How do slim people stay so motivated?

[bleakprewinter]

I have at least 20kg to lose but I just can’t stop eating too much. I’ve been out on antidepressants and had some counselling but I just end up saying the right things so I don’t have to attend anymore. Every day I have multiple treats, because they’re there or because I buy them. Even if I don’t have them in the house I will go to the shop and buy them. I was so good on holiday but when I was alone I ate the biscuits and nice stuff we had bought.
I can't seem to say no to food. Sat in a meeting today and someone brought some chocolate in, I held off for a bit but eventually ate a bar (despite having had yogurt and fruit and a pastry for breakfast, a huge sausage role and some fruit for lunch… and then had homemade curry and rice and wine for tea) even though the other women around the table said they wouldn’t as they had sweets yesterday/have an event next week etc.
I just don’t know how people eat “normally”, I just can’t stop myself but I can’t keep piling on the weight and being even more unhappy with how I look.

I will echo what others have said, you're eating absolute crap, which makes you feel like crap, and want to eat more crap. Read Ultra Processed People. It isn't a stick to beat yourself with, but it really helped shift my mindset with what I was putting in my mouth. The biggest thing for me was cutting out sweeteners. It totally closes off the food noise and constant hunger.

I plan every meal every day. During the week, I eat the same breakfast and almost the same lunch, every single day. Tea is something different, but it is freshly cooked and nutritious with lots of colours across vegetables. I eat a rainbow diet most days, very little beige food. The planning takes away the thought process, I know what I can have to eat, and that is it. I plan in a snack when I know I get a dip (when I get home from work usually). I don't have any bulky carbs at lunch time or breakfast, just what is in the vegetables.

I don't eat fruit, it is empty calories for me and makes me want more sweet stuff.

Don't necessarily focus on weight loss, focus on looking after yourself. Is a sausage roll for breakfast going to nourish your body? No, it isn't. You only get one body, look after it or it will all just go to shit. My mum is nearly losing her eyesight due to type two diabetes. She was warned repeatedly, and insisted she would make the necessary lifestyle changes. She didn't. Now she's petrified she's going to be blind. Yet she continues to scoff Magnum ice-creams two at a time and a whole host of other rubbish every day. It may not motivate her to look after her body, but it sure does motivate me!

Agree with other posters. I don't eat pastries, bread, desserts because I just don't eat those sorts of foods. Would I like to? Hell yes. But I don't because I never do. Ever. Hard line in the sand.

Also, my BMI is 20. I'm sitting here after making dinner for my DC and thinking about food. But I'm not going to eat any more today because I want to see a number on the scale tomorrow.

Maintaining weight isn't easy or thoughtless.

I outsourced my motivation and joined Slimming World! Obvs other options are available....

Going weekly and not having to make the poor SW person in charge of weighing have to tell you you've put on weight. It keeps the mind focused! Also having to pay... I bought a 10 week plan or something like that. Then aimed to be at target by then because you don't have to pay any more! If you don't lose it you have to keep paying.

It sounds silly, but I can't motivate myself. But I will not disappoint a random person with a badge!

I promise I don't work for them, but I am an advocate. You never have to be hungry, it just encourages you to eat 'good' food. I lost a stone at a time when I was consistently increasing in weight and by weighing in every month (free, because I'm at target!) I have maintained my happy weight.

I would echo what others have said here - I wouldn’t even describe myself as ‘slim’ but I’m a healthy weight and it takes work and conscious thought to maintain it but I am a sugar addict and can’t moderate so my options are to work at being healthy or to be seriously overweight and unhealthy.

The only way to maintain a healthy diet is to do something that you can tolerate basically forever, otherwise you’ll fall off the wagon. For me this is: no breakfast, small healthy lunch (soup or protein plus veg) and then a big normal dinner. If I couldn’t eat a normal dinner with the rest of my family, I would find it too depressing and fall off the wagon immediately. I will never cut out carbs, or give up pasta or rice. But I only have carbs once a day and as part of a balanced homemade healthy meal.

Once a week I eat out or we get a takeaway. But I hardly ever drink which helps (2 or 3 units a week max) and I keep sugar to really rare treats - usually if I’m at a friend’s house and they’ve made a nice dessert. Because if I buy a bar of chocolate I would just want two more. It really is an addiction.

i also go to the gym or running for 40 mins 3-4 times a week. I don’t find this hard as I enjoy exercise but it does require a system/planning if you’re busy.

For some of us, food is fuel.
For some of us, food is life.

When food is life, doing without all the good stuff is a pretty miserable existence.

I think it depends on your definition of good stuff.
I'm slim and food is life. I often wake up thinking about yummy food that I am going to make and eat.

What is you good stuff?

