Stupid problem - I keep eating

LegacyUser

Kind of embarassing talking about this, but its something i've always done and thats "comfort eat". Im over weight a little (by no means obese) and always was a little on the larger side and I really do wish to loose some weight. I have been a bit of a sufferer from depression and one thing that always made me feel a bit better was eating take away food. How do I stop because;
1)I'm spending way too much money on food
2)Its stopping me loosing any weight even when at the gym
3)My size gets me down sometimes, i'm quite paranoid

Victor

Then this food is bad for you. Stop eating it. Get some fruit instead.

the_syco

Victor wrote: »

Get some fruit instead.

I second this. I could snack on a packet of biscuits with ease, and still be hungry, but eating a banana would fill me up.

dammitjanet

maybe consider going to the food diary section of boards. In Soc, under food and it's a subforum. You can get great ideas for healthy snacks and stuff there. And if you do a food diary yourself everyone is so suportive and nice! The charter clearly states only possitive reinforcement allowed
Best of luck x

tenchi-fan

Join the club! I'm in the same boat. and maybe once a year when I feel good enough to lose weight, i reach my ideal weight and then pile it all back on again over the next year. the weird thing is, i can feel a bit down sometimes too and for the half hour it feels good to binge you will regret it straight away and then spend the next few months feeling down by being flabby and bloated.

you should try to keep your fridge stocked with healthy food and prepare a packaged lunch to take to work/college (sandwiches, fruit, juice, etc.) and prepare a meal plan for the week (e.g. salmon on Monday, spag boll on tuesday, etc) because otherwise you will just end up eating convenient food.

Ignore the negative idiots who start chirping "oh there's as much sugar in orange juice as 2 glasses of coke!" or "you can eat everything in moderation" because when you struggle with weight sometimes you just need to go cold turkey.

never buy stuff you know is unhealthy, and never keep unhealthy food in your house (bars, crisps, minerals, biscuits, etc - for visitors) because no matter your good intentions you will just end up eating it yourself

Good luck!

Bottle_of_Smoke

In alan Carr's EASYWAY to lose weight I think he focuses more on why people overeat and ways to stop it than actual diets etc. At the beginning he says it could easily be used to gain weight if that was your aim.

Might be worth a look. I think you have a serious problem. Its somewhat ok now because you're going to the gym but if it gets worse you could find yourself chronically obese in a few years.

vicecreamsundae

i'd have three tips for you.

1. don't deny yourself anything altogether. you say takeout is your big thing. so how about you agree to get takeout once a week. or maybe even twice, if say you decide to get a chines or equivalent every friday evening and maybe a small bag of chips once during the week too.
i mean you said yourself, you're not even nearly obese, AND you're going to the gym so there's no good reason to cut out all takeout, if it's a food you enjoy.

2.when you do your grocery shopping, don't buy lots of junkfood. when i do my own grocery shopping, i KNOW that anything that goes in my basket i'm going to eat, so i try not to justify things by saying "well it's a 12pack of crisps, but i'll make them last for ages..". not a chance! best way to stop snacking is to stop buying snacks. it helps when you are trying to save cash too.

3. learn to cook some nice meals and always have a supply of the main ingredients you need for them. what would sometimes happen to me, is i would go grocery shopping, decide... "right i'll only buy super healthy food, so i can only eat healthy food, genius!". cue two days later and all that's in my fridge is some tuna and celery, and it's a perfect excuse to HAVE to go get some takeout. i'm not much of a cook, but i can make a delicious red curry, some good pasta dishes , soups and smoothies, so when im hungry, want takeout but decide to make something instead, im like "that would be yum too" rather than disappointed. learning some recipes is also good for money reasons...making stuff can be seriously cheap.
a jar of readymade indian red curry sauce might be about 4euro.
some oil, red curry paste and coconut milk might come to about the same, but the oil will last for aggges and you can get another five curries out of one of those wee jars of paste.
also, pre-packaged food usually has more sugar/salt/preservatives etc than stuff you whip up yourself.

okay, let's make it four tips. make the obvious trades, like brown pasta/rice/bread instead of white. grill meats instead of frying them. have low fat fruit yoghurts and things instead of ice cream/cake desserts. drink more water and less pop. eat whatever you like, but have smaller portions.

