So Frustrated with my eating habits!

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purplesky1120

Cathlete
One of my best friends recently lost about 20 lbs and she looks fabulous now. She did it by improving her diet alone, not a bit of exercise. She cut down on her portion size, and ate healthier foods. I need to lose about 20 lbs myself, and I've been really really wanting to lose the weight for awhile now. I know the only thing holding me back is what I eat. I just love food sooooo much, and I feel at times that I have no control with it. I exercise very consistently and vary my program often. I know that I'm exercising enough, but since I eat so terribly I haven't been able to lose the weight. I know there is no magic secret for trying to eat better, but I guess I'm just looking for some words of inspiration. Sometimes I get motivated enough where I will keep up with clean eating for about a week or two, where I have noticed a definate improvement in my appearance, but for some reason, even seeing results I haven't been able to maintain healthier eating. I know to lose the weight and keep if off I need to change my eating habbits forever. I can't see how I'm gonna do that! It seems so incredibly hard to me. :( I'm almost scared to try to eat healthier again, because every time I've tried, I go right back to eating like a slob. So please if anyone has some words of motivation or any advice...please please help!!!!!!
Tina
 
It seems like you have a good role model, and you HAVE made it work for you temporarily, but you don't want to make the change badly enough yet, or you would do it. When you can't live with your situation another day, you WILL eat right, but your mind is not there yet. Eating junk is more important in your life right now than losing weight.

I hate to sound harsh, but this is reality - it's all under your control, so when you're REALLY ready, you'll do it.
 
Tina,

Honeybunch is SOOOOOOO right! I would have said the same thing, so I don't find her words harsh. It is entirely up to you to make the change.

Weight loss & physical fitness are partners. If you want to get physially fit, all the exercise in the world isn't going to do it if you are over weight. That takes making a life style change in your eating habits--80% of this is diet, what you put into your body.

Have you tried keeping a food journal? I did & it didn't do me the least bit of good until I started paying for it. I tried keeping a notebook, I didn't do it for long. I tried using fitday, I didn't stick with that either. For me, paying for it meant I had to use it or be throwing money down the toilet.

I am now using Weight Watchers online ($60 for 3 months). I am TOTALLY honest about what I eat. For example, if I eat ONE hershey kiss, I put it on the online journal. If I eat TEN hershey kisses I put it on the journal. I have been doing this for 8 weeks & as of this morning I am down 10 lbs.

The example I have used--hershey kisses is real. I still eat junk but I stay within my points value & I DO NOT eat junk all the time. I am eating healthier than I was before. I still need to clean it up a bit. After doing this for 8 weeks, I began to wonder about my protein intake--am I getting enough? So, I went over to fitday.com & logged in my meals from 2 days last week. Not only am I not eating enough protein but I'm still eating WAY too much fat. There are easy ways to get in enough protein without going over my points so I have to work on that.

Notice Tina, I keep saying I HAVE TO DO THIS or I HAVE TO DO THAT. This is all about ME. I have a friend that I'm supposed to be encouraging to get into shape. She is doing really well. But I can't model my behavior after what is working for her. I had to find what works for me & go from there.

Having people that I am accountable to helps. How can I encourage my friend if I am not following my own advice? I have been so much better at eating right because I have to talk to her about it. Maybe a check in where people won't allow you to make excuses is what you need. Yesterday I had a really stressful day. I called my friend about the stress in my life & she said to me "make sure you eat a healthy lunch." I told her about that big bag of hershey's kisses in the cabinet. She said to me, "DON'T YOU DARE EAT THOSE!!! If you find yourself going for them, call me, I'll talk you down." Sort of like an AA sponsor. It was great knowing that if I ate one I had to tell her. I was able to stay away from them & then last night after eating healthy all day & staying within my points range, I was able to reward myself with 1/2 cup of chocolate ice cream & STILL stayed under 1 point for the day.


Life is all about choices. YOU HAVE TO MAKE THIS CHOICE (not yelling, just emphasizing). In the words of Dr. Phil, "how's what you are currently doing working for ya?" Make a life choice, stop making excuses & just do it.

Good luck, Tina & let us know how you do.
 
