Good evening!

[Wynter]

Hello to the family of WLF. I am in my early twenties and really need to stop my addiction to food. My whole family is overweight and I feel incredibly trapped. All of us lack discipline - saying no to a chocolate eclair is practically a crime. My nan from the old war days, who lives with us, constantly shoves food down our (my uncle and mother) throats. Each day chocolate, cakes, biscuits and fatty foods are bought and you'd be lucky to see a cucumber in the fridge. I am desperate to move out, to take myself out of this chaotic, messy and undisciplined environment but that just isn't viable. I love my family, but this lifestyle is destroying me slowly. I am a 5'6 fat AND ugly young woman currently weighing 13 stone and going up week by week. I got down to 10stone when I was 18 - during the years of my life that I spent very little at home with little bad food exposure. My boyfriend is wonderful and is the only one that makes me feel good - makes it feel worth it to lose the weight. He wants me to lose weight because it would make me happy (and undeniably him!) and I cannot lie and say it doesn't motivate me.

Speaking of motivation - it's there but crumbles away when I open the cupboard or come home from work. The thought of saying no to a packet of chocolate boubons actually raises my blood pressure, gives me the shakes and bad anxiety that I want to vomit. Does anyone have this? If I say no, then I binge, and I'm talking about stuffing food so fast I can barely breath and eating everything in sight - literally. And when my nan smiles at this and says "you like those huh?" I just want to die on the spot that she gets pleasure out of this. How do I stop? How do I gain control? How do I say no? I really cannot do this alone

 

[knotty1]

Hi Wynter and welcome! Yes I can certainly sympathize with you! I've failed diets in the past because of friends around me always talking about eating out at restaurants and such. Not this time, I'm up in years and cannot be spending another ten years dillydallying around losing and gaining. I know everyone can't do it but I've pretty much stopped associating with unsupportive people in my life.

What motivated me permanently was learning about visceral fat, that dangerous fat inside the body that really puts one's health at risk and just the thought of having all that ugliness inside me was enough for me to say goodbye to all those tasty and addictive empty calorie foods.

Hope you find all your looking for here.

knotty

 

[Omega]

Welcome to the forum.

My best suggestion is to get out of the house as much as possible... You are young and in your twenties - and have a lovely boyfriend... Maybe you should spend more time round his house...

I know what I would do... Race out of the house first thing in the morning before breakfast and tell them that you will eat something as you get to work / college...

You could maybe keep some skimmed milk, granulated sweetener, weetabix a bowl and a spoon in your desk at work.

Have a healthy lunch while you are out... Simply say no thank you to your nan's sandwich and cake suggestions and that you will sort out something...

We are coming into the warmer months so it should be a wonderful time to have a box of salad with some lean cooked meat at lunchtime... You could have a giant box of salad - tomatoes, cucumber, beetroot, string onion, peppers, lettuce, celery... LOL you can even chop up other things into it like carrots and apples...

At a stroke you have got the most dangerous times down to your evening meal...
Evening meals get trickier... Your family are really not helping you...

I think that your best bet is to eat out a lot (I am not talking about having take-aways - but maybe eating round at your boyfriend's) and to otherwise arrange your life so that you are out at meal times and then cook for yourself... If your family all eat at 6pm - you could get home at 6:30pm... That way you are not tempted to see what they have - and can cook something a whole lot healthier...

I use fry light a lot for my cooking...

Healthy meals that you could make that do not take too much effort:
- 3 egg omelette with a tin of baked beans (low sugar low salt beans) - I get mine from Tescos
- casserole with some lean meat and veg and a packet sauce (I use a slow cooker which means you can switch in on low in the morning and it is cooked when you come in) - the biggest problem is choosing a low cal sauce
- stir fry (use fry light), lean protein and a bag of stir fry veg with a low cal sauce
- grilled pork loin steak or other meat with veg (can use tinned)
- salmon wrapped in foil (with a tiny amount of butter) baked in the onion plus veg

For snacks - opt for fresh fruit, tinned fruit, sugar free jelly (really easy to make up), fat free and low fat yoghurts.

Try to ignore the cakes and biscuits and fattening food that surrounds you.

Opt for water and low cal drinks instead of the high cal stuff... Tea and coffee are ok - but use sweetener instead of sugar and skimmed milk is best...

I find sugar free sweets and gum useful... It isnt great - but it is better than the higher calorie equivalents if people are eating them in your company... The good thing is that chewing gum makes it impossible to eat that eclair...

As far as crumbling motivation etc goes - I think that it will take care of itself once you get onto a roll.
Success breeds success...
You have to really believe that you can do this... That you can make your weight loss dreams come true. You can have a healthy figure - you can be as slim as your friends - you can wear the clothes that you envy and not feel limited by your size. There is nothing written in the stars that says that you have to be the chunky or fat one...

I know... Do not make my mistake... I spent decades as a very big lady... It isnt much fun... I was 21 stone and didnt like it... My weight held me back from doing the things that I wanted to do... I really believed that I was stuck there - that I was in too deep...

It was nonsense... I actually lost all my weight and got down to 9 stone in a big project 6 years ago... The fact that I have had a stressful couple of years and gone up to 11 stone is neither here not there... The bottom line is that you can certainly drop a few stone and get down to the weight that you want... You just want to be wise and not leave it until you are in your late 40s (like I did) before you do it...

As you see the weight come off you will be hungry for seeing more... You will be eager to buy an item of clothing in a smaller size... I buy something in a charity shop every few days... You can get brilliant quality clothes there for the price of a magazine... A charity benefits and you can often get clothes that are in literally as good as new quality - some of it still has the original price tag in... As your weight reduces you can hand things into the charity shop too...

Binging is a different matter... For me that is linked to emotional eating pure and simple... If I can stay calm and not get upset I am ok... If your weight appears to be rising unfairly and that is upsetting you into eating in a binge manner - totally uncontrolled vast quantities more than anyone normal would dream of eating (this was the reason for my last binge in December) simply do not get onto the scales for another week or two... Try to work out why each binge has happened and what triggered it... Then avoid that situation if at all possible...

I suggest that you read the following thread - it may help you settle in and make friends
http://weight-loss.fitness.com/threads/57955-My-advice-to-newcomers

Good luck with your project.