Well after seeing stomach doctors and now my heart doctor, scans have been arranged and follow ups booked
But I'm my own worst enemy, I know what I should eat, I know what I should do and in a way I do it, I eat a lot of fish & chicken and because of my stomach & heart problems I've moved to the Mediterranean diet that my doctors wanted after my first heart attack. My meals are not the problem it's my munching and snacking, I even wrote the either night about my wondering hand. I know I also have a problem with drinking water, I don't drink enough and my hunger is thirst. I have the determination and the willing then after a couple of days I'm bored and bad habits ease in.
I read about everyone losing weight and I'm happy for you all, I really am and jealous (being honest) I just can't seem to budge from my 13-13 1/2 weight. No higher no lower, for years now.
I know I'm not the only one who sabotages themselves but how do I stop it, wear an elastic band on my wrist, think before doing (that will never last) I just don't know. It would be easier if I lived alone but having a hubby and family it's not like I can't have the stuff in the house.
Any suggestions would be gratefully accepted, thanks for listening
❤️
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JOPAT111
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I found it a lot easier when I changed my way of eating, JOPAT, because I didn't realise that the type of food I was eating, made me over eat. Have a look at these and see if they can help you
Thank you for the links, I'll have read, I'm Mediterranean diet but I'll see if I can mix it up a bit😊 thinking of some sort of alarm to remind me to drink as I think this may help break the snack habit
hi jopat i make up small litre bottle up put some ice in and juice if you want and have it next to you like you have the goodies but take them AWAY bin em you cant treat your life lightly or it will get you as you know not to be to rightous but its up to you jopat
Just how easy it is to mistake feeling hungry with actually being thirsty. Then there is the issue of how much water is enough? I don’t want to be drinking so much I run to the toilet all the time if you’ll excuse my bluntness.
Thank for replying, I felt like I was the only one who had this drinking fluids problem and snacking because I'm thirsty. I really appreciate you sharing ❤️
You’re very welcome. Candid answers based on personal experiences are useful I think. I like to listen to what others have gone through. This is a good supportive forum!
Good morning, and you're very welcome to join us here. You're quite right, being part of a community is known to help and I hope you'll join in this one.
Here is today's weigh in: it's not just about listing weights, we take a few minutes to reply to and support each other: if Saturday isn't the best day for you, there's a new one posted each day healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...
I look forward to looking at the resources BridgeGirl, I appreciate your help! I like to support others - that’s in my temperament. I’m less good at looking after myself! But bit by bit I try to look after me more! Thanks again.
I think we're all on different eating journeys, I myself am more of a Mediterranean follower while I've seen posts about lchf, low fat, etc
I appreciated your reply and I'm sure others would when you respond to or like their post also, you never know when you might a have something to ask yourself, I feel we're all here to support each other down our bumpy roads.
🎉🎉Cheering you on🎉🎉
And I look forward to hearing how your weight loss is going😊
Hi JOPAT111 , I hear you about the snacking and having family around!
I found that participating in this forum really helped me create plans and stick to them. I treated my weight loss like a project. It took time especially in the early days (all that weighing, calculating, calorie counting and writing it down) but it has been soooo worth it!
Here's what worked for me:
1. I had a good long think about what motivated me, and the kinds of things that helped me stay on track when I do anything. I wrote down a list of things I anticipated would happen when I reached a healthy weight - realistic, practical things like "I will look good in trousers and not like two cushions have been stuffed down my rear" and "I will not be embarrassed about my weight in company". I keep the list handy in my purse. I also noticed little mantras here and there which I liked and remembered. Things like "Losing weight is hard. Being fat is hard. Choose your hard" and "I can't control everything in my life, but I can control what I put in my mouth." These are what "spoke" to me - you will be different, choose what speaks to you.
2. I really participated in this forum - checked my BMI, planned my meals, calorie-counted, posted on the daily diary and the weekly weigh-in, listened to people's advice and felt very well supported. In the early days I would work out the next day's plan in the evening and write it all down in a little notebook as well as the daily diary. Twenty minutes well-spent. Seeing weekly differences on the scale kept me motivated - and if it didn't shift, it spurred me on to be a little bit stricter the next week. I know some people plan a (non-food) treat for themselves if they reach an interim goal, I didn't really need to do that as losing the weight (and the prospect of a lovely badge!) was motivation enough for me.
3. In the early days I actually planned snacks at my usual times, but always within my overall calorie limit for the day. It was quite important for me not to feel "deprived". I love fruit anyway so quite often my snacks were my favourite fruit - like cherries, which is a real treat for me. But they could be a choc biscuit too, as long as they were in the plan. I have dialled back the snacking now, after realising that I could have bigger, nicer meals if I did without snacks. Nothing bad happens if I don't have a snack, and I embraced the feeling of being properly hungry an hour before my dinner. Nothing bad happens if I'm hungry - I don't fall over or anything!