Hi Tina! Wow-when I read your post, I was amazed with how much this sounds like me. I, too, have a good friend who lost a lot of weight by eating healthier and by doing "minimal" exericse. I get so frustrated because I do Cathe workouts and go to the gym and to kickboxing all the time and can't seem to lose any weight (and it's not that my weight is too low-I weigh 125 and I'm only 5'1"). I, like you, love to eat-especially cheese! I know I have to journal, and I try (but not hard enough), then I give up. And, I can't stand when people at work tell me I'm "getting smaller". I think, "what was I like before?". Anyway, I lose a few, then gain a few. It's been like this for a long time. For a couple of months now, I have been thinking about joining WW online. I would go to the site, almost join, then get off of it. Well, yesterday, I spent a good 1/2 hour looking over the site, and I compared it to ishape (the one from Shape magazine), then I looked over in the Cathe forum and did a search on ww-I read many great things about it. So, today, I joined. I know I don't have to lose a ton of weight, but like you, I am so frustrated, and hopefully this will motivate me to journal (cause I paid) and to lose a few.
So, you may want to check out something like that since you have a hard time staying on track-it may be a good motivator. Also, Fitday has a good,free journaling site, and I used it (but only for a few weeks) and gave up because is was too time consuming to me.
Good luck!!!!
 
Hi Tina !

This also happened to me : one of my friends started a diet, and lost 30 pounds in a few months... Wow ! She looks great now. One month ago, I finally decided to follow a diet a doctor gave me 6 years before (very close to my friend's diet), and I am still sticking with it !!! The first days were very hard, but after two days, I lost some weight, and THIS is what helped me going on, really !!! Now, I have lost 12 pounds, and cardio workouts are easier because I am lighter ! After losing 6 pounds, I authorised myself something GOOD to eat, a good extra, and I followed the diet after this meal, and I am still losing weight. I will do another extra after losing another 4 pounds, just to keep motivated. I hope this will help, but stick with your diet, you will lose weight, and you'll be in better shape for all your workouts !
 
I'm right there with you. I'm a yo-yo dieter and exerciser but have finally gotten into the exercise habit for good. The only thing holding me back from achieving more of my fitness goals is my diet.

I've come to realize that there are two ways to do it - you can change your eating habits on your own, by yourself, or you can enlist the aid of a program like Weight Watchers or one of the diets (Atkins, Ornish, South Beach, whichever) to help you make better food choices.

Changing your eating habits on your own is tough. If you do decide to do that, you need to give yourself time. It's almost impossible to change overnight from unhealthy eating to "perfect" clean eating with the proper ratio of protein-carbs-fats, limited sugar, high fiber, lots of water, the whole thing. Try it in increments - make a one-week commitment to, say, five daily servings of fruits and vegetables. After that, add in another commitment to, say, eight glasses of water per day. Then you can limit your chocolate to twice a week, or your junk food to once a week. Gradual changes are a lot easier to handle and you'll be eating healthier all the time.

The other way to do it is to go on a program. For some people, it's easier to have a set limit on their food - x amount of protein, x servings of fruits - or even a set meal plan for every day, rather than having to make their own choices from all the nutritious and not-so-nutritious foods out there. If you really feel like you have no control over your food, maybe a program would work for you because its structure would be your control. Why not investigate WW online, or head to the bookstore and check out the diet/nutrition books?
 
Hi Tina,

I also love to eat and find that clean eating and counting every ounce of protein, fat and carbs doesn't work for me. It isn't realistic to expect a junk food junkie to suddenly eliminate it completely from their diet. The best thing to do is cut back a little bit at a time. One of my common tricks, which my sister does as well, is to eat only half of a candy bar or donut or whatever the "bad" thing is, and immediately throw the rest away. Squash it into tiny pieces quickly if you must, just get rid of it!! :7 This is a great way to cut fat and calories and not feel deprived. It is hard to toss a perfectly good chocolate bar, and sometimes the chocolate wins, but I try!

Programs don't work for me either but what does is trying to eat smaller portions every few hours instead of three big meals. Even if one of those portions isn't totally "clean", if it is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand it will count as a smaller ration. The key to losing weight is creating a calorie deficit. One can eat perfectly clean but take in too many clean calories and still gain weight.

Keep in mind that your friend is probably going to have to work harder to maintain her weight loss without exercise than you will with exercise. Being in this profession, I have done countless body fat tests with calipers on women who are "skinny fat". They look great in their work clothes, but once the clothes come off, I don't feel so bad about my extra 5-8 lbs, cause it's tight! :7

-Roe
 
Tina,

Your getting great advice from everyone. I just have one thing to add: This is the time of year when there is an abundant supply of FRESH fruits and vegetables. It is always easier for me to eat better this time of year when they taste SO good. So take control and start eating better now and hopefully you will establish a good habit of healthy eating.

