Why do we overeat and get fat when we KNOW it will make us miserable?

[jasper]

Can anyone answer this question?

Bored, craving sugar/carb, because it's there, comfort when you are depressed, momentary good feeling...

I also hit the chocolate when I have a difficult problem to solve at work.

Also, dont forget to factor in the pitifully small amount of calories that most of us use in a day. Sitting in an office all day, I really dont need to eat more than an apple and couple of crackers, but guess what....I do.

yes you are right.
But once you have gone through the whole process of letting your weight creep up till you get a shock one day when you see a photo of yourself, then struggling to lose it all......why then do we tend to repeat the whole process?

no self control?

can't be arsed?

patterns of behaviour?

I'm a weight watcher leader and this is a big problem for a lot of members and for me.

I think, speaking personally that it is no self control. Wine is an issue for me too, I normally cut back on my food to accomodate the wine.

It is a horrible vicious circle that is very hard to break.

I am due back to work in 8 weeks after having DC3 in July. I still have 1 stone to lose. So hard

Awful isnt it, how much we emotionally invest in food. I have noticed that I loose self control when my period is due and if I am having a stressful time.

gets harder as you get older too

less time, more stress, more outside pressures on you. Becomes very easy to be the one area of your life that you just 'let go' when the rest of it is so controlled (by outside forces).

suwoo that is interesting that you struggle too.

I am just amazed that I have never ever seen an article or read a book which REALLY addresses this problem.

ie why do otherwise intelligent people repeatedly put themselves through the cycle of the misery of weight gain followed by the elation of losing weight?

Maybe we are too ready to blame/point the finger at outside influences?

A simple routine is helpful.
Weigh yourself at the end of every week and write it down, or better still, graph it.
Then, as weight creeps up, you can nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand.

Don't buy crap then it isn't in the house to eat.

Keep the booze to a couple of days a week.

Do some exercise-biggest revelation of my life after avoiding it for years was just how damned good exercise makes you feel/sleep/think/walk/behave.
Do it with your family-go for long walks (has a dramtic effect on behaviour of children.)

Cook proper food and enjoy it.

Ignore ads and fads and pictures of peopel whose careers depend on them being skeletal.

I do all those things, moondog, and that keeps my weight constant.

Then I have a stressful day or so at work, and eat chocolate. Sometimes I go in to work when I am ill, or simply far too tired, and keep myself going with chocolate. If I dont go, I dont get paid.
And so the weight slowly creeps back on. I gained 4 pounds this week.

Moondog, I agree with that being how to lose/maintain weight.

But my question here is why do we not do that?

there is no way I can lose 4 pounds over the next 7 days...

You are probably ill and tired because you are stressed and not eating well.So you eat crap, make yourself feel more ill and then eat more crap.
Stop blaming external factors and eat properly and stop eating chocolate.
Jasper,I dunno.
I do this. I'm in a routine.
I would never get fat because I know it would make me feel vile and sluggish and depressed.

Well I do it for a couple of reasons
1 It feels good at the time - If you're having a busy time socialising with mates and family and it's including food and drink it can be for me nay on impossible to tick to celery stick nibbles and soda water.

2 Little treats become habits. Me and DH got into a terrible routine of achol and chocolate every week night. He would stop and pick up the evening paper up on his way home from work and pick my favourite sweets.We would sit and scoff wataching News at ten once we finally 'finished' for the day. I asked him to stop this (after two years of 'it's just a treat!' and it felt weird at first.

3 I put on a few pounds and thought it's ok I'll get shut ---those pounds have become 2 1/2 stone which I just feel total dispair.
DH Encouages me nicely when I rant but ultimatly it is up to me to sort it out.But it feels almost impossible to get back to just over 9 1/2 stone again

Stop diagnosing me, moondog! and dont issue one line orders to fix peoples lives

I mean ill, as in have a cold or a virus. I eat very healthily outside the chocolate. And being tired has nothing to do with not eating well, and everything to do with going to bed late and getting up early. Of course I always try to go to bed on time, but sometimes there is simply too much to do.