I am a fat woman in a slim body

As in if I didnt keep an eye, didnt say no, didnt not buy, Id be obese again

What keeps me motivated? Health and wealth

Im 60 now, I can not get any older without being in the best health I can be and that starts with weight . Im also on a fixed income so cant be buying new clothes every few months to accommodate my expanding waistline - been there , done that, have bags of vac packed clothes tucked away - JIC

Its not all doom and gloom. I eat pretty much what I like, but not every day. I adore a certain brand of crisps, they are only sold in family bags, not a mission am I going to measure out the 20gr and put the rest away, the whole packet is being eaten, so they are bought only when I really cant stop wanting them - once every few weeks - and Im certainly not also adding a KFC to the menu that day ( yes I do have KFC and Mc'd and Greggs - just not daily, not even weekly and not everything the same week )

So today for example, its Sunday , bacon butties for brunch and a beautiful roast dinner. DH is sitting scoffing cream cake - my eating is done for the day. If Im up late and get peckish, sure the cream cake is in the fridge but so are the fat free yoghurts and berries and I will take those. I will want the cake, but I want to be slim more

Mostly my diet is normal family food but I pile on the veg. Even the bacon butty is bacon medallions and then I add rocket and tomatoes - BLT - fills me up. A Spag Bol now contains mixed veg - not authentic but fills me, a curry - chickpeas, mushrooms, spinach - fills me up. Roasties are air fried, same as chips ( hand cut so I know how much oil Im using ), missing out butter from a sandwich, using skimmed milk, half fat dairy lea instead of butter on a jacket spud - wee little switches that I can live with and not get to the stage where Im feeling deprived

Agreed - @LaPalmaLlama has hit nail on head for me anyway.

I binge eat to seek dopamine, I do have ADHD and ASC which is relevant.

I've been lower healthier weights before and managed for about 1-2 years and then weight creeps up during times of having taken stressful new jobs. I've changed career path to something more nurturing as I'm sick of my health being impacted by work.

I'm on Mounjaro and it's crazy how the food noise has gone. It's incredibly hard to quantify to someone who hasn't had that noise.

I know how to lose weight, I know how to eat healthily, I can cook from scratch and do so for my children, but I binge eat when bored low sad stressed and it undoes it all in 5 minutes flat!

I am trying hard to work on alternatives now as I can't be on MJ forever but hopefully should be starting ADHD medication soon which may support me in managing binge eating

This is what I’ve noticed with slim women.
They just say a straight no to fattening food.
There is no “little bit of what you fancy”

I think it’s actually the answer.
Rationing goodies doesn’t work, long term.
I’ll have a little… Then end up milling the lot.

@Gowlett what are these goodies that you can't ration?

@Gowlett I've been slim all my life and eat chocolate, ice cream, drink alcohol. Of course rationing is the key. I'm not obsessive about it, I just have little rules that I follow they helps ration it without overthinking it, things like one sweet treat a day, alcohol is only for the weekend, pudding/dessert is a weekend thing only. They're just so ingrained and normal to me that I don't spend any other time thinking about it, without rules like that I imagine food noise must get overwhelming.

My Gran was the same actually, she was more puritanical than me, she only allowed herself a square of dark chocolate a day (although she had pudding every day) she was always slim and healthy.

This is how I was brought up

We only ate in the home, breakfast lunch and dinner - or dinner/ tea, Puddings were for Sundays, sweets and biscuits were rationed - dolled out by parents, none of this helping yourself.

There weren't 24 hr food outlets. Take away was fish and chips, Chinese or a KFC which would be bought for a family meal to be eaten at home. I can remember when Mc'Ds came, we got dressed up and it was "a meal out" :) Certainly no eating in the street, the only time you ate in the street was on a day trip to the seaside and you sat on a wall to eat your fish and chips

I went wrong when I moved in by myself. I worked for the NHS and had access to a cheap dinner every day, but I have never liked mass catering, couldn't abide school dinners and works canteen was so similar. So Id grab a sandwich then coming in from work, stomach feeling like the throat had been cut, it was easy to pop in the nearest FF take out, of which come the 80's were everywhere. And I got the taste of fat laden, highly salted, highly processed food and being a single woman living alone it was soooooo easy

Joke is Im a very good cook, Ive worked in professional kitchens a lot of my life ( no chef, learned on the job ) but the thought of shopping, prepping and cooking was just too much, take out was so easy and tasty

Now thankfully the tide has turned, processed food upsets my stomach, from being awake all night dying of thirst to all out stomach cramps and nuclear fall out. Even white bread bloats me so much and makes me so obviously "liverish" as we used to say, within minutes, I do have to weigh up how much discomfort Im willing to put up with :)

But now Im back on a mostly home cooked diet , just meals, keeping the snacks to treats, im maintaining a steady weight. Your Gran weren't far wrong

That’s kind of what I’m saying.
Having the discipline to say no.

Chocolate only at the weekend.
Restaurants / take-out are a treat.

OP is saying she’s eating it all.
On / off diet mindset is toxic.

Just eating well, in general. works.
I don’t keep “goodies” anymore.

Also, as suki was saying, it’s easy.
Home-cooking is worth the effort.

@Gowlett what do you define as "goodies" though? We are UPF free as far as possible so I always have a homemade cake or biscuits in the kitchen, ready for a sweet craving or packed lunch. A sweet treat is fine, the key is moderation.