Success stories always motivate me too!

Margie
 
I think sometimes it's easier to go cold turkey on one thing at a time than to try to change a lot of eating habits at once. For example, week one, you can eliminate soda of all kinds from your diet. Work on finding fun and tasty replacements (iced green tea, herbal teas, carbonated water with a dash of fruit juice and a couple of drop of stevia, or just ice water with a couple of drops of stevia in it).

Also, where are you doing the most junk eating? If it's at home, you will have to be strong when you go to the grocery store! Go with a full stomach, avoid the large bags of chips (I'm speaking from my own experience and my tendency to eat the entire bag if I get it home!) or whatever is your downfall. If you crave fritos (me again!), maybe buy a small bag. Though you might find, like me, that if you stay away from them for a while, they really don't taste as good as you remember them to. Just avoid eating them out of habit if you are not getting that much pleasure from them.) Keep some kind of tasty and healthy snack in the car (a natural food bar, for example) so that when you are tempted by the junky food, you can tell yourself that you've got something better waiting in the car, so you don't need to buy this. If the food is not in the house, you can't eat it!

Someone else mentioned the wonderful variety of fresh fruits and veggies available now. Try something new to give your taste buds a jolt with good food. I just picked up some persimmons, which I've only tried once before, and love them as a "breakfast 1" snack (in the summer, I tend to break my meals down into even smaller parts than usual, so I have a light morning snack, then two hours later or so, I have something a bit more substantial, like whole grain toast with natural p.b. spread thin on it instead of butter).

For me, junk fooding (or just eating too much or too much processed food) is partly psychological. I have to fight against my tendency to snack while watching TV or movies, because that's become such an ingrained habit. Instead, I go for the tea or light beverage approach (and I keep the bag of Newman's pseudo-Oreos in the kitchen rather than next to the couch, or I'll just keep reaching for them!). Also, sometimes when I've been in better shape (I once got my legs to be as lean as I'd like them to be by stickiing pretty much with whole foods ---no flours or processed foods, just whole grains like oats instead of oatmeal or cereals made from flour---but it didn't last too long because I think somewhere iin the back of my mind, I didn't know what to do if I actually got the body I wanted. If I did, then there would be no excuse for having other problems in my life. Sounds whacky, but I think that's what goes on in the back of my mind, even though I don't think about it consciously.

Are you being too strict in your "good" eating? If you stick with 85-95 percent "good," and allow yourself that 5-15% "cheat," (dependiing on what works best for you), it may be much easier to stick with the way of eating than if you try to be 100% "good" all the time.
 
Okay, kiddo, here's my two cents:

For me, losing weight was a life-or-death call. Last year, I started on an exercise program after having been sedentary for 5 years (I was an avid Firmie). So, off I went to my exercise room and started moving...

A year later in April, I'm down 35 pounds. I still have 25-35 more to go and I can't get the scale to budge. You will notice in my first paragraph that I embarked on an EXERCISE program, not a DIETING program. I am the classic "emotional eater" and struggled with bulimia as a teenager. I think I still do, to a certain extent, less the self-induced vomiting, at least on an emotional level (binge/purge mentality; guilt, disgust, etc.)

I find myself now at the point where I have to change my diet if I am to lose anymore weight. You can exercise yourself all day long, all week long, but if you don't change your eating habits, you'll just be a "fat, skinny person," if you get my drift.

I borrowed that phrase from a website I visited earlier this week called www.physiquetransformation.com. I have a free 5-day trial membership where I am logging everything I eat and tomorrow, it will spit back to me a diet analysis along with a plan for me to change my diet. It monitors intake for protein, carbs, fat, vitamins, minerals, macro- and micro-nutrients. I am anxious to see the results of my analysis which will tell me what I am "doing wrong."

Check it out. It's only $7/month and the average "session" is 11 weeks. There are three phases: Diet Analysis, Fat Burning and Conditioning. It all makes sense and it is built loosely around the Body for Life concept.

Good luck!

