I’m obsessed with food and need help…..

[CutiePatooties]

It’s all I think about! I wake up and need a breakfast, then I’m trying to stop myself eating until I cave in and snack around 10am, then I have lunch and dinner by 4pm then I’m hungry in the evening and go for snack upon snack etc etc.

I’m obese and 38.5 BMI. I have two girls and have to set a good example but I just can’t stop wanting food. If we go somewhere I’m thinking ‘what can I eat here?’ It’s out of control!

I’ve asked to see the GP but they keep pushing back my telephone consultation as it’s not deemed urgent. What can I do to help myself? (Outside of diet and exercise, as I try for a bit and it doesn’t last).

are there any groups or classes I can join? Any apps to help the mentality behind my eating? Anyone been through this and have advice please?

I know diet and exercise are the things that I need to change but before I can do that, I need to change my mindset. I don’t know how to do this.

Have you tried wegovy or any of those weight loss meds? With me they just curbed my appetite so i wasn’t hungry all the time. Like you I was perpetually hungry before, some people I think are just made that way x

Prepare some healthy snacks and have a water container.

When you are hungry..
firstly drink water, or tea.
eat celery, carrot sticks, lettuce, cucumber, bell peppers, hard boiled egg, raw beans, snap peas.

Never buy sweet biscuits, sugar and lollies.
Buy only wholemeal bread and crackers.
Try not to snack between meals.
Eat and drink more slowly and reduce your portion sizes.

There is no magic wand. You have to eat less.
There might be a medication that your GP could give you.

Have hobbies on the go. Do you like watching TV, walking around neighbourhood with dog, jumping on the trampolene?

Similar here, OP. I think the Noom app is good for mindset changes.

Your situation sounds like wegovy would help. I'd also try to switch to as natural foods as possible.

In the meantime, before you get ozempic/wegovy, if you mix about 7 grams of psyllium husk in 24 grams of water and mix it with a protein yogurt, you'll be full for ages. Promise.

Thank you everyone.

I’ll take a look at Wegovy and Noom.

I really rate Slimpod.

This is me, it feels like a serious addiction. I am 43, I wonder if its Perimenopause. But the food noise for me is UNREAL. Its ALL I can think about morning afternoon evening and everything in-between. I am always hungry. Its SOOO unreal, has me feeling so depressed. I want to curb hunger naturally. Im trying ACV and Psyllium Husk. ACV works for an hour or so. PH doesn't seem to be working

Any other tips ladies?

I woke up with all good intentions. Downloaded Noom, ate a healthy breakfast of poached egg on a protein bagel. Then felt crap about myself and bored at home, feeling very deflated and I’ve eaten 5 crème eggs (the mixed box of 2 crème eggs, 2 caramel eggs and one white crème egg) then had a slice of chocolate caramel cake.

I do wonder if I need antidepressants, as I’m sat here thinking I can’t be bothered to do anything but ear or sleep (baby naps at 2pm so I can sleep then). I don’t want to go out of the house or workout or anything. Hate feeling like this and the crap I’ve eaten hasn’t helped and never helps yet I still eat it and all in one go, as a binge eat.

No one really particulary wants to workout at first, but it sounds like you need to, to offset your boredom, snacking and appetite. A lot of people feel like the hunger is staved off for a good while after exercise. And don't a lot of GP's advocate trying exercise before they dish out anti-depressants?

Could you start off going for a walk when the cravings hit? And don't have the crap in the house in the first place. If the craving gets so bad you have to go to the shop for it, walk. earn it at least, but most likely, after a walk, you won't want it. I exercise to keep me on track with my diet, I dont want to eat crap and undo what I've done in my classes.

Also, up your protein, and drop out the sugars, that will help with the cravings too.

If you’re hungry, eat.

you need to stop trying to starve yourself because then when you cave you are probably binge eating.

it’s not about the amount you’re eating it’s WHAT you’re eating.

Snacks to keep with you to have throughout the day:
boiled eggs
celery/pepper/cucumber/carrot sticks with hummus or tzatziki
fruit
nuts and seeds
yoghurt

see your body as a car and the food you’re putting in it as the petrol. If you keep going round to the cheapest garages with bad quality petrol your car won’t work properly or get far. If you use the good quality petrol, your car will run for longer and better.

drink lots of water.

get yourself out for a small walk each day. Start with 10 minutes round the block and slowly build it up. You will 100% see the benefit with your mental health and it will motivate you.

I've no direct experience with it, but sounds Ike Ozempic would be a good fit for you based on what you have described and what I've read (mostly on here) about it.

If that's not possible/obtainable, have you considered intermittent fasting? Lots of us have had great success with it. I think the firmness of the rule of "I can't eat now" or "I can eat now" is helpful for cravings as once you've accustomed to it, your brain stops turning to food constantly.

Do you work? Or have hobbies?
What is your daily routine like?

