Help, I'm nutritionally challenged! Or something...

[Farah636]

So...I'm a fairly active person. I exercise almost every day...mix of Cathe dvds and running for my cardio; have been weightlifting consistently for years, I try to squeeze in some pilates and yoga a couple times a week...I also teach a few classes a week at my university's rec center, and my bicycle is my only mode of transportation, and I use it daily to get around.

Ok, so you'd think that with all of the above, I would be in awesome shape...and alright, I am -- somewhat. I am toned, and people are always surprised at how strong I am...and yet...I'm not at all thin!!!

I probably sound like a whiny 13 year old dealing with body image issues. But it's rather frustrating. I'm in the healthy weight range for my height, but on the higher end of it...if I were to gain just a few pounds, I would be in the overweight zone. And besides that, I'm just not entirely happy with how I look because I've been thinner in the past and...well, I looked/felt better then!

I know the source of this extra weight -- a bad diet. I would say my food choices are healthy about 50% of the time (I do have good habits, like I almost always choose water over soda, whole wheat bread over white, I avoid buying sweets)....but I think my problem is portions and overeating, especially at night. Ok, and admittedly I eat out/rely on frozen food waaay too much. I'm just an awful cook. :-(

I feel like I've been struggling all year to lose weight (10-15 lbs is all I want to lose), and I just can't get the scale to budge, but again, I think it's because I just don't make good eating decisions... From time to time I try counting calories b/c that's what worked for my sister when she was trying to lose weight, but I usually break after a few days. Or...I dunno, I always find reasons to not watch what I'm eating...like most of my friends tend to get annoyed when I get all "that has too many calories/I'm watching my weight" when we go out to eat...or it's the weekend and I just want to kick back with junk food and a good movie, or it's the weekend and I feel lonely and depressed for whatever reason, and I think, "Heck with this. I hate the world and I'm going to eat my cheddar popcorn." And then I always regret it. And yet it's just a vicious cycle that keeps repeating itself. I think I have some weird snacking addiction that is comparable to smoking or something. I wish they had patches for certain types of food so as to kill the craving. I'd need a cheese patch.

Sorry that was such a long, probably incoherent post! I needed to dump a little. :/

Any advice about how to overcome this? Recommendations for healthy eating? Ways to stay motivated? I think I've become increasingly obsessed with/ frustrated by this issue to the point that it's always affecting my mood. I'm thinking of talking to my therapist about this, but I'm kind of embarrassed about it. :/ To most people, I'm a super-active, super-confident woman, when really I'm struggling to maintain control over my weight and eating habits.

 

[maddiesmum]

Couple of things strike me right away:

1. you seem to think that you have the right to eat badly and over-indulge in junk.

You are right, you do. But, more importantly, you also have the right to eat well, and really, isn't that the right you would rather be exercising?

2. your eating habits will not improve until you accept that you need to eat out less, eat pre-packaged food less and start to cook for yourself. You will also find you save money!

It's time to stop being so lazy/self-indulgent and crack open a basic, decent cookbook for people who do not like to cook but like to eat.

3. you are self-sabotaging your fitness plan with this terrible eating "plan".

This does strike me as a psychological thing so don't be afraid to speak to a therapist to sort a few things out in your mind. You deserve good nutrition and your body sure could use it to support the large amount of activity you do.

4. if you buy the junk and keep it in the house, you will eat it and hate yourself afterwards. Break the cycle of despair. Do not put this stuff in your supermarket trolley.


I was in Borders today and whiled away the few minutes it took to prepare my latte by browsing this hideous "OK" magazine. The cover features the two sisters who recently won the Biggest Loser challenge. Open to the pages that illustrate very clearly the diet they used to follow and how they eat now. It's very clear: the path to fat loss (in addition to your fabulous fitness program) comes from a diet full of complex proteins, whole grains, lots of vegetables and fruits. You have to ditch the junk, as these two sisters did, quite impressively, to lose the inches and get the body you want and the feeling of living inside your body that you crave and deserve.

You do not have to like cooking to eat well. I loathe all time spent in the kitchen. Hence, I cook once every 10 days, no more, but when I do, I make several dishes and store a lot in the freezer to tide my family over. I will make, for example, a cauliflower cheese with loads of veggies, a quiche loaded with veggies and eggs (both of these dishes to be eaten the week I make them), and three large saucepans of lentil stew. This latter dish I largely freeze and then defrost a bag of it each week. It goes great over pasta, with some cheese grated on top.

The downside is we eat the same thing quite often in this house. The upside is, it's healthy. No-one complains because the food is tasty and because they know how I hate being in the kitchen.

Find 5 or 6 totally healthy dishes you can make in large batches and freeze. That way you will always have good food on hand when you start getting hungry and it can be defrosting while you work out, ready for you to re-heat and eat when you are done with exercise. If you have good food on hand, you will not resort to eating the crap stuff which you keep reaching for when the munchies strike.

Hope this helps,

Clare

 

[GraceNote]

I think I understand where you're coming from, and I think you know that your eating habits are the problem. It's a far journey from knowing the problem and overcoming it, though! I totally feel your pain!

Could you try to change just a few things, slowy but with a strong focus? Maybe try not eating after 7:30 pm anymore. Just close the kitchen and tell yourself that the eating day is done. Or focus on making one meal a day a 'healthy' meal, either home made or by careful shopping (it IS possible to eat out in a healthy manner!). Make up some 'rules' that you can work on one at a time. Sometimes it's better to make changes more slowly instead of trying to change everything all at once.

