The Giving Up Diets For Good Support Thread 1

[WhatWouldOliviaPopeDo]

Lately there have been a few threads lately from Mumsnetters who are either desperate to get off the treadmill of dieting, or who have already made the decision to quit but are struggling to eat normally again after depriving themselves for so long (like this one and this one). A few of us agreed that a dedicated thread to those giving up dieting was worth setting up, so here it is. We've put it in Weight Loss Chat because it most likely place for people to find us because, let's face it, it's trying to succeed and failing at weight loss that has brought us to this point.

This thread is a place for people to seek support from others in the same boat. It is NOT a thread on which to recommend diets. However well-meaning your intentions may be by doing that, please understand that the reason we are all on this thread is because we've reached the point where we know diets simply don't work for us and we are looking for another way to maintain our health and overcome the psychological issues that years of dieting and disordered eating has inflicted upon us. If anyone persists in promoting diets, we shall - in the nicest possible way! - ask you to remove your post or get MNHQ to do it for us.

Sorry, I mentioned calorie restricting and I know it sounds like I'm back on the dreaded diet train but I promise I'm really really not. The calorie guide is to ensure I eat more not less in order to address my issues with food and the 5 a day thing is to ensure I feel nourished and not deprived. It's basically anti-restriction, it's about ensuring I'm eating enough and getting the nourishment I need to stave off the binge cravings.

The tracking my food is a bit of a pain and feels very diety but hopefully that's just for a few weeks until my clinic appointment, she has said it's short term and the app discourages weighing and measuring etc, it's just like 'brown bread - 2 slices' rather than '140g slice of brown seeded loaf etc etc' so it's very easy to use and limited, so you can't enter things accurately. That's weirdly a good thing because you can't get obsessive and it's more like a diary than a tracker iyswim.

God Messy you poor thing. That sounds so awful for you. But your practice nurse sounds really good and aware. And the dietitian.

The info about the calories needed is something that I came across on Rebelfit last year. Obese people like us need way more calories just to exist. When we try and cut back to what WW/SW/MFP tell us we need we try to comply and our brain and body goes into overdrive and we binge.

I get a daily email from Rebelfit now (am not promoting them honest,) - today’s one was about mountains. His theory is that diets/healthy eating plans etc want us to be 100% on track from day one. Which is the top of the mountain. We fail. Then we binge or give up. Then we start again the next Monday. And so on. He recommends eating as you are eating and gradually introduce th healthier choices. So we climb the mountain slowly. If you’d like to read it PM me your email address and I’ll send it to you.

I really wish you well. And I’m glad you seem to have great support from the dietician and nurse. Be nice to yourself. You deserve that. And a big hug!

Oh and you are not really calorie restricting. You are aiming to get the amount of calories your body NEEDS.

I’ve been told to avoid any eating plan that’s branded as a general rule of thumb so thanks for the offer but I’ll pass on rebelfit :)

Practice nurse and dietician are both really on the ball, nurse has called me today to see how I am after lst week which was lovely.

Fish and chips for tea tonight, take that dieting

Hey Messy, thanks so much for coming back and updating us. What a week you've had! But as Cider says, your nurse's emergency response was AMAZING and it sounds like you're in excellent hands between her and the dietician. That you managed to put a halt to the bingeing to summon help is a massive step forward in itself and you should be proud of how you're handling all this, because clearly it isn't easy and there's some serious deep-rooted stuff you've got to overcome. I appreciate this thread may not be the healthiest place for you either right, if you're to avoid all talk of diets, but I do hope you'll pop back and let us know how you're getting on. We're all rooting for you as much as we're rooting for ourselves!

By the way, I didn't read it at all as you having to do calorie counting/restriction for the time being - I saw those figures and went, yep, that's what normal eating looks like!

I get that Messy and it was the analogy I was trying to get across rather than .rebelfit itself. That the diet industry sells us the plans and we have to start at the top of the mountain. At 100% perfect. And it’s unsustainable so we don’t. Which leads to binges. At the moment you need a nice gentle walk on the flat! You need to maintain your equilibrium after getting off the rollercoaster. You’ll get there. It sounds like you have great support.

Take care.

I'm glad they were helpful Messy. You are doing so well. Thank you for sharing.

I've been so so. I spooned chocolate spread out of the jar today, and my fruit and veg intake has been pretty low!

I'm struggling with my running at the moment. Each run feels so hard and I'm really slow at the moment.

I'm trying to eat normally again after so much chocolate over Easter.

Hi everyone. I'm new to the thread and don't know you messy but I'm so glad you had a good experience with nurse etc. So often we are let down by services when we really need them so it's great to hear about a positive experience. Good luck to you.

I had an interesting experience on Sunday, my partner and I were celebrating something with lunch out, nothing posh but it was lovely. I overate, and felt really uncomfortable and disappointed with myself. But in the afternoon I tried hard, whenever I noticed myself going into self-criticism, regret, shaming etc, to just focus on the physical sensations. I tried just to notice what it felt like in my body - not my mind - to have eaten more than I needed. It really helped me get out of the self attacking. And hopefully helped my bodymind remember how much I don't like those sensations.