4. All our biscuits live on one shelf of the cupboard and I have taught myself not to look at that shelf. Hiding things in a tin works well too (especially at my treat-obsessed workplace!) I have kindof gone off a lot of the cheaper biscuits anyway: they really are full of rubbish. If I fancy a snack I look at the packet and think hard about the calories first. Do I really want it that much?
5. If I had a slip, I picked myself up, forgave myself and got back to the plan.
6. I brought my lunch into work every day and saved a ton of money. I also drink a lot of herbal tea at work as a way of keeping my water intake up. I have steadily had to realise what my associations are (e.g. a coffee at my desk always used to be associated with some chocolate bar or a cake, so I drink less coffee now).
(Phew that was long! Well done if you made it this far!)
As I say, it's worth the time to work out what works for you, especially psychologically. You absolutely deserve to eat healthily. Wishing you the best - take it by the scruff of the neck!
Thank you for replying some really good tips I'm going try, definitely start writing things down, I wonder how many things have slipped my mind that I've ate and I'm sure your rear doesn't look like two cushions stuffed in your trousers 😊
Oooh, your reply came up in my notifications, I had forgotten about this post! Glad you found it helpful, and hope to see you around the Daily Diary! Best of luck with your weight loss. It is soooo worth it.
We are all our own worst enemies JOPAT111 .. so you have my utmost sympathy...
I know you will have read the advice on here and tried to implement some of it. i just want to add that eating healthily is a whole new ball game to losing weight and it can seem quite daunting. It is, of course, do-able but we are all different and we all need to learn about our own habits and tricks and systems to hit the right spot.
Do one thing at once.. you have introduced the new foods which is great.. if you really really love biscuits then you are going to have to make them yourself otherwise just dont have them in the house.. don't think you have to do everything at once... add in a new food here, replace a carbohydrate full one there... and gradually you will be getting there..
I also want to add that making yourself feel good in other ways is also helpful.. such as relaxation, yoga, walking or pampering all makes us feel better. Talking to a counsellor can also help or just finding a trusted friend that you can share some precious time with is all beneficial.
You have had a really difficult time and that makes for some complex emotional reactions which has us reaching for the foods.. Be kind to yourself.. you are not a failure.. you are just a bit stuck on your journey and you will get there... keep joining in on here... we always love to see you...
Sending hugs and positive thoughts your way. you can do this...
❤️❤️❤️ it's the one thing I never do is pamper myself, I used to enjoy yoga, but a substitute once took a class and did a bird of paradise pose, felt daft as I couldn't do it, so never went back but I'm going to look now for a class
Thank you for the pep talk, I guess I have to realise my body and mind has been through a lot lately and it's OK to take a breathe.
I found counselling very helpful as it's nice and private there and you can say anything you like in that room and those things aren't guaranteed with a good friend.
>> It would be easier if I lived alone but having a hubby and family it's not like I can't have the stuff in the house.
I don't really see how this follows. Whatever your diet is doing to you is also happening to them. Don't they care? Don't you care? It seems to me that it's time for a family meeting and a serious discussion about health.
The easiest way to resist snacks is to just not have them in the house. If they're not there you can't eat them, and I would hope the other members in your household can do this for you, even if they think it's not hurting them.
Do follow up on the links moreless gave you. "Snacking" is partly just habit, but there's also a huge physiological component. Eating too much of the wrong things at mealtimes, and too little of the right things, traps your body in a vicious circle of demanding more food. If you have proper satisfying meals, you won't be hungry in between. The snacking habit might remain, but you won't be desperate for a sugar top-up, and it will quickly burn itself out.
My meals are very healthy and filling, but as I said most of my hunger is thirst, I don't drink enough, I need to learn to break my habits and drink more.
My hubby and family are fit & healthy It's easy to say family meeting and not to have snacks in the house. But I won't deny my them their treats, not when they work hard everyday and deserve that biscuit or piece of chocolate after their evening meal, especially when Christmas is nearly here. We are not a family that live on fat, processed food or sugar.
This is MY problem to fix and overcome, to re-train my mind and break MY habit.
With their love & support I have survived 2 major heart attacks & a host of other problems. I know whatever I do my family have my back.
Maybe, maybe not. By all means give it a go, but the more usual explanation is that your body is actually demanding food, either because it's genuinely missing something or because your appetite has been messed up by incorrect food choices.
>> This is MY problem to fix and overcome, to re-train my mind and break MY habit.
I think perhaps you overestimate how much conscious control we have over what we eat. Willpower can only override biology for a limited time, so you need to ration out what you've got for things that will have a big impact.