One thing I did was make a list of my top 5 challenges and then come up with 3-4 ways to deal with them. For example, one of my challenges was eating in the car on long trips, so I came up with a few things: cut up veggies the night before and pack in cooler, stock the car with plenty of water and iced green tea, have a few 'treats' packed up but assign them a 'timeslot' so I would have to wait until a certain time to enjoy them. I also loaded the iPod with stuff to listen to so I wouldn't be bored.

For you, eating out might be a challenge, or eating between meals, or whatever. Once you identify where your troublespots are, you can start figuring out what one or two things you can easily 'fix'. A little success in one area can lead you to more success in another area...it's kind of motivating to see how you can take control over the little things.

good luck - if you need any support or ideas, please let us know. There are lots of smart people here who have battled the same problems and may be a great help on your journey!

 

[Farah636]

Thanks for your comments!

Since posting the above, I felt like I got some control over the situation -- I brought it up with my therapist -- explained that this was something that was weighing (haha) down on me for a while -- that my desire to lose weight and my inability to do so has been causing me so much frustration that I've begun to loathe myself a bit. His first reaction was concern: "you do know that you're NOT overweight, right?" I had to explain that I was aware of that, just that I wanted to be on the lower end of my 'healthy range', not bordering the higher end. From there I think we had a good discussion about the matter - I felt like the very act of opening up about it just made this issue easier to deal with. I saw things a bit clearer. Like, how I think it felt especially embarrassing and frustrating for me b/c I'm outwardly a confident woman and everyone who knows me knows I'm fit, plus I'm a fitness instructor...so for me to struggle with weight issues made me feel like a failure of sorts.

Anyway, I've started to keep a weight-loss/nutrition journal, something that I want to try keeping on me at all times. I decided not to count calories for now, because -- well -- I've never been able to stick to it in the past. I've just been keeping this journal to reflect specifically on how I feel about my body, my weight, whether or not I feel hungry, why I feel like eating if I'm not hungry, thoughts on meal choices, etc. Anyway, I think it's helped me -- staring down at my own handwriting that says "I think it's a very doable task, to lose 5 pounds by the time I come home for the summer in 1.5 weeks." I feel less likely to cheat on my words. So, I have so far lost 1 of the 5 lbs....It was 3 of 5 a few hours ago, but then I tried the whole cooking thing today and ended up making some seriously good soup and...yeah. I enjoyed a serving. And then another one. One slip. I will forgive myself and move on.

I think I might try the cooking thing again some time (and maybe one day I'll just refer to it as 'cooking' ) God knows, I need the practice (believe it or not, I screwed up frying oil..took 3 tries and almost setting my apartment on fire to get it right. heh.) but it seems like something I should try doing more often, for the sake of my wallet and my tummy.

All in all, I think I'm off to a good start. I went jogging at my rec's indoor track this evening, and couldn't stop checking out my reflection in the windows -- my stomach was in a little and it made me happy -- I almost ran into the wall.

Here's hoping the motivation and discipline sticks!

 

[CeciFifi]

Hi Farah,

I am rooting for you Farah. Thanks for sharing your story with us.

s.

 

[Farah636]

Well, now I just feel like some sort of manic-depressed person, reporting back here feeling -- well, lower than I've felt in a long time.

I know it's been a short space of time since I last wrote, but I already feel like I've slipped a million times and that in turn makes me feel like an absolute failure, and that I'm never going to reach my weight goals, not even my short-term one.

I'm really starting to feel like I'm heading down a bad path. (a) I don't have enough discipline to drop just a few pounds and actually keep them off. If I don't fix this, I worry that I'll actually start to gain weight, and eventually cross over into the overweight category. (b) Sometimes I take a step back to examine my own mentality over this and it freaks me out a little. I couldn't even bring myself to confess this to my therapist, but I've gone to pro-anorexia sites recently (I convinced myself it was just curiosity, not looking for ideas..) I've even tried self-induced vomiting. Heck, I tried it several times tonight because I was feeling so angry with myself. I've done extra 'damage control' workouts, after my regular workouts out of anger at myself for eating more/later than I should have.

The thing is, I keep toeing that line, but haven't actually crossed it yet. Like I went to that pro-ano site, but was alarmed by the weight-loss tips people were giving. And I've never actually successfully thrown up, because every time I try, I stop myself because I get that gagging feeling and it grosses me out each time. Plus I *know* it's not healthy and I'll ruin my insides if I do it, and I also fear that if I succeed in doing it once, there's a good chance I'll do it again.

Part of me is angry that I can't just cross over and get on with it. Throw up as needed. Have enough self-discipline to abstain from food. And I can't, and it drives me crazy. (funny, I'm Muslim and fast without issue in Ramadan..yet skipping meals outside Ramadan is just too hard for me.) Part of me, the reasonable/logical side, is ashamed that I'm even letting myself go in this direction because I DO know that this is unhealthy.

And now, having failed at the vomiting thing, I found myself looking up foods that are natural laxatives or diuretics (can't get food out one way? get it out the other...) In doing so, I noticed that 'anorexia' and 'bulimia' came up with the search results. It never occurred to me that they would be linked -- I guess I always associated those disorders with starvation, vomiting, and binge eating. But I guess it makes sense.

Anyway, now having written all of this, I don't know how I feel anymore. Still upset but kind of numb. Tired. Irritated that this had to escalate*now,* during finals week. Depressed, b/c I wanted to talk to some of my friends about this, but I couldn't bring myself to do so. So here I am, feeling some sense of security in my relative anonymity...and sorry for the long posts. It's rather hard to stop talking/typing once you get going..