Thanks for your update Messy, it's good to read of such a positive response as that from the Practice Nurse recognising the depth of your situation when you contacted her. I hope that things are going well for you.

It's been a while since I posted.

I started to panic about the summer months, and feeling constantly overheated and bloody miserable with it as I have for the past couple of years.
I'm in my 50s and experiencing hot flushes too and it's awful. I know that if I wasn't so overweight (approx 6st) I wouldn't feel so horrible during the warmer months.

Anyway this led to a panic and feeling that I had to lose weight as fast as possible before the weather gets much warmer.
So I hunted around for yet another diet. I tried a method that's been around for decades, that I remember my mum doing back in the 1970s but it's just about the only form of dieting that I've never tried. Convinced myself it would 'work'.

Needless to say, I stuck to it for two days then totally rebelled and went on a binge that lasted for a week.
I also gained two pounds which is typical for me after any diet attempt. I've been dieting for nearly 40 years now and every single time I end up heavier than before I started.
And when I started dieting in my teens I didn't need to lose weight, I just had curves and felt uncomfortable about them.

I'm currently re-reading Brain Over Binge and have just downloaded the Sandra Aamodt book recommended by Tufted. It's currently £4.53 on Kindle if anyone's interested.
I'm going to start reading it this afternoon.

Apologies, this is a huge post. Just needed to get it out there!

Some lovely resources here about emotional eating:
growinghumankindness.com/inner-protector/?utm_source=Mailing+list&utm_campaign=4952d039cc-newsletter-overeating-180419&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_26919b46f9-4952d039cc-75605265&mc_cid=4952d039cc&mc_eid=eb8b8f1426

I’m new to this thread although I read some of it back in March and it really resonated with me.

I’ve been trying to be kind to myself - both physically and mentally - and give up punishing myself through diets. I’m tired of the punishment. I want to respect my body and my mind. I want to treat myself well and reach optimum health as a sort of side effect of giving up disordered eating / thinking.

However I’m wobbling this week. My jeans feel a bit tighter and I can recognise the old thought patterns creeping back - self disgust, regret, dreading hot days and holidays because I don’t want to show any flesh, desperate for a ‘solution’ (diet). I don’t like my partner to see me naked. I hate this aspect of my mental state more than anything.

I need to come back from the brink before I allow the whole diet treadmill to take over again.

I really believe diets don't work.

Re. bingeing, there's a good book I've read Binge No More by Joyce Nash. Some great strategies.

I am eating in a more structured way - breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, just as the book suggests. I'm enjoying food; I'm eating better; I'm not hungry. I'm focusing on life rather than "thinness"!

I was debating whether to post as a) I'm a rubbish mumsnetter and rarely come on here and b) everyone's path is different and I'm not sure how helpful sharing mine will be. But after reading through the thread I've had a few aha moments and I think writing my thoughts down may help me clarify where I'm at.

The bit about the 'animal' brain and the 'higher' brain really resonated with me. Except mine isn't an animal, it's the stoppy, selfish, rebellious brat side of me that I should have outgrown long ago but insists on hanging around. So first things first, I'm going to focus on controlling the brat and ignoring her as she has no positive contribution to make to my life.

Secondly, whilst I love the idea of eating mindfully (I read and really engaged with Paul McKenna's book 'I can make you thin' - awful title, fabulous book - a number of years ago) I realised that I approach this the same way as a diet, ie. "tomorrow I will start eating mindfully and will do this, this and this". My brat brain recognises this as diet mentality and immediately starts to persuade me to rebel against it. I'm going to think about this further and consider how to overcome this mindset.

I think there's a lot of fat-shaming happening at the moment, cost of obesity to the NHS etc. Whilst I'm not dismissing this, I don't think this approach is helpful. According to my BMI I'm obese, yet I don't drink, I don't smoke and I'm active and I haven't visited my doctors for anything other than mastitis in the last 20 odd years, so I'm not costing the NHS anything. The post upthread about how obese people can be as healthy as 'normal' weight people was really helpful, thank you. I'm not going to be made to feel guilty about my weight anymore.

Finally, I think the key (for me) lies in body positivity. Really learning to love and accept my body at the weight I am now and also accepting the fact that I may never lose weight. I've already started this process by giving all my too small clothes to charity and buying new clothes in my current size (as opposed to the size I want to be). I'm making an effort to look in the mirror and focus on my positives. I've started running again, not as a weight loss tool, but because I really enjoy that feeling of getting stronger and fitter and it's my perfect 'me time'. I'm also actively trying not to be self-conscious during sex with DH and just focus on the moment rather than worrying about what I look like as I'm pretty sure he doesn't care as long as we're both enjoying ourselves

Anyway, just wanted to say thank you to the OP for such a thought provoking thread and good luck to everyone finding their paths.