I can't simply have a day of under-performing, there is always pressure to perform well against my male colleagues, who are single, or pampered by their wives, and get to relax at home. Chocolate gives me the lift I need to get work done.
I know it's not healthy, I am not stupid, but it is not easily fixed either.

self-destructive

Just incase any one is interested (Not that I'm telling anyone how to live their lives or anything I logged in to Womens Fitness magazine. They have loads of different workout at home -Belly Off -back into your jeans, that sort of thing. I printed them off last week and been spending half an hour or so either in the evening or morning if I'm not working (Kids of course piss thenselves laughing an even sit on the bed watching me as a form of comedy entertainment. I'm about to do the Davin a workout once I can get off bloody mumsnet!!!

IT is addictive behaviour. The overeating itself is addictive ( I have no time for the theory that specific foods are addictive though I know some disagree with that)

It really has so little to do with self-control that it makes me laugh. Only the truly fat people I know (including myself) can sppend 6 months or more on 500cals a day. I have done this twice in my life and of course lost loads of weight.

Those of you who maintain a reasonable weight in a sensible way, try for one moment to imagine 6-8 months (some of the women I met did this for more than a year) of eating 500cals a day in sachet form. Is is not normal behaviour but it is also not the behaviour of someone who has no self-control

I have lost the following amounts of weight in my life and these are just the big weight losses

Weight Watchers (WW)
Age 14 lost 4 stone in 12 months
Age 18 - lost 3 stone in 10 months
Age 22 - lost 4 stone a year
Age 26 ( getting married for the first time) - lost 5 stone that time - in about 14 months
Age 30 - WW lost 2 stone in about 4 months
Age 34 - Tried Slimmong world for a change but only lasted about 5 weeks

Each time I did it sensibly, followed WW or SW to the letter, excercised and was the "model" dieter. On some of my weight loss records ( which I still have) I almost never gained a lb in the whole time I was dieting) and generally lost the 1-2 lbs a week recommended

I rarely reached my goal though. I usually stopped 1-2 stone short of that though because after about 8-10 months of the restrictions (and if you want to lose weight on these "diets" there are quite severely restrictive regardless of what anyone says) I just got fed-up. Also I found the new thinner me quite difciult to cope with and frightening.

Generally it takes me the same time to gain the weight as it takes to lose it so I have spent my life in approx 3-4 year long cycles of being on a diet for a year, gaining weight for a year, being a size 20-22 for a year and being miserable about it.

Age 35-40 I spent in therapy with an eating counsellor expert and mainteined a weight for that time but it was a size 18-20 and I was pretty unhappy at that size. I didn't lose any weight during that time but it was my longets period of having a stable weight.

5 years ago at 41 years old and having put on more weight (then a size 24-26) after spening the most miserable 6 months of my life isolated in the US and suffering from pnd I got desperate and tried the cambridge lighter life diets ( as described above - 500cal a day)

I Lost almost 6 stone the first time in 6 months and 3 the second in 3 months (these diets work really fast)

That didn't last either and i gained it all again over the last 3 years

Currently at 45 years old I am a size 20

I have loads of self-control in year long cycles and I also exercise in year long cylces I just can't seem to make that become a life long habit. I have to accept that at my age I have tried to lose weight enough. I am fat I will be fat and quite frankly I have wasted enough time worrying about food.

Since I came to that revelation I have reached a sort of peace with it.

but eating a sachet a day isn't sensible eating though? sounds more like that you haven't got a plan for eating a sensible amount of food so rely on those diets of shakes/whatever to make you lose weight rather than eating properly (which requires a change in lifestyle) which is harder (and requires more self control) but probably has longer lasting effects

I'm not criticising you btw Bumbling. I think it must be hard if you start off as a child being overweight.

I suppose whatever emotional issue leads us to do this once will just carry on leading us to do it over and over again, unless it is dealt with.

Also - food tastes nice

I know it was a long post but I only did the sachet diets recently in desperation. All my other diets were following sensible weightwatcher type diets and losing sensible amount, exercising reularly etc.

