I've ruined everything

[kez17]

So guys yesterday was the children's leaving party (I work as a nursery apprentice) and I was surrounded by cake, crisps, pasta, everything, I must of had about 3000 calories... I went gym and burnt off 1150 calories in an hour but I still feel so bad

Then today I had a great day until I came home, then I started pigging on mega calorific biscuits... I've completely ruined this week and have probable put on weight

I'm really good with my exercise but the eating is just so tempting and going horrible :/ I feel so ashamed in myself and want to punish myself :/

I know exactly why this happened

I weighed myself Wednesday morning and was down from 11.5st to 11.2 1/2st and I thought 'yay I've done really well so now I can eat crap food' :/ what shall I do now :/ I feel so guilty

[returner]

Hi kez17,

The key to successful and maintained weight reduction is changing your eating habits.

It seems to me you probably can do that most of the time, but have relapses of bad eating habits which feel like more of a set back than they probably really are.

So, you've learnt something on this journey already. You need to find a way to control potential "blow-out" points.

That means you either avoid them, or you manage them in some way to prevent the harm they do to your eating.

As for the particular items - why pig on mega-calorific biscuits, rather than have a sensible healthy snack? Perhaps this is comfort eating - if so find other forms of comfort as opposed to eating for comfort. Perhaps it's boredom eating - if so keep yourself active and find better ways of using your spare time than munching at the biscuits, cakes or sweets.

But perhaps your problem is that you've not got yourself in to a sensible eating routine. Say perhaps something like, breakfast, lunch, evening meal, with a healthy small snack between meals to tide you over and one later in the evening, so you don't go to bed hungry and end up doing some midnight pigging.

So make a meal out of meal-times. Don't mindlessly munch in front of the telly or laptop. Give it your attention and focus. Remember, take your time eating your meals and remember you 'eat with your eyes' - that way you will 'register' your eating and will feel satiated for longer.

But you know, ho hum, if you've got it wrong on one particular day, it's not the end of the world.

As the old song advised, "Just pick yourself up, brush yourself down ..... "

Tomorrow's another day. But try to learn from your mistake so as to find better ways of dealing with such situations in the future.

My guess is that as you change your eating habits, you'll increasingly find cakes, biscuits and the like not nearly as appetising as you once did. One of the main reasons you want to eat them is nothing more than because you are in the habit of eating those sorts of things. If you hadn't eaten any of them for say six or twelve months then you'd probably find them very sweet and sugary and rather fatty in the main and not all that great at all.

I honestly just could not face some of the things I used to eat when I was significantly heavier.

[yoyo-nono in reply to returner]

Dont worry about it! You have done better than most people out there by deciding to want to lose weight in the first place. What is more, all is not lost, because you came to this forum for some encouragement. What happened was not the end of the world. It was just a little learning curve...You cant change the past, but you can learn from what happened and try to think of ways you will manage better the next time.

I can only speak for myself, but I found that the longer you are on this healthy eating thing the less appealing those fatty snacks become. Also, Rome was not built in a day...it takes some time to get rid of those old habits and the old way of thinking. For me, the hardest thing is to change your mind about food and your perception of what is nice and what not. Focus on being healthy, rather than on losing weight. Eating healthy food is fun...see it as a new discovery. Dont think of yourself as being on a diet. Rather think that you are on an epic mission to change your life and your habits forever. After this you wont go back to doing what you did before because you are a different person.

Good luck, you are doing great!

[georgiexx]

LOL I do that: I've done so well, I can eat a bit of.... And then it turns into a lot of!

Total agree with advice that's been given. I would add-

You haven't ruined the week. Ask yourself what can you do differently so you don't pig out when you get home and you don't get caught off guard by an event you knew was coming? If you work out a way of dealing with both, you've turned that negative into a positive.

Are you clear about why you want to lose weight? Have you written down the pros and cons for losing weight and staying as you are? its a technique that helps some. It's helped me to put back the ice cream I bought at the supermarket. I found myself regretting it as soon as I put it in my shopping basket and had the following conversation with myself:

Is this going to help me? No

Why am I buying it? It's a hot day and I'm tired and stressed after work.

ok can you can have a long cold drink. A homemade lemon and mint spritzer and chill out on the couch for 10 mins.

Ok. Sounds fair enough!

And back it went into the shop's freezer cabinet. Miracle.

A couple of little wins like that made me realise that I have control and a choice over habitual behaviour.

Best of luck. You can do it!

[gingernut49]

You've had a blip - so what. There was a party at my mother's yesterday and I did the same.

But these occasions don't happen that often!

On a weekly basis you're not going to do that so don't beat yourself up about it. I lost three stone in six months on the 5:2 Diet, 500 calories on two non-consecutive days a week and you eat sensibly on the other five days. This little video explains it very well: youtu.be/W9Aj6hRYg4A(Not working as expected?)

On Sundays though I enjoyed a doughnut in church in the morning, a roast dinner (not too naughty) and a couple of biscuits at choir in the evening.

[GoogleMe]

You are making it clear that eating patterns you don't like are merely a manifestation of something more fundamental. If you can work on the way you think about yourself *as you are now* then it will be easier to 'treat' yourself by making food choices that better fit your goals - and indeed activity choices because if you are seeing exercise as punishment/atonement/a way of managing guilt over out of control eating, that's not a happy recipe for building it into your life on a manageable permanent basis.

These buffet type things can be very difficult. Tomorrow is another day and all that.

Your weight is not a moral issue.

[Prin]

As long as you get back on the wagon, don't delay you will be fine!

[fenbadger]

I agree with a lot of that. Don't beat yourself up. Just get back on the routine. - if you had no blips you'd be superhuman. You've done ok up till now.

[Eleanore]

Overcoming Weight Problems - Jeremy Gauntlett-Guilbert & Claire Grace. Good book!