Eating less - say goodbye to overeating

tennisfan1986

Full Member
Hi all,

I'm about 3/4 the way through this book and it has been a huge eye opener! I had planned to generally eat more healthily and continue with my current exercise of playing tennis 3 times a week for 90-120 mins a time, and having read this book it has completely changed my views of eating and dieting.

I have tried most diets going and in the last 10 years my weight has yoyo-ed between 11st 8lb and 18st (currently about 17st 7lb) but this book has made me feel I can make lifestyle changes forever rather than temporarily be on a diet.

One of it's main points is that overeating is often similar to other addictions. But when a smoker or alcohol, etc wants to change, their aim is to change their addictive behavior (stop smoking, stop drinking) whereas an overeater aims to lose weight. But being overweight isn't the cause of the problem, overeating is. Being overweight or obese is actually the effect, the result or the consequence. The book advocates tackling the cause rather than the effect, and so I am now simply trying to be more healthy by eating better and exercising, and then the (hopefully) inevitable weight loss will be a bonus rather than my target.

To help this, the book encourages you not to weigh yourself at all!! This was a real shock to me. It says that if you get too caught up in aiming for weight loss then you're more likely to give up when you don't get the result you want as quickly as you want it. As a serial dieter, weighing myself at least once a day has been something that has kept me "on track". I'm not sure I could never weigh myself again but I am going to try to just weigh myself once a month (on the 1st). I started healthy eating on the 2nd Jan and weighed myself daily until the 7th but I haven't weighed myself since. Typing this I now realise that was only 3 days ago! But it seems like forever :-( I'm not sure I'll last until the 1st Feb!! But what the book says seems to make a hell of a lot of sense (obviously there's much more than I have written here) so I'm going to try my best.

Has anyone else ever "dieted" and not weighed themselves or been weighed whilst doing it? How did you get on?

Laura
 
I am planning on not weighing as it always puts a downer on me how long I'll last I don't know lol but I will give it a go
 
True. It always depresses me when it's weighing time and the needle in the scale keeps on moving towards the center..which only means one thing lol.
 
Hi all,

I'm about 3/4 the way through this book and it has been a huge eye opener! I had planned to generally eat more healthily and continue with my current exercise of playing tennis 3 times a week for 90-120 mins a time, and having read this book it has completely changed my views of eating and dieting.

I have tried most diets going and in the last 10 years my weight has yoyo-ed between 11st 8lb and 18st (currently about 17st 7lb) but this book has made me feel I can make lifestyle changes forever rather than temporarily be on a diet.

One of it's main points is that overeating is often similar to other addictions. But when a smoker or alcohol, etc wants to change, their aim is to change their addictive behavior (stop smoking, stop drinking) whereas an overeater aims to lose weight. But being overweight isn't the cause of the problem, overeating is. Being overweight or obese is actually the effect, the result or the consequence. The book advocates tackling the cause rather than the effect, and so I am now simply trying to be more healthy by eating better and exercising, and then the (hopefully) inevitable weight loss will be a bonus rather than my target.

To help this, the book encourages you not to weigh yourself at all!! This was a real shock to me. It says that if you get too caught up in aiming for weight loss then you're more likely to give up when you don't get the result you want as quickly as you want it. As a serial dieter, weighing myself at least once a day has been something that has kept me "on track". I'm not sure I could never weigh myself again but I am going to try to just weigh myself once a month (on the 1st). I started healthy eating on the 2nd Jan and weighed myself daily until the 7th but I haven't weighed myself since. Typing this I now realise that was only 3 days ago! But it seems like forever :-( I'm not sure I'll last until the 1st Feb!! But what the book says seems to make a hell of a lot of sense (obviously there's much more than I have written here) so I'm going to try my best.

Has anyone else ever "dieted" and not weighed themselves or been weighed whilst doing it? How did you get on?

Laura

Hey Laura,

theres over 109, five star reviews on this book. It sounds inspirational! Ive just downloaded it on my Kindle.

I came across your post by accident and I'm sooooo glad i did. Thank you and good luck on your journey

Tracey x
 
I've heard that it's better to take measurements than to weigh yourself as you can become too focused on the numbers.
I did notice last year that sometimes even though the number on the scale was the same I had still lost and inch or two all over and that my clothes were looser. Non-scale victories can be quite motivating.
 
I tried diets before, but always became disheartened and gave up on the inevitable weeks we all have when we either STS or put on a pound.

I knew where I was going wrong in my diet. My portions were way off, and I also have a very sweet tooth. I made up my mind to address these issues, and also take up exercise. I also threw out my scales, as to me they were just a source of self loathing that I didn't need.

The first bit was hard, but it was soon outweighed by how much healthier I felt. If I slipped up I didn't beat myself up about it, but just picked myself up and carried on. I took up running, and THAT was really hard, but as I got out of breath I told myself that the only way I was going to get better at it was to continue. 18mths later I ran my first marathon. In all I went down three dress sizes. To this day I have no idea how much weight I lost, or even what weight I am today!

I'm back on here (three years later) as I bought an ice cream shop (way to make it hard on yourself, eh?) and some weight has inevitably crept back on. I know because my jeans are tight! But because I'm still active it's nowhere near as much as it could have been!

Basically what I'm trying to say that I tried diets, and they made me fatter. You need to change your lifestyle.
 
I would definitely find it really hard not to weight myself...I am a bit too obsessed, so now only do it once a week....well try not to be sneaky!! xx Good luck xx
 
I'm not sure I could do the not weighing myself as I find it a real check point and motivator to keep on.

That said I totally agree with the sentiment about healthy attitude to food and not following some diet which will inevitably not be sustainable long term.

I've just done simple things like cutting out crisps and chocolate for the majority of the week (I have a very sweet tooth and will allow myself the occasional treat at a weekend). I've reduced my alcohol intake again saving it for treats rather than it being the norm to drink wine with dinner.

The other big difference is definitely the amount of food. My boyfriend is an amazing cook and loves being in the kitchen, as such we'd got in to a habit of having a starter and main meal most nights and I was eating the same size portions as him. Cutting back to just main meals and watching how much he gives me seems to be working.

To date I've lost 13lbs since the end of October, 6lbs of that has been since joining this forum.
 
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