>> But I won't deny my them their treats, not when they work hard everyday and deserve that biscuit or piece of chocolate after their evening meal, especially when Christmas is nearly here.
I'm not sure you need to "deny" them anything. It's more a case of: this is what I need to do, temporarily, to break my snack habit; can you guys help me arrange this? But yeah, Christmas probably isn't the best time!
I'd also add that there are many ways to have a treat. When I was a kid we got chocolate a few times a year. I'm not sure it's a vital part of everyday existence.
>> With their love & support I have survived 2 major heart attacks & a host of other problems
If you have had two heart attacks, and you're stuck at a undesirable bodyweight, then your diet must have something terribly wrong with it; women, statistically, are not prone to heart attacks. Your desire to snack is almost certainly a direct consequence of some imbalance in your diet. You mention that you "don't live on fat", which makes me wonder if you restrict it to an excessive degree? Fat is a critical macronutrient and removing it from your diet can cause exactly the kind of appetite derangement you describe.
Restricting fat for most of my life, more than once under advice from GP is in fact what I now believe is the reason I was struggling so much. More healthy fats, low refined carbs has seen a huge change in my general well being with weight loss as an added benefit.
Ooh JOPAT111 , this has put me in mind of something else -
My family, too, are supportive and while there are still treats in the house they have become pretty good at not eating them in front of me.
The only thing I couldn't quite manage was to get my other half to calculate a calorie-count when he cooks (2 or 3 times a week). Can't have everything, eh? 🤷🏻♀️
I diet is full of fruit, veg, chicken & fish with a few carbs. I hit my kcal count with these which is why I think my snacking is due to lack of fluids and the brain thinking I'm hungry instead.
Denying my family was meant more if the items aren't in the house when they fancy one.
My two heart attacks were down hereditary issues, you can be super healthy and fit and have heart attacks it's not just what you eat.
Sounds like you’ve been really unlucky there Jopat 😕. But you also sound very strong, with good support around you 😊
Have a good read of all the information and links, and have some faith in your self. If your weight is stable then you are doing something right, you won’t need to reduce your intake much to lose weight 😊
Thank you Hun ❤️ I feel my food intake is right and healthy it's just the water which I feel makes me snack, instead of picking up a drink I pick up quick biscuits☹️ I can do this, I know I can and I've picked up some good tips from other replies.
If you want this to work for the longer term, you need to think about it as a lifestyle change rather than a diet. That lifestyle change will need to happen a bit at a time and will involve many things : changing your behaviour around food, portion control, emotional eating triggers, increasing your activity levels, trying new foods, making healthy food swaps, etc.
Commitment to diet/lifestyle change and resistance to temptation doesn't just happen! It has to be worked at.
The only way I have succeeded this time is to change how I approach food and eating it. I have learned to resist temptation! BUT please believe that this has taken a LOT of hard work and practice. 
It's about "normalising" or "modifying" behaviour around food... and I think that with enough "practice" it becomes more and more easy until you get to the point where a behaviour is modified to the point of it becoming the only way.
I am sure that even some people who are not over weight do sometimes over indulge - but the fact is they don't do it very often...
Those of us who are over weight have been used to "treating" ourselves, eating portions that are too large, eating the things that we know are calorific because we can!
It's been a combination of changing all of those aspects of how I behave around food that has meant I have been successful this time.
I have developed a respect for the food I eat. Not everyone has the ability to eat as well as we in the western world eat. We should not abuse the privilege.
I rarely eat "on the hoof" any more, I rarely eat between meals. I take time to sit at a table and present my meals nicely. I take a moment or two to really look at my plate of food before I pick up my knife and fork.
Almost daily I say to hubbie "Aren't we lucky to be able to enjoy such lovely food". I really mean that too, I am not saying it for anyones benefit but his and mine. We should never take for granted having easy access to delicious food stuffs and our ability and love of cooking!
If you log your food - keep track of how many calories some of those "treats" contain, after a while they kind of stay in your head (medium egg = 70 cals, slice of white bread 100 cals, meringue nest 57 cals, 30g (matchbox size) of cheddar, 122 cals)
I do have sweet treats, but I buy my own choice, so things like 2 finger Kitkat, single finger Twix, Club biscuit... these are all around 100 calories. I keep them in a tin and I can have one whenever I want to, but I limit it to no more than one a day and usually with my afternoon cup of tea. That's not to say I eat one on a daily basis (usually about 2-3 times a week). They are always logged into my diary.
If you don't keep a log of what you are eating and the calories foods contain, then it's a bit like trying to travel from one place to another without a map! You might get there eventually BUT it's likely to take you much longer than if you planned the route and used a map PLUS you might take a few wrong turnings and end up going back on yourself!