LegacyUser

1. Try to have at least one healthy meal a day. So I start my day with porridge and banana or strawberries or blueberries or a mixture of all three

2. I try not to buy processed food. When I'm really eating healthily, I make all my own food. Takes 30 mins for soups or quite easy to do pasta with sauces (make your own)... you become quite aware of what you're eating and how much fat and sugar you're taking in.

3. I exercise - the more I do , the more I want to do, the fitter I get the more fit I want to get. And by exercising I want to eat the best food to keep me going.

4. I have a very sweet tooth... I know though that if I have tea or coffee that I need a biscuit or chocolate to go with it... so go for the best choice in this respect. If I have a packet of chocolate biscuits, I'll eat the lot. So I don't buy them. What I do is buy a packet of rich tea as I know I'll only eat 3/4 of those max or buy a small Purple Snack and have that..... that way I control what I eat.

5. try to only have good ingredients in the house and don't buy food in bulk. And as other people have suggested, have a meal plan.

6. Also, only make medium sized portions - if I make food for today and tomorrow, I eat it all today.

7. Try to replace certain foods with vegetables... so try to limit the pasta and add a whole heap of veg in instead.

Danniboo

tenchi-fan wrote: »

Join the club! I'm in the same boat. and maybe once a year when I feel good enough to lose weight, i reach my ideal weight and then pile it all back on again over the next year. the weird thing is, i can feel a bit down sometimes too and for the half hour it feels good to binge you will regret it straight away and then spend the next few months feeling down by being flabby and bloated.

you should try to keep your fridge stocked with healthy food and prepare a packaged lunch to take to work/college (sandwiches, fruit, juice, etc.) and prepare a meal plan for the week (e.g. salmon on Monday, spag boll on tuesday, etc) because otherwise you will just end up eating convenient food.

Ignore the negative idiots who start chirping "oh there's as much sugar in orange juice as 2 glasses of coke!" or "you can eat everything in moderation" because when you struggle with weight sometimes you just need to go cold turkey.

never buy stuff you know is unhealthy, and never keep unhealthy food in your house (bars, crisps, minerals, biscuits, etc - for visitors) because no matter your good intentions you will just end up eating it yourself

Good luck!

those negative idiots are usually the ones who are slim and keep their weight down, the diets that fail are the ones you describe as cold turkey, going from one extreme to the next and then reverting back to your old eating habits and putting all the weight back on and then some. Not only is this a bad idea for weight loss but it puts you at risk for diabetes. I've had chocolate peanuts, fudge, bags of crisps, biscuits in my house since Christmas and didn't eat one of them, I only got rid of them out of the house there yesterday as they would have went in the bin otherwise, you need to work on your will power and determination if you don't feel you have the self control to not eat whatever food is around you. A diet is not a quick fix it should be a way of life.

Dark Phoenix

I used to be chronic for boredom eating as being sat at a desk allday means you can do it without even realising!
what helped for me OP was everything in moderation and a gradual cut down i.e. half a bag of crisps instead of a whole bag, a fun size bar of chocolate instead of a full size.

What might also help (and save you money) is to plan what you will eat in work in advance so go for a shop on a Sunday evening and pick up some healthier options - if you are buying multi packs of things they tend to have smaller portions too. If you have food in with you to eat and you have alloacted yourself a certain amount that day there is less chance of you heading to the vending machine or the shop during the day.

also dont forget to drink water as often you are not hungry you are thirsty. If you can try green tea its very good for reducing sugar cravings

ztoical

Danniboo wrote: »

those negative idiots are usually the ones who are slim and keep their weight down, the diets that fail are the ones you describe as cold turkey, going from one extreme to the next and then reverting back to your old eating habits and putting all the weight back on and then some. Not only is this a bad idea for weight loss but it puts you at risk for diabetes.

+ 1 People who yo yo diet like that are more likely to suffer from health issues then someone who has a few extra pounds on them. Your shocking your body by crash dieting. The key to weight loss is to not go on a diet. Unless you plan on staying on a diet for the rest of your life, your just going to put it all back on plus some extra. You need to change your eating habits. It ain't quick but there is no quick fix to weight loss. Portion sizes is as big an issue as what your eating.

Set a goal like having a good breakfast every morning for 2 weeks...it will become habit and you move on to the next thing like replacing chocolate snacks with fruit and so on and so forth thus changing your food habits rather then doing a gimicky diet. If you just go from junk food to rabbit food in one go you'll get pissed off after a week end up back eating junk food.

