New thread on eating "normally"..100%?

(I tried to answer this in the thread below where Mary says her metab is so wrecked she can truly never eat like Jo Blow and has to work out like a fiend):


I have to agree, mary...once the metab's wrecked, i'm thinking pretty much never can we eat "normal" levels of food.

I know two thin persons just like your cousin - both in this case were never fat. Both very thin, eat like birds. One does drink wine most nights, but other than that eats zero bad food. Like you say, NEVER.

This is back to the 100% conversation in my mind. I just don't see me being 100% all my life when it comes to food. I just don't see the feasibility.  will ponder this more. Hell i can't see being 98%. 90 sounds more like it and i think i do that now. I don't know where the line is - what is 90$ and then where is 91%.

I can readily see why Atkins is a relief in that regard:  very clear lines for induction on what is legal and what is not.

Hey Neecee, I don't want to speak for Jerze, but what I think she meant by her ponderances on commitment pertained not to staying on a diet 100%, but being 100% committed in your heart to doing what it would take to get the weight off.     I'm almost 100% sure that's what she meant???  Huh, Jerze?

But now getting back to the topic of your thread, my answer is 100%...Hell No!  There is no way that anyone can stay on plan, perfectly alla the time.  Yes Atkins has the bounderies built in and it makes right and wrong very black and white.  To me that makes it very easy, no questions asked.

But what I had to learn all on my own was control.  Unfortunately, I am the only one who has control over what goes in my mouth.  After many stops and starts, I've learned that the best way for me personally to be in control is to have PLANNED days off.  Good news is that learning that days off ain't all that, they became fewer and farther between.  Now if I'm going somewhere where the food is worth the carbs consumed and that will have to be paid for in three days of Induction Hell, then I go for it with no guilt.  But the day before a holiday is not a planned day off, so starting early is a no no.  But I didn't learn all of this overnight, it took years of paying for junk that wasn't worth the misery!

So, I agree with you woman, we ain't robots who don't need a break every once in a great while!

Mary 

Hey Neece, about my cousin who NEVER eats junk...she has a healthy fear of gaining all of her weight back and thinks that if she lets it get started, she won't be able to stop it.  I'm not so sure that would work for me, but it's made her very successful at maintenance for thirty years so she must be doing SOMETHING right!

Mary 

I assumed she meant keeping focused and continuing to eat properly so that she lost all the weight she needs to lose - 100% commitment to reach her final goal weight. I'm certain most of us here have experienced losing a certain percentage of weight only to fall off the wagon and gain them all back plus some extra.

It's funny how we all interpret things a little differently - makes the world a more interesting place.

Now I am sticking to my diet 100% but I have so many options that I don't have to feel that I'm cheating if I happen to eat something that is higher calorie. I do have certain foods that I love, like avocados and pistachios which are very high in fat but I only eat them occasionally and I don't make it "a treat" rather if I'm in the mood and they make sense with what else I've consumed that day I will then eat them. I don't want to get back into the stinking thinking of assigning some foods as treats and feeling guilty about them.

Skylar

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.  I meant...we can say we're ready, but our actions can contradict that and we end up not giving it 100%.

...I think of others at the gym who have gone whole hog into something, lost more and faster and not slipped.  It makes me question my own commitment.  Folks say I'm better off as i'm losing slower and more likely to know how to manage later as I've managed during...

make sense?

I can relate to not doing it 100% all the time.  I have been on 20-25 diets my entire adult life, always ending up gaining it all back and more.  Now I have found that I cannot "diet" anymore, which to me is eating to lose weight fast.  All I can do is pray everyday, talk with my sponsor, plan my three meals a day with nothing in between, and try to learn from the times when I break that plan, and end up in a binge instead.  I am a recovering compulsive overeater, and I am getting therapy for my eating disorder issues, as well as working the OA program of recovery.

I am approximately 150 pounds overweight now, which is morbid obesity for me.  I haven't always been obese.  My mother put me on my first "diet" when I was around 11 years old, I lost eight pounds on it, and then she congratulated me and told me I could go back to eating the way I did before.  My mother hadn't a clue that I was a compulsive overeater since eight years old, and I no longer blame her for my being overweight anymore.

I am slowly losing weight, rather than dieting.  I do have "treats" like sugar-free, low fat ice cream or Slim A Bears.  Occasionally, we will eat out, and I will have a sugar-free dessert if possible, or just a regular piece of fruit pie with a little whipped cream.  I let go of chocolate-flavored graham crackers after Sunday meals, since I felt they had too much sugar in them to eat once a week, even.  I have lost around 11 pounds since I started eating less at lunch time back in September 2008.  I no longer count my days of abstinence from compulsive overeating, because I was starting to find it a real drag.  I was doing this because an OA member had to have at least 3 to 6 months of abstinence to qualify for a lead at a meeting (a lead is telling your life story and how program has helped you).  I have let go of the "need" to give leads (they are a great way to be the center of attention).  I call it a good month when I lose any weight at all.  I weigh myself once a month, otherwise I get obsessed about my weight and losing it, when I get weighed too often.

I consider what I have to be a disease of physical, emotional, & spiritual natures.  OA teaches that there is no cure for compulsive overeating, which is basically food addiction.  I find myself believing them, but I can take the necessary steps to arrest the illness, by being abstinent one day at a time, and not projecting into the future how much weight I'm going to lose and how fast it will come off.  This type of thinking drives me crazy, and it's referred to as the "diet mentality".

Denise Phares/kitties4

Thanks, jerz...

I dunno, it is hard to express where I am I guess. 

"not giving it 100%" is where i stumble here. My actions do contradict this goal at times. My mind does want this..100%. In that regard, yes, i give it 100% rent-space in my brain and psyche.

As simply as i can express it:  My actions are not the 100%.

I don't WANT to be 100% with food choices i guess. I *have to* be better than 90% that i am now.

I hear what you say about people doing it whole hog - been there, and been successful. For as long as i did WW..Atkins...Hollywood diet, etc etc etc.

I did lose focus, so if that is what you mean, keeping focus for 100% of the duration - aka *the rest of my life*, yes, I do need 100% focus. So that when my actions do veer off, my brain/commitment stays at 100%.