Thinking about food constantly

[BerryBerry]

I have never dieted before in my life and started calorie counting earlier this year. I have always been a very healthy eater and enjoyed food/eating out but never felt my life revolved around it.

However I have found that I now seem to think about food almost non-stop not because I am hungry but just because its constantly on my mind. I feel like I can't concentrate on other areas of my life and its beginning to get a bit obsessive.

Another example is that as I have become more conscious about what I am eating, I have also begun to notice others around me more. For example my secretary sits right by me at work and eats a lot all day - her habits have began to make me feel anxious and disgusted like when she pours loads of salt onto her food and eats really quickly with a dirty fork. This sounds mental- I am well aware- bad table manners etc have always been a pet peeve of mine but I feel like I am not more acutely aware of it and get a real physical sick feeling when she begins to eat.

I am worried that I will never be able to go back to a normal approach to food where I thought about it when I was hungry and not pretty much 24/7 - it especially upsets me because I didn't particularly have a massive amount to lose or a big shift towards healthy eating to make, it was really a small decision which feels a bit like it is spiralling.

 

[BarbaraG]

Hi,

You have just discovered, in your own experience, why dieting in the sense it is usually understood, is such a bad way of losing weight. It tends to lead to obsessive thoughts about food, and the stricter (i.e. more restrictive) the diet is, the worse the impact. This is only partly psychological - it is also physical, as your body's natural survival mechanism tries to protect you from what it perceives as a famine.

In terms of BMI, you were only slightly overweight to start with, and you are not overweight now. Your target weight is actually slightly below the lowest recommended weight for your height. I would suggest it is time to stop calorie counting, and probably stop weighing as well.

Eat healthily, sure - get your 5 a day, limit fried food and sweetened things to occasional treats - but shift your emphasis to fitness and body composition. Get exercising! Do some strength training, go for a walk/run/swim/cycle, do it regularly. You will probably lose fat, and therefore inches, and look leaner and slimmer than you do now. You may lose weight, stay the same, or even go up slightly - but if you are slimmer and firmer, and look and feel fantastic in your skinny jeans, slinky dress or whatever - would you still care about the number on the scale?

Good luck,
Barbara

 

[BerryBerry]

Thanks Barbara. You are right, I don't really care about the number on the scale persay, it is very much more about how I feel. I know I dont have much more to lose, I should perhaps change/remove my stats as they were only a guide that I pretty much guessed at as an uninformed newcomer to weightloss/weighing etc.

I do need to on focus toning/tightening and I do exercise pretty much every day by running, walking and a mixture of cardio and strength gym classes, but I have not been swimming much and will try and add this into the mix as its probably really good for toning up and becoming more lean/supple feeling.

Its my TOTM at the moment which probably adds to how weird I am being and perhaps accounts for the irrational reactions and the nauseaous feeling. Thanks again for taking the time to respond. It really helps having someone just reiterate the facts in a logical way.

 

[BarbaraG]

Happy to help! Now that you have said you are already running, walking and doing cardio classes, I would suggest that instead of adding swimming, you add (or substitute) either more strength training, or some speed/intervals work. Both of those will be more effective at promoting fat lass than adding more steady state cardio. It doesn't have to mean exercising longer or on more days, just switching round what you do.

For instance, if you normally run at a steady pace, add a few short sprints or steep hills into your usual route. 20 - 30 seconds at a time would be fine, repeat it a few times. Go as hard as you can for a brief spurt, then drop back to your usual pace. This uses a different energy system from steady state cardio, and will both improve your cardiovascular fitness, and promote calorie burning after you finish your run.

On your strength training - make sure you are progressing, i.e. gradually adding more weight to what you lift. Also realise that whatever exercise you do regularly,your body will learn how to do it more efficiently, which means it will burn fewer calories for the same workout. To avoid this - mix it up every 6-8 weeks. Just shift to a different exercise for the same muscle group, and you will rev up the energy you're using. You can then come back to the previous exercises a few months down the line, and hey presto,your workouts will start burning more calories than the last time you did them.

I am curious as to what prompted you to start calorie counting. Had you gained weight recently, or did you just decide it was time to do something about weight you had been carrying a long time?

Barbara

 

[BerryBerry]

I am definitely keen to try some interval training. Over the last couple of years I have been entering a lot of charity runs (5 and 10 kms) and have kept concentrating on stamina and being able to complete these comfortably. I have the couch2 5km app on my phone and think the early weeks would work nicely with running harder on the short parts and then returning to a jog on the rest periods rather than a walk. I will give it a go! I will also try and get to grips with hills as I am definitely guilty of slacking on them and slowing to a walk when I come across one on my run. I also take on board your advice on gradually increasing the weights in my body pump class too, I think I was a bit nervous about becoming bulky as I definitely want to promote a leaner/sleeker shape, I have been doing a bit of bikram and normal yoga as I feel the stretching helps with this.

I can't recall the exact date I began calorie counting, it was earlier this year. I never loved my body or felt incredibly confident in a bikini but I had always been pretty happy with myself, felt ok in clothes, not worried about my beach bod on holidays and as I mentioned above always eaten whatever I wanted without a second thought. Last summer for the first time I noticed I just felt a bit uncomfortable with how I looked in a bikini and then this coupled with feeling a bit podgy and run down that winter I made a conscious decision to be more aware of what/how much I was eating and when I was exercising.

 

[BarbaraG]

I also take on board your advice on gradually increasing the weights in my body pump class too, I think I was a bit nervous about becoming bulky as I definitely want to promote a leaner/sleeker shape, I have been doing a bit of bikram and normal yoga as I feel the stretching helps with this.

Lay that one to rest - women don't build bulky muscles without "help", i.e. steroids or growth hormone, as well as lifting extremely heavy weights. Stay off those kinds of stuff and weight train 2-3times a week, and you will get lean, not bulky.

Good luck!
Barbara