Lazy about starting the diet

This topic contains 7 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by Lichtle 10 years, 3 months ago.

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Sylphadora

8:07 am
16 Sep 14
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I followed this diet for a few months a couple of years ago and it did wonders for me. Sure, at first it wasn’t easy to cope with hunger, but all in all I think it’s a fairly easy-to-follow diet.

However, the thought that whenever I gain weight I can always lose it easily with just some time on the fast diet and the fact that I don’t find the diet that hard at all, have made me really careless about food and, as a consequence, I’m not taking good care of me.

Of course, I have gained a lot of weight because of that and keep procastinating the day when I’ll finally start the diet again and get rid of junk food for good. I keep thinking of myself as an addict – and I AM actually an addict to sugar and carbs – that tells herself: ‘No, I don’t have a problem. I can stop when I want!’ But I really have to stop kidding myself and face the music.

NO, it’s not that easy to stop bad eating habits and NO, I shouldn’t stop being careful about what I eat even if I will always have the good-old fast diet to fall back on.

Before I discovered the fast diet, I used to have such a healthy diet! I ate no sugar, wheat or read meat and I mostly ate fish, chicken, turkey, fruit and vegetables, yoghourt and rye bread. I ate like that for 2 years or more and I had never being healthier in my life… Now I’m back to being the junk food junkie I used to be before that. I loved my past diet, but it was so hard to keep up – especially because of social events.

Anyone had a similar experience? Did the fast diet make you careless about your health? Do you go ‘well, I can eat whatever I want’ on a non-fast day because you know that you’ll fast the next one?

I want to restart the diet this week but I’ve been telling myself that for some weeks – or even months – now. Boy, am I finding it hard to start the diet this time! The junkie in me doesn’t want to stop eating sugar… I need to prepare my mind for this. Sometimes I wonder how I maintained such a healthy diet for more than 2 years and didn’t feel deprived at all. In my actual state of mind, that seems impossible!! And to think it was so easy to me back then… Way to fall off the wagon!!

Scoppa

9:48 am
16 Sep 14
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Hi ,
I read your post and I really wanted to reply to you. Sugar is a DRUG….. it will take a couple of attempts to quit , but keep persevering. Small steps even just cutting your sugar consumption by a quarter initially will help. Write flown how you feel when you eat sugar and again when you are coming down from the high it gives you.
When you get a craving try drinking some bubbly mineral water with a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime, the bubbles may trick your body not thinking you are consuming soft drink, i love the taste .
Let us know how you go
All the best

SSure

9:57 am
16 Sep 14
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My anecdotal impression from a couple of forums is that yours is not an unusual experience: you are unusual in that you maintained such a healthy diet for 2 years preceding your venture into fasting.

There’s been a lot of discussion of what has helped people find their way back out. The
Happy Eaters
website has a forum where people discuss useful books. From various IF sites, my anecdotal impression is that it seems as if the sense of deprivation or restriction that accompanies IF for some people can trigger such a sense of relief and release that some people start eating foods that they have denied/restricted for a long time. Although the references to binge/over-eating probably don’t apply in your case, one of the books that I’ve regularly seen recommended and commended is:

How to Have Your Cake and Your Skinny Jeans Too: Stop Binge Eating, Overeating and Dieting For Good Get the Naturally Thin Body You Crave From the Inside Out by Josie Spinardi

Spinardi does highlight that people overeat foods that they know don’t suit their nutritional or metabolic needs. The overviews that I’ve seen highlight the following points:

The Dieting Triangle of Despair: Diet —> Binge —> Beat Self Up for Perceived Lack of Self-Discipline and Resolve to

Diet etc. etc.

Spinardi identifies 7 common reasons why the usual forms of dieting are inappropriate for sustainable, healthy weight loss:
1 Dieting intensifies cravings and preoccupation with food.
2 Dieting makes you eat more, not less. (For every diet there is an equal opposing binge. The extent and ferocity with which you binge is directly proportional to the extent to which you restrict what you eat.)
3 Dieting makes you feel out of control with food.
4 Dieting increases both emotional distress and the likelihood that you’ll eat in response to the stress.
5 Dieting creates a whole new category of overeating called “Eating Cuz You Ate.”
6 Diets don’t model naturally thin eaters’ behaviour.
7 Diets do not resolve the real reasons you eat when you’re not hungry.