@goestheweasel always having a homemade cake on the go for the family night work for some people (who have self control!) but it would be a disaster for me. I much prefer nice homemade cakes to cheap packaged ones, so I would just eat the whole cake in a weekend and make a new one! And then put on weight…

So for me (admittedly not for the kids) it is actually better to have a bit of UPF rubbish in the house for their puddings as I don’t get tempted to eat it.

https://www.eatinglessonline.com/

This approach is based on the author's work originally with people giving up smoking and now with people who over eat.

Not saying it's easy, but it is very very simple.

Before coming across it. I had always had in mind that once I had lost weight, I would feel better about myself. Turns out, it's the process of eating well and not over eating that makes me feel good about myself and sets up the positive spiral.

I'd recommend anyone struggling with food to have a look and see whether it might work for them. I didn't get it immediately but there was a light bulb moment for me when everything started to make sense.

I think part of the problem is you referring to it as motivated. I've been size 8 all my life (now 38), and trust me I'm half the time not motivated to exercise - it's the discipline that gets me to do it NOT the motivation. If you confuse the two you're heading for failure.

Motivation is the initial desire or drive to achieve a goal, while discipline is the consistent effort to pursue that goal even when motivation wanes. Motivation provides the spark to start, but discipline sustains long-term progress through habit formation and willpower, regardless of changing emotions or circumstances.

Therefore, I suggest working on ways to keep you disciplined.

Some of mine include;

1. Buying a peloton so I don't have to drive to the gym and can literally some days roll out of bed in underwear, put trainers on and workout! Makes huge difference

1. Put workout clothes on first thing to encourage me to go

1. If I don't feel like it make a promise to myself that after five minutes if I still don't want to be there leave. (I've actually done this a few times lol but none out of ten after five minutes you start enjoying it).

Hope these help

In terms of food, ensure I;

1. Always have healthy snacks in my bag like nuts etc, as once I've eaten them I won't crave sugary stuff

1. Have high protein breakfasts keep me full most of the morning

1. Have high protein for most meals in fact, you'll stay full much longer and less likely to snack

1. Look up tasty quick meals on social media, there's tonnes of them that taste better than crap processed food

Hope these help

I agree with this and LaPalmaLlama. Naturally slim people dont have that food noise in their head. The comparison of not being tempted by the bookies is a really good one. There's that compulsion to eat. I actually rarely had that before I went on a specific medication, which I need to stay alive. My doctor recently added another medication which has had the side effect of shutting that noise down and the difference is amazing, I still eat and enjoy food but the compulsion is gone and I don't feel hungry as much and get full sooner. Its not a weight loss drug, just a very welcome side effect. The tough thing with food is you still have to eat and face that, you can't cut it from your life.

I've been on both sides of this, as the naturally thin person and then experiencing the food noise and compulsion as a side effect of medication. The only difference between me at a healthy weight and me with an obese BMI is having that food noise, the compulsion to eat and lacking saiety. I'm not a different person, I'm not more or less motivated, in fact I'd say I was more health conscious and felt more motivation when overweight, it just didn't make a real difference.

So much good advice on here, but I can see that it can seem overwhelming with those who are continually dealing with cravings, lack of motivation and a perception that eating healthily equals deprivation.

If you do nothing else, I'd urge to stop eating sugar in all its forms - including alcohol - and artifical sweeteners.

You will find everything else sooooo much easier, I promise you. Have a look at this:

I am someone who is naturally "quite" slim however I have always kept myself very slim which takes consistent commitment to exercise and nutrition.

I think the reason I stay motivated is because I know how GOOD it feels to be slim and fit.

Yes, cake is nice but nothing beats the feeling of slipping on a new outfit and feeling wonderful in it.

Chips are delicious but the buzz of leaving my spin class, dripping with sweat and body tinging is unmatched.

My motivator is how BLOODY INCREDIBLE it feels to be a fit, slim, toned, healthy, radiant person.

I wouldn't worry about food for now.
Focus on moving ie exercise. You need to bin the excuse of no time. You need to find the time when your husband is away and when he isn't.
When he's away - you tube videos and walk with the pram
When he's home- a fitness class in the morning. Something you like/enjoy. Couch 2 5k - brilliant program!

Sugar likes company. If you eat something sugary or carby it wants you to add friends in.
If you don't eat sugar you don't crave sugar. You need a few weeks to get into it (a hard few weeks) and then it's much easier.

I agree with this. I'm a recovering alcoholic so wouldn't touch alcohol. I don't keep certain foods in the house because they affect me in a similar way. I include chocolate and biscuits in this category, so am as unlikely to put these in my shopping trolley as alcohol. I don't miss any of these things - I know that I won't feel any better for having consumed them.

If you can moderate, that's great - I know that I can't so steer clear.

Plus I suppose (motivation to stay slim) unwillingness to buy new clothes - I have some that I still wear from over 20 years ago and want to fit in to.

My body will never feel bloody incredible or radiant, even when I was underweight it didn't feel incredible to be slim, my body just fucking hurt. Nice if this is how things are for you, but a lot of people won't experience this.