Dieting Difficulties

cmyk

Ok, I don't think we've had a thread of this nature here, but it's something I've been delving into a bit more and spending more time with clients on but I'd like to open it up to a wider audience for further education of myself and others. I had previously thought the answer to this question was a foregone conclusion but there are several factors.

What do you find most difficult about dieting? Interested to hear from those dieting/or have done successfully/unsuccessfully for health/appearance reasons, and those that have done it for athletic reasons albeit slightly different scenarios.

TimeToShine

not eating (srs)

Hanley

For me, the single hardest thing is eating the right thing in the face of blinding hunger (ie eating some eggs or some chicken when my body's crying out for carbs).

Typically that only happens if I screw up meal timing, so i've really no one buy myself to blame.

Hanley

And for the record, I find it MUCH easier dieting for weight class/sporting purposes rather than appearance.

Zamboni

cmyk wrote: »

What do you find most difficult about dieting? Interested to hear from those dieting/or have done successfully/unsuccessfully for health/appearance reasons, and those that have done it for athletic reasons albeit slightly different scenarios.

Working people can be great at dieting Monday to Friday - working life for the most part is regimented and their meal frequency/timeframe is defined.
But then they psychologically relax on weekends.
That combined with alcohol intake rapidly diminishes will power.
I know when I am dieting it is also my Achilles heel.

Completley agree with Hanley that dieting for a comp/athletic goal is far easier than dieting for aesthetics.

Hanley

So since this thread was moved, are we now only allowed discuss the exercise aspects of weightloss in the fitness forum and not the dietary aspects?!!?

cmyk

Yep fully understand those differences, generally speaking you're only dieting for a short period and for a particular date/goal. Different scenario when you've 40lbs to lose.

Blatter

Hanley wrote: »

For me, the single hardest thing is eating the right thing in the face of blinding hunger (ie eating some eggs or some chicken when my body's crying out for carbs).

Typically that only happens if I screw up meal timing, so i've really no one buy myself to blame.

This, without question for me.

It only really happens at night though when your arsing around doing nothing and you're mentally tired. Once you eat that one portion of high GI carbs at night, my discipline can go well and truly out the window.

During the day I find it a hell of alot easier to eat right.

Duck's hoop

Yeah, it's the routine. If that gets knocked out of shape for whatever reason, bender, ill etc, it can take a couple of days to get it together again.

That and just having a munch on and saying 'to hell with it, I'm hungry, bread sandwiches'.

Red Cortina

cmyk wrote: »

I had previously thought the answer to this question was a foregone conclusion but there are several factors.

What was the foregone conclusion? Calories in vs calories out or something?

cmyk wrote: »

What do you find most difficult about dieting?

I have found in the past that when I focused solely on calories that it was very tough going from a mental point of view. That when I went hungry all the time to lose fat, that there usually was a big binge/rebound affect afterwards.

cmyk wrote: »

Interested to hear from those dieting/or have done successfully/unsuccessfully for health/appearance reasons, and those that have done it for athletic reasons albeit slightly different scenarios.

I would class myself ultimately as an unsuccessful dieter who was dieting for appearance reasons.



Here is my take dieting/obesity:

• It is mentally exhausting trying to restrict calories
• I think you are on a hiding to nowhere trying to restrict calories using willpower only in the long term
• There seems to be something to the whole theory that your body defends a certain body fat set-point
• The body fat set-point theory is directly in opposition to the notion that you can willfully restrict calories to control your body fat
• It is probably a lot easier to lose fat when your body isn't already feiced up ie if you have some sort of thyroid disfunction or if you have suffered with, for example, IBS and maybe have some kind of micro-nutritional deficiency going on etc
• It is really hard to lose that last bit of fat
• Women are meant to carry more body fat than men and are not meant to be ripped. Exercise and diet composition affect hormone levels and so you are playing russian roulette with your fertility if you restrict calories all the time
• The obesity issue is far more complex than just calories in vs calories out and it is not yet known what causes it
• If folks ate real food made in a traditional manner they probably wouldn't be struggling with weight issues
• I think that Stephan Guyenet is defo onto something with the food reward theory of obesity

Just my 2 cents there, for what it's worth...

cmyk

Red Cortina wrote: »

What was the foregone conclusion? Calories in vs calories out or something?

Hunger, as was pointed out by others and yourself. A few of the other answers seem to be boredom, miseducation, over complication, saturation of information, how to lose weight isn't really what I'm getting at here, plenty of threads about that. I'm more interested in the psychology of dieting.

LittleMissLost

The most difficult thing I find about dieting is not seeing results on the scales.

Being "healthy" weight makes it MUCH more difficult to lose weight. I have a BMI of 22 so clinically I'm "healthy" but I need to lose a stone and a half to get to a BMI of 19.5 to look slim.

I don't find it too hard to restrict calories but when I'm only losing a pound or two a week it makes me want to give up and go back to eating crap.

cmyk

1-2lb is good progress littlemisslost. How long do you typically diet for? Do you do it in bursts etc? or if it's ongoing how long have you been dieting for?

LittleMissLost

cmyk wrote: »

1-2lb is good progress littlemisslost. How long do you typically diet for? Do you do it in bursts etc? or if it's ongoing how long have you been dieting for?

I suppose it is good enough, but I weigh myself every morning (habbit) and not seeing the number going down after working hard is annoying.