LegacyUser

Thanks guys for all the help.. all the advice is greatly appreciated. I guess by saying im not obese but by no means am I in a fit state. I go to the gym 2 or 3 times a week mainly just more to get exercise and good for the mind, more so than loosing weight.

My main problems are meal times. I never eat breakfast, generally have a large lunch for example a baguette; and wont eat until later on in the night. I dont snack during the day, I don't have a sweet tooth and dont eat crisps etc. But the food I do eat is either take away or baguettes/sandwiches.

Take aways are a killer though, i find myself if I'm bored in the evenings for something to do (as silly as it sounds :S) but go out and get some dinner and sometimes this is quite late in the night.

I'm quite concious of my weight I am a little "chubby" and It does get to me sometimes, but I cant stop eating crap food. I am aiming hopefully to try and start eating breakfast and cut out baguettes for lunch everyday (high carbs!!) I guess, and maybe more a more nutritional dinner in the evenings.

I know I am saying this now but I know its going to be hard and I really dont know where to start as my diet is so limited because I'm a fussy eater.

Danniboo

Stupid_problem wrote: »

Thanks guys for all the help.. all the advice is greatly appreciated. I guess by saying im not obese but by no means am I in a fit state. I go to the gym 2 or 3 times a week mainly just more to get exercise and good for the mind, more so than loosing weight.

My main problems are meal times. I never eat breakfast, generally have a large lunch for example a baguette; and wont eat until later on in the night. I dont snack during the day, I don't have a sweet tooth and dont eat crisps etc. But the food I do eat is either take away or baguettes/sandwiches.

Take aways are a killer though, i find myself if I'm bored in the evenings for something to do (as silly as it sounds :S) but go out and get some dinner and sometimes this is quite late in the night.

I'm quite concious of my weight I am a little "chubby" and It does get to me sometimes, but I cant stop eating crap food. I am aiming hopefully to try and start eating breakfast and cut out baguettes for lunch everyday (high carbs!!) I guess, and maybe more a more nutritional dinner in the evenings.

I know I am saying this now but I know its going to be hard and I really dont know where to start as my diet is so limited because I'm a fussy eater.

You should really try eating breakfasts as your starting point as you're not giving your body fuel in the mornings, this caused you to go into starvation mode and by lunch time when you get your baguette the food you eat is just going to be stored as fat. This will slow your metabolism right down. Try having granary/brown bread or a wrap instead of a baguette. You should do a shop on a Sunday and buy stuff for lunch for the week. Cut out fizzy drinks if you can and drink more water. And it goes without saying cut out take aways. If you go to a dietician they will tell you 1 takeaway a fortnight if you really want one. Regardless if you're skinny fat obese whatever, the diet you are eating is putting your health at risk for things like heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol. Not only that but you'll end up with really bad skin. It's just not worth it.

profitius

I'll tell you why you're eating too much and I'll tell you how to solve your problem!

No point telling you what to eat and what not to eat. The fact of the matter is you're weight won't change if you're just trying to change your diet. You'll notice most people trying to lose weight usually put it back on again and thats after alot of effort.



Why you're eating too much:
You have to understand how the mind works. Firstly, the subconscious is 100's of times more powerful then the conscious mind. Therefore the reason you can't stop eating is because thats what your subconscious is programmed to do.

Think about it. You badly want to change your eating habits but you can't. The conscious part of you wants to but its the subconscious part of you thats in charge. This explains why people yo-yo diet too. They try to resist the power of the subconscious but can't. Its like trying to swim against a strong current.


What you can do about it:
You'll notice I said that your subconscious mind is programmed in a certain way. If you want to change your eating habits you need to reprograme it.

You do that by changing your thoughts. Change how you see yourself. If you've been think about being overweight for years then you've been programming your subconscious to believe that you're overweight. The SC (subconscious) responds by giving you the urges to eat more.

You might wonder why this happens and the simple reason is its acting in acordance with your beliefs. You believe you're fat and so it follows orders by acting out your beliefs.

I know its probably alot to take in but just remember to change how you view yourself and stop the negative self talk. Thats why you're eating too much.

Picture yourself being healthy and be positive and be good to yourself. It won't change overnight but if you keep being positive and have a little patience it will change without too much effort on your part.