Success?

[Onomatophile]

Hi guys

I have a question regarding successful dieting. In all the years that I have been "diet-shopping" and trying out things left right and centre to lose weight I have hardly ever met anyone who has successfully lost large amounts of weightand then kept it off while living a normal life. I don't want to make excuses for not losing weight but I do get the impression that the long-term success rate is fairly low, especially when we are talking losing more than just 1-5 kg.

The other question I have is regarding emotional eating. In all the years that I have been struggling with my weight I never found anything that really addressed this. I know I eat to much for several reasons. 1. Food is lovely and gorgeous. 2. It's always there and always works even if the day isn't so great. 3. It also works when you're miserable and bored. At the same time I literally cannot remember any meal in the last 35 or so years when I didn't think "I shouldn't eat that", "look at you, you fat loser!" or similar lovely thoughts. Whenever I went on a diet the thoughts stoppped but as soon as I made just one mistake, they came back, the diet went out the window and everything was worse than before.

I am sure I have lost 2-3 times my body weight in the last 30 years but I was never able to keep it off.

So to make a long story short I am fairly disgruntled with dieting. All I really want is to have a normal relationship with food and normal body weight. Is it possible to achieve that or is that completely unrealistic?

All the best
O.

[tangerine]

Hi there..
Your post got me thinking about over eating. I am finding it hard if not impossible to list why I over eat. You've done so well to come up with your list. As someone who's been an over eater for 30 of my 40yrs alive I guess habit is a good place to start...
Anyway I just wanted to thank you for your post as its really got me thinking...
Your so right in what you say about emotional over eating appearing to be a taboo subject.. No one professional I've asked for help will explore the subject with me yet I know I need to tackle that issue... My GP suggested I practice feeling hungry and the dietitian suggested if I don't put too much good in my mouth I wouldn't have a problem... Hmmmm
I am so pleased to find this forum and hope that we both find some help in our quest to help oursèlves
Good luck!

[Gary Turner]

Hey O, hope you are well!

Check out my post elsewhere titled 'Yo yo dieting'.

Diets don't work. And there are strong reasons why, and I touch on just a few of them in that post.

It is possible to have a normal relationship with food and get simply to your ideal weight. Unfortunately, there is no 'one size fits all', as everyone is an individual.

Eat only when hungry, stop eating when no longer hungry, never eat for emotional needs, and only drink when thirsty is the basic advice. This gets you working with your body rather than against it.

Be aware that if you over-eat on carbs you will not be sated - the carbs will fuel your hunger and therefore make it easy to over-eat.

Just a couple of quick ideas for you...

[Alex Ashcroft]

Hi all,

I work for Beat, the National Eating Disorder Charity and we run a network of peer support groups for people with emotional overeating problems. I am also a fully registered Nutritionist and have a first class degree in Nutrition and Public Health. There is plenty of evidence out there to show that in order to lose weight you need to eat the right foods (and right amount) and exercise to keep healthy. Basic right? Yet it doesn't seem to be working. Well what we try to do is address that third element that is never mentioned when discussing weight problems - mental health and well-being.

Some people eat in response to emotion, perhaps we all do at some point? However some people are unable to control and moderate that response or have no other way of coping. Some people find it so hard to cope day to day that the thought of attending a weight management service or doing exercise is just too much. In some cases it is extremely important to address the underlying emotions relating to food before they are able to think practically about losing weight.

Our groups help people talk about and address this. We also work alongside weight management and bariatric services to help compliment the work they do in helping people to lose weight.

Sometimes eating less and moving more is just not enough, not to begin with. We need to start considering that third element of mental health when it comes to talking about weight.

Our funding covers the East and West Midlands and East Anglia. Support groups are currently located in:
Norfolk, Sandwell, Bromsgrove, Tamworth, Nottingham, Watford and Lincoln with more to be established across the middle of the UK.

We are also in the process of setting up online support groups.

Please see our Emotional Overeating post for more details or email eosg@b-eat.co.uk