Why did I do that?

[mellongoose]

I am 2 and a half stone overweight. My bmi is 30. I just went to see a lovely social prescriber about my weight who had some very sensible advice. I cried.

she told me to start next week in a new week.

when I left I went to McDonalds.

Well if it was easy we’d all be slim! My mum was great at giving me ‘advice’ (saying who else could tell me to my face, as if I was totally unaware of what I looked like). That would immediately send me to the treat box!
Try taking g it one day at a time. Pre plan your meals first the week. Don’t have anything extra in the house - if it’s there you’ll eat it. Accept you will be hungry at times. When tempted just think: if I can make it to tomorrow I can eat it then. Then of course you don’t eat it tomorrow as you are saying the same thing. The days stack up and next thing you know you’ e made it to a week and you don’t get as hungry anymore and get into the groove.

You need to want to lose weight more than you want McDonald’s. Not just in the moment but properly.

You can’t undo the past, but you can change the future.

I would personally start now, put a sensible meal plan together for the rest of the week and plan some sort of exercise but do not punish yourself for this.

What is your plan to loose weight? What support do you have? What is your target? You also need to find the why and keep that in your head along with the benefits the changes bring.

The saying about failure to plan is planing to fail is true in the early days of a lifestyle change.

I post a lot on on here for support, accountability and to order my thoughts. It does help. You can do this, but put as much in place as you can to support the changes, it might be buying a target dress to get into or decluttering food cupboards of food that will de rail you, changing how you eat or starting to meal prep or whatever, but having a back up system in place will help you.

Probably stress from emotion. I do that, too, OP. Now that you know it's something that you do, and it's good you've recognised it, you can arm yourself against it with alternate strategies. Maybe have gum on hand, a cute water bottle or a journal. Something other than reactive eating.

Thank you all for being kind.

@TwiggyShrimpyou are correct about it being a stress response. Why is that?

I have to get control of this. I’ve just turned 50, but so far I’m in good nick. No health problems. However, I am 2.5 to 3 stone heavier than I should be to be a healthy bmi and I want to get control of it before the inevitable health problems start.

I'm not sure, 100%, but I noticed that I do it which is why I recognised it in what you've said. For example, I tend to overeat the day before a big meeting at work or with family. If I don't overeat the day before, I overeat when the meetings are over. I also ate a bag of peanuts, 4 protein bars and some other stuff when my plane had turbulence on a long haul trip abroad! I think it's a build up of anticipation and then relief when it's over. I haven't gotten down to the bottom of the why but I just know it happens so I've had to make strategies so I don't sabotage my goals!