I never eat candy during the day. It would be a mortal sin! You get the picture. Then I hate myself in the morning and the cycle continues. I used to be able to get away with it but it seems like once I turned 36 something happened. I'm almost 38 and I know I need to stop.
I think this is what strikes me the most in your post. I look at what yout post and I see myself as I started a yo-yo dieting career that drove me into a downward spiral that I thought I would never get out of again.
I just want to briefly touch on my background, so you understand where I am coming from. I was never overweight as child or teenager, weighed between 120 to 130 lbs as an adult, had my first son at 31 and shed all the baby weight within 4 months. Moved from Europe to America and things changed. By the third year I lived here, I had gained about 20 lbs, different lifestyle, different food, etc. then I got pregnant again and my OB/GYN referred me to a clinical dietician/nutritionist because I was gaining weight too fast. She put me on a low-fat and somewhat restricted calorie diet and disaster began.
I would measure every morsel according to the instructions of the dietician. Within 7 to 10 days on the diet I had uncontrollable hunger pangs, mostly at night, couldn't control it with willpower anymore, and let me tell you I wasn't craving carrots and celery stick. By the time I went to the hospital to deliver my son, I weighed 225 lbs
A co-worker told me about a nutritionist who could help me lose the weight. Low-fat diet, 1400 calories and I had started working out with Cathe CTX. I started losing weight the first week, and the hunger pangs started again, with sheer willpower I made it through 2 weeks of the diet resisting the hunger attacks, until I caved in again, gained everything that I had lost and then some. Me, who had never dieted before went through any restrictive diet out there, Atkins, Zone, SouthBeach, low-fat, low-carb, no carb, high-carb ....... you get the picture, some under the supervision of nutritionists, some on my own. My hunger attacks and my weight spiraled out of control until I realized that I needed to address the distorted relationship with food that I had developed over the years by constantly dieting and reading about nothing but diet and exercise.
Here is what I have found and what has helped me turn this ship around.
Traditional diets are teaching us that in order to lose weight we must count calories, fat, or carbs, or both, we have to deprive ourselves, we have to sacrifice. Calories, carb, fat and protein counting starts overtaking our life, every food is looked at as good or bad food. Diets tell us exactly what and how much food to eat, regardless of our preferences and individual relationships with hunger, every morsel is weighed, every cup is premessured, eat every 3 hours, eat every 5 hours, eat 3 meals, eat 6 meals...... It makes us think if we eat anything that is not on the diet or is not a diet food that we are BAD. The next meal and what we can eat is constantly on our mind and overtakes everything else we are doing.
We grow tired of the constant chasing in grocery stores after produce that is not in season, ingredients that are hard to find, cutting, preparing and cooking that takes forever, the hunger, the lack of flavor, the lack of flexibility, the lack of energy, and the feeling of deprivation. Eventually our body gets tired of the constant deprivation, resulting in hunger pangs and binge eating. We quit our diets, gain back the weight we've lost (and then some) and beat up on ourselves for being a loser and quitting yet another diet.
With every new diet the weight becomes more difficult to lose, and we become even more frustrated and discouraged. Then we eat more and exercise less, causing ourselves even more frustration, discouragement, depression, starting a vicious cycle. We begin asking ourselves "Why bother?" We start blaming ourselves for having no will power.
Many of us are perfectionist who start every diet with great intentions, we do everything we are asked, we weigh every morsel of food and we are so good about everything we put in our mouth. On diets, we distrust and ignore internal signs of appetite, hunger, and our need to be physically and psychologically satisfied. Instead, we depend on diet plans, measured portions, and a prescribed frequency for eating. We are so emerged in our eating plan and measure ourselves on how we comply with that plan. If we stick with it we are "good", if we don't stick with the plan we are "bad", hate ourselves in the morning and start punishing ourselves by restricting the diet even more.
As a result, many of us have lost the ability to eat in response to our physical needs; we experience feelings of deprivation, then binge, and finally terminate our "health" program. This in turn leads to guilt, defeat, weight gain, low self-esteem, and then we're back to the beginning of the yo-yo diet cycle. Rather than making us feel better about ourselves, diets set us up for failure and erode our self-esteem.
I don't know what you are currently eating, it just sounds to me you are in a rut and the binge eating in the evening indicates that you probably don't eat enough calories during day. How is your fat intake? I found that my binge eating was triggered by the lack of fat in my food (nutritionist had put me on as low as 20 g per day and 1200 calories with daily Cathe workouts, I am 5'7" - needless to say it was a disaster). I keep my macronutrient intake around those values
25 - 30 % fat
45 - 55 % carbs
20 - 25 % protein
My calories range anywhere between 1,600 and 2,300 calories depending on my workout but I don't track it every day either. I try to eat as healthy and "clean" as possible but I won't restrict anything, if everyone has pizza, I will have a slice of pizza, I will NOT drink skim milk, I have 2 % dairy products and if I want to have cheese I eat a small piece and he!! is gonna freeze over before I scrape the frosting off the cake (sorry Tosca). I will have anything in moderation, I just try to balance it out over the week. I don't obsess about the food anymore, I enjoy eating it and I have no more hunger pangs and binge eating attacks.
In fact, over the last 6 weeks with staying on that eating "plan" and doing Cardio Coach as my primary cardio workout plus 2 to 3 Cathe strength workouts I have lost 21 lbs and 8 % bodyfat, I am down 2 dress sizes and I have more energy than ever before.
Sorry about the lengthy post, I hope it helps though.