I work two days a week and after those two days I weigh myself and I’ve lost 2 pounds. Every other day I’m at home and I have no hobbies, don’t go anywhere as we live in a rural area and he has my car, so I can’t get out. Well, I could walk up to the highstreet but with no money I’d feel a bit silly.

so I’m at home stuck indoors with a toddler Monday-Wednesday. Work Thursday and Friday then all at home Saturday and Sunday just eating. Kids and husband are all healthy weights and sizes. I’m a big fat blob.

Get your car back. That’s important. Self-respect.

You need wegovy. And to drink 2lts of water a day.

This sounds quite normal to me, I also think about food a lot especially when bored, I’ve always assumed that having a more or less constant background food-related noise/chatter is how the majority of people feel, no?

One way to deal with it is to avoid having crap food at home, why have crème eggs available if you want to lose weight? It’s torture. Another way is to find stuff to do when bored - work, going for a walk, exercise, read, find a hobby, learn something new…

You could try Bodyslims? It definitely works on your head and gets you into a better mindset.
It takes quite a bit of time, you have to walk for 1 hour a day and listening to an online seminar of between 1-2 hours each week. You also have to weigh and log everything you eat. But it works! And in my own experience it really does break the psychological dependence on food.
(if its psychological, that is. If you comfort eat it should work for you, but if you actually feel real hunger then maybe the medications would work better).
It’s quite an expensive course, but I think it is worth it personally.

If you live in a rural area could you just take the kids out for a walk, collect sticks etc? Try a super high protein breakfast even if that means sitting down to something you would normally think of as dinner. Try to get minimum 40g in.

You need a bicycle, a child seat and a hobby you can take the bairn along to.

Do you have any of the symptoms for ADHD? There has been quite a lot of recent research linking ADHD to obesity, and addiction in general. There is a great podcast called the ADHD women’s wellbeing podcast and there is an episode dedicated to overeating and ADHD.

The only reason I mention it is the 5 crème eggs you spoke about. No one could ever be hungry enough to eat 5 in a row, but it sounds like you were fixated on the sugar element and ate them all. That sounds much more a mental issue with food than a hunger issue.

also please don’t feel shame, it sounds like you’re struggling a bit, and sugar is very effective at giving people a dopamine hit. That has nothing to do with willpower. You’re definitely not a fat slob!

Before I lost weight I definitely did things like eat three crème eggs in a row or a multi pack of crisps. Not every day but if you do that a few times a week I think it's enough on its own to make you gain weight.

If I'm honest part of me could still do that. I could order a pizza right now and eat all of it and I would really enjoy it. It's just that at some point the downside became intolerable for me.

I could eat a box of 5 eggs easy. I've eaten and 8 pack of cornettos in a day before too 🤷‍♀️

You need to get your blood glucose stable op, and resolve any insulin resistance, and get your ghrelin and leptin working as they should. These are the hunger/fullness hormones. I could eat shite endlessly until I did.

Unfortunately this requires a desire to make changes, and the willpower to ride it out while doing so.

You'd have to go cold turkey on sugar.

Murnjaro is another weight loss drug like ozempic and wegovy. It helps with the cravings and stops you thinking about found. It sounds like it would help you.

This all sounds so familiar when my dc were young. Honestly nothing will be solved with how you eat unless you are able to improve how you feel about yourself. For so many of us, we eat to numb our internal critic who is always telling us how unworthy we are.

i am working on that internal stuff but in the meantime here is what I have done:

i got serious about bingeing. It doesnt have to be complicated to fix, but you need to deal with it.

I can really recommend:

• having a good think about what happens when you binge and what practical steps can you do to avoid it?

• what happened when you made a bad food decision, what do you need in place to make food decisions?

• when did you make a good decision? How can you celebrate that and replicate it?

Secondly get into books, podcasts, YouTube on binge eating. Podcasts particularly are an easy thing to listen to last thing at night or whilst doing another activity that can fill you with practical ways to prevent bingeing.

I really recommend brain over binge and progress not perfection with Allen Standing. They are very accessible resources.

Ditch the Diets book has also been hugely impactful.

This is what I did to help manage bingeing and it helped. I just filled my brain with people speaking supportive helpful advice- there are so many excellent podcasts out there. For free. And you can listen to them while you do housework or the baby naps.

after I managed to curb the bingeing on junk, I tried to re haul my diet. This has been years and years of small tweaks - listening to audios books about food and nutrition downloaded free from the libby library app Which helped me learn about what sort of things I should be eating and see food as a tool for health and well being. Over a number of years I have slowly changed what I eat and it’s made a great difference.

id recommended the Zoe nutrition podcast.

dont try to change everything right now, just commit to listening to something every day for the next couple of weeks and see Where that gets you.

I don't think it's wise to keep recommending these drugs. The op needs to fix the issues of why she does what she does and make changes that will stick for life. Masking all that with drugs won't help her once she comes off them and piles the weight back on. It would most likely just be an expensive waste of time.

Could you work more? Staying at home with kids isn’t for everyone, it’s boring and isolating, especially when you can’t get out. Food probably gives you an emotional boost. I don’t think dieting will work if your situation doesn’t change.