Intentionally Self Sabotaging Diet Progress

LegacyUser

Hi.

So I am 21 average height. I have a group of friends. They didn't realise but since they all lost weight they started towards acting differently towards me. I was now their silly little fat friend. I decided to change that and get myself from a size 12 to a size 8/10 this summer. I worked really hard but I would occasionally slip up on the strict diet I set for myself and when I did that I'd binge for a day or two reversing a weeks worth of work. None the less when I discovered I had lost 4 pounds (9 stone 3 pounds) I decided to switch my goal weight of 9 stone to 8 stone 8 pounds. I managed to get myself down to 9 stone 1 pound. I hadnt been such a light weight since I was 13! I decided to try some of those sugar free chocolate bars that day and I ended up bingeing on about 4 of them.....at the end I didn't even want the chocolate I was just eating these bars that are nearly 500 cals each for the sake of it! From that day I went into a downward spiral of overeating and eating the wrong foods....such as eating 4 chocolate bars and a sharing pack of m and ms one day on top of other foods. I weighed myself today. I'm back to my original weight of 9stone 7 pounds. I make one slip up and I decide to punish myself by self sabotaging any progress Ive made. Is this a thing when people try to lose weight or just me and how do I get over this?

Penny Tration

Yeah, self sabotage is definitely a thing when dieting!


However, what are you actually eating? Usually, the main reason for binge eating when dieting is because we're depriving ourselves of something, or aren't eating enough.


If you're eating enough to stay full, you won't binge because you'll be full!

Have you actually calculated your calories, your protein, your carbs, against your body's requirements?


Weight doesn't come on overnight, so it won't go away overnight either. Have you checked your BMI? Is your goal weight actually healthy? It's all well and good wanting to be a size 8, but you're hardly fat at a size 12 (unless you're 4'8!), and if you're already in a healthy BMI range, your focus should be on toning rather than weight loss.

GingerLily

Unless you give details about your height and calorie intake it's hard to understand if your problem is selfsabotage or your underfeeding yourself. Dress size and body fat % can be wildly different so don't confuse the two.

Another thing to bare in mind is watching your relationship with food, a lot of eating disorders can start out in the exact same fashion as your describing. I think the nutrition forum here would help you with that.

tea and coffee

I wouldn't call 9 stone 7 lb "silly little fat friend" - I wouldn't call a size 12 "fat" either. I'd be more concerned about that than regaining the weight you lost.

Augme

It sounds like you have an unhealthy relationship with body image/weight/food. That problem isn't going to be fixed by dieting or losing weight, it's more of a mental issue.

Dixie Chick

I also agree that it sounds like you are in an unhealthy mindframe about your weight. Go over to the Nutrition and Diet section and see where you can eat really well and still lose at a healthy rate

I'm concerned about your own feeling of self-worth and your personal body-image and relationship with food. Be careful, because it could get pretty bad very quickly.

Congrats on losing so much weight, but don't worry about binge eating. Once you stop beating yourself up about it, you'll stop putting so much importance of it, and might even stop the binge eating. Everyone is allowed cheat days.

LegacyUser

Unfortunately with regards to the weight loss, I went through a similar binge cycle and now I have an eating disorder of sorts. I don't want you to follow in the same path.

Please please don't start counting calories. Don't think about the numerical value of foods. Look at what you are eating and decide if it is healthy. Eat when you are hungry. Don't starve yourself. I promise if you do this and exercise, you will lose weight. Before I started counting calories and obsessing, I lost two stone by eating healthy and exercising. I did not count calories and ate probably 6 small meals a day. I always felt great and enjoyed my diet because what I ate was healthy and satisfying.

Yes, counting calories is a scientific way to go about your weight loss, but when you realise that you can say.. eat one tub of ben and jerrys a day instead of 3 meals and still be in a calorie deficit, things get dangerous. In my opinion, weight loss should be about health. Calories in foods come across as equal(which maybe they are), but you wont feel good on a low calorie junk diet. I can assure you of that.

I can see that you are at the beginning of the binge-starve cycle. This is where you starve yourself for days on end and drop weight, then your brain goes kind of crazy from the lack of glucose and you have cravings for junk food that you can't fight and so you binge, gain the weight back and feel a horrific sense of guilt that is really destroying.

Although I know all this I still continue to be caught in this mentality. Congrats on your weight loss, but remember to love yourself and try and keep in mind that as long as you are a healthy weight, you are perfect the way you are.

beks101

You're in a binge-starve cycle now because of the extreme dieting and food deprivation that provoked this biological urge to eat that no one in the world is designed to fight. Your body will continue to urge you to binge on high-fat high-calorie foods until you wipe the slate clean and completely rectify your eating habits, diet and body image.

Be careful here because this is a slippy slope. I was a similar age to you and similar mentality when I developed an eating disorder that turned into a binge-starve cycle that lasted for most of my 20s. It cost me my social life, my self image and self esteem, my relationship with my family in many instances and my physical health - bad skin, insomnia, and metabolism slowed right down ironically keeping my weight beyond what is ideal for me and making any real attempts to lose it futile.

I'm 31 now and only in the last 2 years have I gotten into what is a healthy and happy weight for me and you know why that happened? Because I stopped looking over my shoulder and trying to match other people's skinniness, I stopped weighing myself or having a "goal weight", I stopped banning "bad foods" or demonising food the way I always used to and I stopped counting calories as though food is something designed to hurt me rather than designed to nourish me.

You clearly have tied up your self worth in your weight and are aiming for a "goal weight" for competitive rather than health reasons. Just stop. Slow down. Ignore your friends and ask yourself what you really want for yourself. Do you want to waste your twenties on this behaviour? Sadly we live in a society that polices our bodies as women and warns us to diet if we want to be in any way attractive and you'll see this reflected in your friends' attitudes as well as many other women in your life.

Rise above it. Endeavour to be as fit and healthy as you can be. Do you exercise? Group classes at an independent gym changed my life, they changed my goals from "skinny" to "strong" and they made me realise that you can be your "goal weight" and still be incredibly unhealthy and out of shape if you're not eating enough of the right kinds of foods.

Find something you love that isn't a chore and that makes you want to fuel your body so that you can get stronger every day. Could be swimming or yoga classes or dancing or Crossfit or training for a 10k.

And stop depriving yourself of the foods you enjoy. I eat chocolate every day because I enjoy chocolate and who wants to live in a world where I can't let myself experience th joy of food. And more pertinently, it prevents me from bingeing on it in a week and feeling bad about myself. It makes food more of a friend than an enemy.

Be strong now. Be brave now. Don't waste your youth on dieting and feeling bad about yourself. 8 and a half stone is worth less than the dirt on my shoe if it costs you your happiness, mental health and relationship with food.