Deb
 
Wow! Thankyou so much everyone for your replies! Honeybunch, I don't think what you said is harsh at all, I think your right. I definatly REALLY want to lose the weight, but obviously eating junk is more important to me at this point, because I keep making the choice to eat it. I completly understand what you mean, I just wish there was a way to fight the cravings I get for junk. It's not even all junk, I just happen to LOVE chocolate, and pizza. I don't have problems with chips, or candy bars, I usually eat milk duds or raisinets. When it comes to homemade brownies, cake, or apple pie...uh oh! I think I might be best just completly cutting these foods out, because it's so difficult to only eat small portions!!

Deborah, I've tried to keep a food journal before as well and I have been successful for a week or two at a time, then I miss one day and its all over. I have used fitday, but I only lasted 2 days because I find it time consuming, and kind of a pain in the butt. I've been considering weight watchers online. I've been doing what Jaypea did, I go to the website and look at the program trying to figure out whether to join or not. I think I'm gonna give this a go on my own, and if I fail at eating healthier, (I don't plan on failing) then I will join weight watchers online.

Congrats to you Karina for keeping up with your diet and losing weight!! I hope to follow in your footsteps!

Margie, I LOVE fruits, so it's my goal to eat 3-4 a day with the hopes of getting full off of them and not having any room for the junk! I'll try the same with veggies as well, as though I don't love them as much :)

Kathryn, in the past I have gone cold turkey on everything. Maybe thats why it hasn't worked out for me yet. I really like your idea to do one thing at a time, each week. I think for me maybe that's the best way to go, cutting out all junk and soda. If I have alittle, I want it all. I guess I'll just have to try and see if that works. When I go shopping I never buy any junk food I buy fruits and veggies, but when other family members go, they bring home chocolate bars and chips, and I have to plead with them to buy fruit, and more then just one kind!! They refuse to buy less junk, which makes if very difficult for me!

Thanks again everyone for all the great responses. I'm gonna try to do this on my own, I'm going to take control over what I eat, and how much of it I eat. I am making the decision that weight loss is more important to me than eating junk. I'll let you know how everything works out! :)
 
You should also try various eating plans. I prefer not to give up my free days so I follow BFL. I eat clean 100% Sunday through Friday, but come Saturday, look out. It is what works for me. There are so many differnet plans, sometimes it is a matter of finding what works for you as an individual.

Colleen
 
Just let me add, to all the replies, a strong recommendation for the book Life is Hard, Food is Easy. I learned a lot from that book and I now know why I like Luna bars so much.

It only takes one Luna bar to really satisfy a "craving" for me because it's so crunchy, I can really "sink my teeth" into it.

So many of us want crunchy nacho chips or peanuts when we have stress, and many people also grind their teeth over it. Cottage cheese isn't going to do it. I want something I can really crush.

When we feel lonely, left out, or a abandoned we might eat ice cream or mashed potatoes for comfort. Linda Spangle, the author, goes into detail about so many emotions and their influence on our choices when *eating when we aren't hungry.*

I highly recommend the book.
 
Hi Tina!
I know eating habits are harder for some people to change, than for others. I find in the hot weather, I am not as hungry and as stated earlier the abundance or yummy fruits and veggies, oolala!!!
One friend went on weight watchers and was very successful. I know of friends who love The Zone. If you like structure, get more info on these.
I think it is very important to write down every mouthful, even for a few days. If nothing else, it shames us into putting down the fork! Maybe you could start by cleaning out your cabinets and fridge of empty calorie foods. If they aren't readily available, you can't eat them. Also, go to the grocery store with a full stomach, armed with a list.
Did you know dehydration triggers hunger? Drink a lot of water. It takes time for your brain to know you are full, so start the process early with a piece of fruit one half hour before your dinner. Maybe try to stay away from processed carbs.....bread, pasta, sugar, etc.
I know it is hard. Do not kick yourself for yesterday. Today is a new day!!! Good luck!
 
Tina,

Wow! What a great post and moreover, what great responses! I struggle with the same type of eating habits. My exercise routine can be excellent and clean eating will go wonderfully until I get the urge to eat something I shouldn't! Sometimes, I don't even realize it until I have eaten in excess. I am reading through the book by Linda Spangle, LIFE IS HARD, FOOD IS EASY and her insights hit issues right on the mark. I am learning and examining why I eat and how I can make clean eating work for me permanently. I appreciate all of the ladies' candid responses, it was really what I needed to hear. We are in this journey together!

Dawn
 
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