I started when I was overweight (BMI 27) and got down to a BMI of 20.8 (had a great figure) in the space of about 2 years. However, this was not always healthy as I was a dancer and some cruel comments from my dance teacher made me take dieting to an extreme.

Recently however because of the Leaving Cert I've found myself slipping and have gone back up to a BMI of 22. I don't plan how long I'm going to diet for but I just want to get to a weight where I'm happy with how I look. Ideal for me would be BMI 19-20. If I could get there and maintain it it would be perfect!

cmyk

Hanley wrote: »

For me, the single hardest thing is eating the right thing in the face of blinding hunger (ie eating some eggs or some chicken when my body's crying out for carbs).

Out of interest, do you cut your calories by much, I only ask as you used the term 'blinding hunger'? I vaguely remember your 2-week transformation log but can't remember what sort of a deficit you ran, and did tapering off the volume of training help at all with hunger?

LittleMissLost

LittleMissLost wrote: »

I suppose it is good enough, but I weigh myself every morning (habbit) and not seeing the number going down after working hard is annoying.

You need to break this habit, as it will simply drive you insane.

Day to day weight fluctuations can be pretty severe, I couldn't imagine weighing myself daily. The negative feelings when the scales jumps (a more than healthy amount) a lb over the course of a day even though you've kept to a clean diet can absolutely plague your head.

The overall idea of a weighing scales is to map a trend, you want to see an overall decrease over a reasonable time period. You can find that your weight changes overnight even though you haven't eaten anything or drank anything at the time. The times you use the bathroom affect it, the time of the month affects water retention etc.

Seriously, break that habit before it breaks you. Break the scales even!

Ectoplasm

Ok...I should start by saying that this could be a long post.

For me, the single most difficult aspect of dieting has been/is my messed up relationship with food.

A little history...I've been overweight since I was a teenager. It started out as a few extra pounds but then I started going out, drinking and most importantly I dropped all the sports (hockey, swimming, basketball) and the weight piled on. Then I began the endless diet cycle...lose a stone following a very "strict" diet - boring, bland, low fat - actually low food is probably more accurate. It was always unsustainable AND I was a total perfectionist. A slip meant abandoning everything with "I'm such a loser" style thinking and gorging on everything I'd deprived myself of. Then I'd gain that stone I'd lost and more.

Throughout my twenties, food became both a reward and a punishment. It was insane. I tried every 'diet' going - WeightWatchers, Motivation, Nutron (yeah I was that stupid ) and had the same results. Lose a little, gain it and a little more back.

Around March or April I made the decision that I really needed to do something about it. I started reading up a LOT about nutrition and decided that instead of obsessively calorie counting, following a particular program or diet plan that I would just eat real food that I cook myself.

Far more importantly I went to a counsellor to address my food issues. It sounds over the top and certainly isn't necessary for everyone or even most people - in fact I imagine for most people they can't relate to this at all - but this has been the key for me. I've lost about two stone now and honestly, it's been the easiest two stone I've ever lost. I'm not focused on my weight, I'm focused on my health. The numbers are so much less important now; when I have a week or fortnight where I gain, I'm not sent into a tailspin of 'being a failure', followed by binging, feeling more of a failure and comforting myself with more junk.

I've a lot more to lose and I'm sure things will get more difficult but I've stopped worrying about the future and pretty much go with making the best choices I can at any given time. By addressing the reasons why I was overeating to begin with, it's relieved the horrendous pressure I was putting myself under every time I 'dieted'.

Mack_1111

When I'm training I find adherence to a diet simple, when I'm not training I find adherence impossible.

Hanley

Mack_1111 wrote: »

When I'm training I find adherence to a diet simple, when I'm not training I find adherence impossible.

Strongly agree - all or nothing.

Hanley

cmyk wrote: »

Out of interest, do you cut your calories by much, I only ask as you used the term 'blinding hunger'? I vaguely remember your 2-week transformation log but can't remember what sort of a deficit you ran, and did tapering off the volume of training help at all with hunger?

Blinding hunger may be a slight exaggeration....

I normally go off bodyweight in lb x12-14 and adjust from there. I'm dieting on about 2,400 at the moment and taking in 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight and surviving decently well, and the weight is coming off slowly.

I've gone as low as 2,200kcals/day while training hard 5-6x per week and it nearly killed me. I was only sleeping 6-7 hours a night at that point so it didn't help. Right now I'm around 8-10.

CerebralCortex

I find comments from other people when I'm eating ridiculous amounts of veg, olive oil and fish for example quite annoying. Also at the weekly junkfood team bonding session, I used to get "why don't you eat dohnuts... ...but you need sugar... ...you're going to die anyway... ...I'm insecure about my behaviour..." stream of verbal diarrhea. It's extremely tedious!
I do find it frustrating that people couldn't give a ****e what they're putting into their bodies.
Other than that it's a cake walk.

Hedwig

The hardest thing for me about 'dieting' (although I don't like to call it that) is being around others who are eating chocolate, sweets, etc. and I feel awkward not eating any and almost pressured into having some so as not to seem out of place... Also refusing things that people have baked or saying no to dessert and everyone looks at me like I've just done something ridiculously weird!

shannon guy

I hate the constant food preperation.

It takes the fun out of life.

Eating 6 meals a day is so boring, and I got sick of it.