I have also learned not to plan each trip out of the house to include food. Once upon a time, I'd have included lunch with a trip into town, coffee and cake with a visit to the garden centre.
I now plan or even prepare a meal BEFORE I go out (usually a salad) so that I know exactly what I can eat as soon as I walk into the door... and don't turn to "what I fancy" (usually high calorie carbs that don't keep you full for very long...)
Make a list of the reasons WHY you want to lose weight. Keep it somewhere safe (stuck to the inside of a kitchen cupboard door?) and look at it from time to time, especially when you are raiding the kitchen for treats!
I always ask myself before eating something really calorific "Do I really want to eat this thing more than I want to lose weight this week?". It's called "mindful eating" - being aware of why you are considering eating - real hunger? Boredom? Temptation? Feeling fed up?
Have a glass of water, wait 5 minutes and consider whether you still want the food. Once it's been snaffled down, it's too late and you may end up feeling cross and angry with yourself....
....and that feeling (guilt, failure) lasts for a long time, much longer than the temporary enjoyment of whatever treat you ate....
Oh, and I always remind myself how good the feeling is of seeing a loss on the scales at my weekly weigh in! That wonderful feeling lasts for days! Don't forget how that feels - you need to remind yourself of that feeling next time temptation strikes!
I’m healthier and fitter now at the age of 56 than I was 20 years ago…..
I am writing this as someone who had struggled all of my life (since the age of 9) to lose weight. I have a significant disability that affects my mobility - use a wheelchair outside of the house. I am also very short (4ft 8”). It wasn't until the age of 49 when I started to log everything and kept track of the calories I was consuming that the truth hit me between the eyes. I was eating FAR TOO MUCH for a short sedentary person. I changed my whole approach to food and eating it that everything else clicked into place
Just wished I’d found what worked for me years ago....
My only addition to the great advice here is this - if you can't remove the sweet treats from the house (and you'll be doing your children a favour in the long term if you do) - then do something to interrupt your path to them. A lockable cupboard with the key in a separate room might slow you down. At the very least you could tape a note to the cupboard and make it a rule that you have to read the note out loud before you proceed. Make the note something meaningful. It's a tip that has helped me. As has breaking the habit of snacking in between meals ... ooh - and drinking lots and lots of tea ...
Dear jopat I really do feel for you. It's very frustrating being your own worst enemy. The suggestion you made might help, like putting an elastic band on your wrist or thinking before doing. Asking your hubby for support might also help.
I find that brushing my teeth after my evening meal helps as does a nice cup of tea which lasts longer than the treat that was tempting me. Not having my favourites in the house also helps. Tonight is the Late Late Toy Show ( an Irish TV institution) and I've a big box of Christmas chocs for my family, bit I'VE MADE UP MY MIND that I won't be having any. Come Christmas Eve I'll buy a small box of luxury dark chocolate just for me.
I hope something here helps. Even knowing that you are not the only one can help ..
I find that the easiest chocolate to resist is the first one. If I have one I long for more! And then I think'well what's one more' it's definitely easier to make up my mind not to have any.
Also sometimes I draw up a list at the end of a day of what I did to support myself/ what I did that wasn't helpful. This brings about awareness. And deciding to not have any snacks between meals cuts out many needless calories for me!
Hi, sorry you are feeling so down at thr moment. I know what its like to have a skinny husband and children who can eat what they want and dont put on a pound. I still buy their goodies but they have to keep thrm out of sight from me in their bedrooms etc. I also started walking every day, i found walking help me lose the weight and was also good in improving my mood. Good luck, keep going and in no time at all you will feel fighter and slimmer.
Your doctors have told you it’s unhealthy to eat those foods but it’s also unhealthy for your family. They don’t have your health problems today but who knows what’s in store for any of us. Begin by not buying biscuits anymore and gradually stop buying other foods which don’t have any nutritional value. If you don’t have them in the house you can’t be tempted. But fill your fridge/cupboards with healthy nutritional foods instead. Cheese, nuts, full fat yogurt. I find cheese is always good for a filling snack.
Hi Jopat111 I also have a tendency to self-destruct when attempting to lose weight. My suggestion to you would be to train your sub-conscience with daily positive affirmations i.e I am able to do this/I am worth it/I have strength and determination to succeed etc. Give those messages and be aware of the “can’t do’s” as your sub-conscience believes everything you tell it.
Small steps at a time. I’m starting my journey using a smaller plate and cooking my own food. Good luck 😉
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otherwise just dont have them in the house.. don't think you have to do everything at once... add in a new food here, replace a carbohydrate full one there... and gradually you will be getting there..
Can you drink alcohol and still lose weight?
Gaining weight but why?
Best day and Worst day 