My early dieting history was sensible on the surface. I lost 4 stone (56lbs) in a year the first time, not excessive at all. However even a " sensible" diet is restrictive in some way. I still refute that I have no self-control. I can do have self-control in many areas of my life and for long periods of time I an also "control" my eating. I just can't seem to find that long-term lifetime balance that seeems so essential for weight maintenance. Note I say weight maintenance not weight loss

do you feel better when you are slimmer

one of the big things for me was how much better/healthier I felt when slimmer, especially walking/exercising, getting hot, that sort of thing (I had 2 babies in quick succession and it took me about 3 years to shift all the weight!)

I feel lighter and more energetic when slimmer but I also feel more vulnerable and less like "me". That probably doesn't make sense but is nonetheless true. I also find that no matter how much weight I have lost, I end up thinking I am still too fat and obsessing about weight and food anyway.

I actually had my most stable weight when I was trying to conceive ds and I lost ALL (bar about 4-5 lbs) of my pregancy weight by the time ds was 3 months old.

I didn't diet at all, it was just that the weight I put on during pregnancy (3 stone in totoal) was just baby weight. None of it bar the 4-5 lbs was fat that stayed on me. It was all baby or enlarged oxygen cells, water etc that all fell off afterwards.

However I did start to put on weight when ds was abut 4 months old as I had pnd and felt isolated. By the time ds was 8 months old I'd put on 2-3 stone.

What I would really like it just to stop thinking about food and weight so much. That is very difficult to do though as the vast majority of my friends seem to often talk about nothing else. Quite frankly my eyes glaze over when friends start to discusss weight and diets nowadays.

There are lots of explanations for this in the harcombe diet book, the end recommendation being don't eat processed food and don't mix your fats with carbs to lose weight. If you eat sugar you crave more.
I'm not typing the whole thing out, but there certainly are books written about this.

If you go on restricted calorie diets the weight will just pile back on again afterwards when you go back to 'normal' eating as you feel you've been deprived so have t'reats' and have also screwed your metabolism so it's a double whammy.

Bumbling, I would highly recommend reading 'stop counting calories and start losing weight'

you need to be friends with me bumbling, I never talk about it in real life lol

I wonder if being overweight as a child has given you an identity of feeling comfortable/safer being overweight (with no pressure to be slimmer). I know I felt very uncomfortable being overweight after the dcs - I had an awful lot to lose and it did take me a while to face it.

Maybe you just get overwhelmed with the 'pressure' of feeling you have to keep the weight off? It reads that way a bit from your posts.

Bumbling I can empathise so much with your feelings about weight loss. Especially about stopping half a stone from target and the maintenance aspect. I also felt odd having lost a bit of weight and felt more vulnerable. Sometimes I see larger women who look fantastic and wish I could be like that and accept my size and then part of me wants to be slimmer because I want to be a 'normal' size.

I'm one of those people who has to have lots of the food I love or not at all. If I can't have a lot of chocolate I'd rather have none. What I'd really love to learn is how to have things in moderation but it's something that's eluded me up to now.

I was a skinny child btw. Very picky and because my family used to get irritated by that I, at about age 13, started to eat more. Weight crept on slowly and for most of my adult life I've been between a size 14 and a size 20. I'm currently in a 'no junk and no treats' phase (although my portion control needs some work!) to lose the 2 1/2 stone I lost two years ago. If I lose that then I'll need to lose about another 2 stone to be about a size 12. That would suit me fine I don't want to be any thinner.

I lost 5 pounds last week. What I don't want to happen is to reach a plateau, get disheartened and start eating more like last time.

So, losing it isn't the issue. It's maintaining the weight loss. When Natalie Cassidy lost all her weight I remember an interview with her saying something like 'Now I've lost the weight I can never go back to the way I ate before' and that's the thing.

You think 'I'll lose 2/3/4 stone' but once you get there - what then? It's so hard to keep it up and if you've followed a drastic diet or exercise routine is it realistic to keep it up for the rest of your life? I think that's why so many weight loss attempts fail.

I gave up smoking! I should be able to do this too!