Miserable and overweight

[churchmouse84]

I have finally realised how much weight I have put on.

I don't have scales but my clothes no longer fit and I have an extra roll on my stomach.

I have been a 16 for a long time but now definitely an 18. I got down to a 12/14 about 5 years ago but have put it all back on, and more quickly over the past 12 months

I'm miserable. I eat when I'm miserable, which makes me more miserable.

I feel tired all the time so I eat.

I hate myself but don't know how to stop it.

Please come and give me takes of success and hope.

Whats making you miserable?
Change your routine.
What’s your day like normally and when do you eat most?
Make changes so you’re only eating 3 meals a day and fill in your time doing things that make you feel better, including a bit of exercise. Even if it’s walking.

Have you had a look at the keto diet? I've been doing it for a few months and its been amazing in transforming my mood and I look better too. At first it takes a bit more organisation in cooking but as I've gone along I've got into a routine and its pretty easy now. I'll never go back to how I ate before, I'm feeling so much better in myself. "The Magic pill " is a documentary on Netflix about it and useful podcasts I found on utube were Jason Fung talking about insulin.

I am fat too.
Carbs make me sated, but when blood sugar level drops I feel hungry. I also find myself wandering in to the kitchen when bored or anxious.

I am trying to turn it around at the moment, and have started a vlcd which is really hard but it's also v low carb so once I get past the first 5 days I don't feel hungry any more. I still need to break the 'wandering for food' habit but am trying to do that by having a glass of water every time I enter the kitchen rather than opening the fridge.
I've lost 12lb so far this month, and am sticking to plan rigidly because I want to lose the last 2lb before I weigh myself on Sunday so I can say I've lost a stone in a month.
I feel your pain OP, but if you really concentrate on changing habits you can break the cycle.
I wear a 20, but all the waistbands are too big after less than a month. If I can do this, so can you! Even if you are really strict for a week then revert then are really strict again. One week on one week off, it will start to show quite quickly. Good luck!

Low carb. Change your life

Low carb has had amazing results for me. The first week is very rough but if you can push through it it’s a game changer—I lost four stone since the summer. My skin is better, my energy levels are more consistent, i sleep better, my mind is clearer. It takes a while to get used to and figure out what works for you but I am literally never hungry and the weight loss has been very consistent. I recommend it to anyone who suffers cravings or constantly feels the urge to snack because after the first week those feelings just disappear.

That's amazing thank you.

So good to hear people who've managed to do it.

Carbs is the thing and 'wandering for food'

I need to take charge.

I’m also low carb, high fat, no diet food eating. I’ve lost 2 and a half stone since August, which isn’t amazingly fast, but the most successful and easiest diet I’ve been on.
I’ve tried and failed at WW several times.
Staying out of the kitchen at ‘wandering food time’ (all evening for me)is the key!

I think I can cope with low carb for dinner.

What do you have for breakfast and lunch?

I find increased fat combined with low carb is what works for me. I often don't feel like breakfast (still not hungry from dinner), I will have several big glasses of water. If I'm still hungry about 10ish I'll have roasted veg like aubergine, courgette (not high carb veg) which I have batch cooked then just pop a portion in microwave to heat, I'll have it with two scrambled eggs made with butter and cream. Or two egg and mushroom omelette. A lot of receipts I've found by googling "keto recepies"

Sorry forgot lunch, I make cauliflower mash and have it with nearly everything in place of potatoes, it's lovely. I do chicken with broccoli and green beans in creamy garlic sauce (I found on a keto website) and a lot of sausages are low carb. I also really like red cabbage just boiled in a couple of inches of water and a couple or tablespoons of apple cider vinegar until soft. I serve with olive oil on top.

I'm considering a gastric mind band where you get hypnotized into thinking you have a gastric band, it's expensive but cheaper than an actual gastric band and has a high success rate as it's used in conjunction with other therapies.

Before this, I tried a high fat low carb diet from the dietdoctor website. All went well for several months and I lost a lot of weight and never felt hungry. One day I went out for a family meal and got a taste of carbs and after that I found it hard to get back into ketosis. While I was on it I felt fantastic, my underactive thyroid wasn't a problem, my blood sugars were really good, I had lots of energy and my skin looked fab but what can I say, I secretly missed carbs and stoggy comfort food. So hard to break habits of a lifetime.

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear you fee this way. I can completely relate to it though. My baby is 18 months old and I feel miserable at not being back to my pre pregnancy weight. I set goals in my head but then don't meet them. I go to the gym 3 times a week but then eat chocolate undoing all the hard work. I feel disgusting and hate the way I look.

Another one advocating keto / HFLC. I've been doing it a long time now and it is just a way of life. I hate hearing of 'carb zombies' - no energy, constantly craving food, miserable - and worse that people dismiss this way of eating as a fad.

I will never go back to eating high carbs, it just wouldn't be worth the zombie feelings returning. I am very lean - especially for my age, have a life free from food cravings, am never ill (not even had a cold since starting it), can work like a trooper, don't procrastinate as much , and generally feel great.

If you have never tried it, you need to give it bare minimum a month because it can take that long for the sugar/starch cravings to clear up completely, but aim for 3 months minimum because in that time you start to see your body heal itself in different ways, e.g. menstrual cycle

If you challenge yourself to do LCHF properly (not just at dinner ;-) you will see that all of this 'wandering' is nothing to do with your willpower. Its biology.

The more carbs you eat, the more cravings you get as your blood sugar levels bounce up when you eat, then an hour or so later crash and your cravings appear again. Eliminate the blood sugar issue by cutting radically down on the carbs and the cravings 'magically' disappear.

Except its obviously not magic. The body is designed for it.

However, in saying that, if you have been carb heavy for many many years, it will play hell with you for the first few weeks because it wants an instant hit of glucose like you have been giving it for years. You will feel crap for a week while it adjusts. But adjust it will !

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/low_carb_bootcamp

Bloody 100's of recipes, support and help on this section.

This is all great, thank you.

Will definitely seek out those recipes. I sense December isn't the time to give up carbs completely but if I can get into the habit of cooking low carb for some meals, it should be easier.

I'm back to running 5k so if I can do that 3 times a week that should help. I really notice my weight now I'm running though, compared to when I was 3 stone lighter!

I think you are either in or out with HFLC.

High fat and high carbs is the lethal combination for weight gain and health. I wouldn’t recommend you tiptoe into it. Research it and see what you are committing to.

If you have at low carb some of the time you also need to b low fat ie not the Keto recipient that are high fat. High fat high carb you'll end up putting weight on.

LCHF works but you need to be strict.

I agree. Lchf doesn't work part time. It's all or nothing I'm afraid. If you're eating high fat some of the day/days and add carbs on to that, the plan won't work. You either need to commit wholeheartedly, find another WOE that suits you better or put losing weight off until another time. But, as you already feel miserable and overweight, putting it off isn't going to do your mood or your weight gain any good. Please don't use the "not a great time" excuse. There's never a great time really.

The reason you can't half-commit is that your body is quite an interesting machine. It will take carbs as energy as priority because it is the fast burning energy, but what you are doing when you limit carbs is forcing it to start using fat as an energy source (ketosis) and if you have 'just enough' carbs to give it energy, the fat in the food will literally go into your body and be stored as fat cells.

The whole point of limiting carbs is to make your body use the fat it has stored for energy, rather than the quick hit of the carbs.

There is lots more to this than the above but hopefully you get the picture of why half hearted is not a way forward.