst into tears because I knew I couldn't bear to put myself through another go. WW have been lovely and let me cancel and refunded my money. I just thought there has to be another way, hence my post. I'm SO glad I did it!

[PippinOrange]

I'm glad WW refunded you Diet .

It is still work-in-progress of course for me, but I am going to try and approach things in this way for a year and see what happens and how I feel about things then. Weight myself once a month or so. Keeping everything as relaxed, simple and intuitive as possible. When I do this, I notice I often make better choices naturally and without much thought or internal drama!

As I said I had a couple of days where I over-indulged as was feeling unwell. Last night I had some crisps at the end of the evening as part of this - really they didn't taste that nice to my surprise. Because (I think) my body didn't want them, wasn't 'hungry' for that or anything really. I am noticing that if I genuinely enjoy my food that is usually a sign that I'm eating the right thing. If I don't or only partly, it usually means it wasn't what I needed or wanted deep down. It was just habit or something else.

Onwards and upwards. I really don't want to be continuing the diet struggle and I hope in a year's time things will be better and clearer. Its really just time to do the right thing for my body and accept (and if I can embrace) the reality that my body is.

[Dietordietrying]

I definitely need to get out of the habit of weighing myself too often. Every month sounds like something to aim for. I'm not feeling well myself today and that combined with weighing myself means I've made rubbish food choices today. But, and this is where it feels different, I'm not beating myself up about it. Progress!