Spinardi emphasises what she calls Hunger-Directed Eating and highlights 5 types of Non-Hunger Eating:
1 Gasping for Food
2 Eating Cuz You Ate (I’ve blown the FD, I may as well carry on blowing it)
3 Mean Girl Munchies
4 Licking Your Wounds
5 Recreational Eating

Spinardi describes a Doughnut and Doritos stage of eating when people are attracted to food choices that are emotionally attractive but don’t meet your other needs. There are lots of reviews of the book and I don’t know if some of them might have some useful suggestions for you.

Good Luck.

SSure

10:14 am
16 Sep 14
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One of Spinardi’s quotes that is very popular:

“Re: food choices} “Because managing your behavior by an iron will – rather than autopilot – is a constant, energy-draining source of conflict and tension. You’re in an undending arm wrestle between “Do It!” and “Don’t do it!” The instant you’re weakened, distracted, or slightly off your game, your resolve caves in the direction of whatever is the least painful, and most pleasurable in that moment.”

She gives advice on how to change food choices from the items that are immediately attractive (such as sugar) to ones that are less likely to make you feel off. (When appropriate, she seems very realistic that sometimes the best choice, given the circumstances, is to choose otherwise – but she’s very much attached to the notion of progress, not perfection. “Change is not linear. Somehow we expect that we’ll learn the steps to the solution then promptly execute them, flawlessly. No! Behavioral change looks a lot more like a toddler learning to walk.”)

Dummerchen

2:48 pm
16 Sep 14
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“Before I discovered the fast diet, I used to have such a healthy diet!”

How does that fit with the need to lose weight on a diet?

Lichtle

4:35 pm
16 Sep 14
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@ssure, what an excellent contribution – love it – thank you.

@sylphadora, this is my third fasting period. The first time in 2012 after Horizon until Christmas when I had reached my target weight. I felt I had to stop due to extreme cold and started again in the summer 2013 until I reached my target weight again (I only had gained about 6lb over the winter period) to resume this summer. I have now reached my target weight again and this time I intend to keep going because I just don’t ever want to lose weight again. Why undo the good work.

In previous years I did think I could fall off the wagon because “I will surely lose those pounds over the summer again” and yes there is a small danger in that if it wasn’t for the fact that regular fasting whilst easily sustainable is not all that “easy” so why would I spoil hard earned achievements again.

The fact that you find it difficult to start the diet indicates that you don’t seem to find losing weight with fasting all that easy either. But hopefull with the help and support of all the lovely people here I am sure you will succeed.

There is another way I feel about fasting and and that is that I am acutely aware that I am cutting down my food intake twice a week depriving my body significantly of nutrients, that on the days when I do eat normally, I want to pamper my body with good food and nutrition and not empty calories to avoid malnutrition, which could easily happen, as my TDEE is not very high. But luckily once you jump on the wagon Sylphadora, the cravings diminish and it is not such a problem/issue after all. Good luck and please jump on – its for our health above all.

mandl

5:43 pm
16 Sep 14
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Just an idea!! How about having the weekend off. Doing your two fast days, together with three watching your food days and two what the hell days.. Maybe that will make it easier. I do this. I know my weight loss will be slower but I think better that than giving up coz it’s too hard. I think that if I were alone this losing weight would be easier, but then I wouldn’t have the company of my beautiful children.

Lichtle

5:56 pm
16 Sep 14
Permalink

@mandl. Absolutely – permanent restrictions don’t work. we have to be able to look forward to certain things. The most important part about any resolutions (and a diet or WOE is a resolution) is sustainability. The reason this WOE works is that it is not restricting EVERY day and on top of that the fast days can be moved around in case we have social demands.
I personally find fasting whilst at work much much easier than during weekends at home. So I tend to do the same – I try not to go totally of the rails (mostly) but I do relax and enjoy my food and some treats on weekends. The Monday fast then becomes almost obligatory and something to look forward to.