How to stop obsessing over food

[Scareofgettingthiswrong]

I am a size 20 and 39 years old. Up until lockdown I was a size 8, but my daughter hit 3, her autism became much more prevalent, and I turned to food to cope. I have never been above a size 12 prior to this.

I am a single parent with no family support (mum and dad died, and I have no siblings), and her behaviour is still very challenging. All I think about is food. All day, every day, I want sweets, biscuits, crisps, toast. I know how to eat well, but I can do so well and then literally eat a 7 pack of penguin biscuits, a full pizza and a tub of ice cream for tea.

Where do I even start? I can’t afford counselling.

Mounjaro or Wegovy. My fat jabs are the only thing that has stopped me thinking about food constantly.

Oh I'm so sorry OP for your loss. ❤️

Start small.

Stop buying snacks /anything with sugar.

Cut out refined sugar
Start eating more satisfying meals.

The sugar makes you crave more sugar/ food combined with emotional eating.

You'll lose a lot from this. Drink lots of water. Peppermint capsules to lose the bloat

March on the spot for 10 mins of and on for an hour. Phone in hand to track steps

Once you see results. Start going up a level

Just something worth a shot, I stopped having artificial sweeteners which made a huge difference to my thoughts about food. I recently had Lemsip as I had a cold suddenly I was hungry constantly. You guessed it, aspartame in the ingredients.
Sleep also has a big impact so a good sleep routine will help loads.

I drink a lot of fizzy drinks and squash as I hate the taste of tap water. That is a really interesting thought-thank you!!

If you are looking for something to drink, there are some really lovely herbal teas around that you can have warm or cold. Lidl and Aldi both have a range of 'detox', 'sleep' 'relax' flavours which are really soothing, caffeine and sugar free

I drink a lot of fizzy drinks and squash as I hate the taste of tap water. That is a really interesting thought-thank you!!

I posted earlier in the thread that I drink more (as often I would conflate thirst with hunger). I also don't like plain tap water so I have squash with sparkling water. The squash has sweeteners in. I also have diet coke (say, five cans in a week).

It's often said - on here - that sweeteners trigger eating. I have not found that to be true for me so I don't think it's a 100% rule. (I've lost 3st.)

There is a lot of research showing that sweeteners trigger the release of insulin and contribute to insulin resistance. If you can try to limit them.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7014832/#:~:text=Ingestion%20of%20these%20artificial%20sweeteners,due%20to%20their%20sweet%20taste).

It's definitely not everyone that is affected, but more than people realise. I used to be fine with sweetener but as I've gotten older I'm no longer tolerant of it. I'm highly susceptible to type 2 diabetes which is hereditary so I don't know if that is related.

I'm heading in this direction and trying to avert...take my words with a pinch of salt I'm not an expert!

It sounds like food is a treat for getting through life. So some ideas:

• find other small daily treats, preferably non food associated ones (like a TV show is great but not if you feel you have to have snacks!

-try to remember the delicious whole foods out there. I was recently munching on carrot sticks with my toddler and realised I would have gone for biscuits if I wasn't feeding her, but the carrots were actually nicer! You can have piles and piles of that sort of thing to keep you busy.

• find other things to focus on or reasons to be out and about without food.

• find a way to stop eating at a certain time in the evening. Even if weirdly you make yourself have some ice cream straight after dinner when you might normally resists til later. Eat everything you want for the evening in one go, brush your teeth and stop there.

• use budgeting if this is relevant? Like make a food budget for your household and just tell yourself takeaways are not affordable and you can replace takeaway pizza with supermarket pizza. It's still pizza but not as calorific, and sometimes you might think can't be bothered going to a supermarket I'll just have cheese on toast!

• I always find planning to eat badly helps. Like if I know I've got something unhealthy pencilled in, I'm more able to think well I won't buy that mars bar at work because I'm making a cake later. And then sometimes I don't even eat the unhealthy thing I had planned.

Overall, don't beat yourself up if you can avoid it. It sounds like you're working really hard without much support and doing a great job, which you should be proud of. Yes it would be nice to lose weight but it isn't everything.

Since mounjaro I’ve cracked my Pepsi Max addiction and turned to water with a straw as it makes me drink more. The amount of money I save on snacks balances the cost of the jab to some degree. I spent the last year trying to lose weight and ended up with totally disordered eating. A friend shared she’s on mounjaro and that made it far less scary for me. I finally feel in control. Although I’m so impatient I’m wishing the next 2 months away so my body will be looking better and old clothes from 2 years ago should fit.

Good luck op!

Sparking water - lots of it

plan meals - lots of veg and some protein

don’t keep squash, sugar, cake chocolate etc in the house

Avoid snacking. brush your teeth after your last meal

walk 10k steps

early to bed