How can I succeed in my diet?

July 28, 2009 11:46 AM

I've been trying to get under a certain weight for weeks. Whenever I know that if I do well on a certain day, I'll have reached my goal in the morning, I tend to subconsciously self sabotage (by over eating or eating something I know will make me gain weight the next day.) Then I'll end up gaining a few pounds and needing to start all over.

I think it's because I told myself it was hard to get under that number, and now it's become this huge goal that I can't seem to attain. How do I get over the self-sabotage so I can continue on the weight loss journey?

(Note that I have binge eating disorder, so for me overeating automatically means +2 or more pounds.)

posted by anonymous to health & fitness (20 comments total)

You absolutely should NOT be dieting if you have BED. I just recently recovered from that. Dieting triggers bingeing. I would look to the online community at Something Fishy or the book Overcoming Overeating. Good luck, I know how hard this can be.
posted by emilyd22222 at 11:50 AM on July 28 [1 favorite]

Quit weighing yourself everyday\at all. This might help you not try to sabotage. That really only cures the symptom though. Your problem is that you're a binge eater.

This seems to be a very serious problem that I don't think anyone will be able to help you with a few words.
posted by zephyr_words at 11:50 AM on July 28 [3 favorites]

I don't think dieting is generally recommended for people coping with binge eating disorder. I would suggest talking with your therapist and doctor about this.
posted by Sidhedevil at 11:50 AM on July 28

Let me just reiterate that obsessing over the daily readings of your scale is the first step towards sabotaging your weight loss program. Weigh yourself once a month.
posted by 256 at 11:58 AM on July 28 [1 favorite]

Measure something other than weight each day, like calories consumed or burned, against a defined goal. And stay off the goddamn scale for a month at a time.
posted by rokusan at 12:10 PM on July 28

Let me just reiterate that obsessing over the daily readings of your scale is the first step towards sabotaging your weight loss program. Weigh yourself once a month.

Actually, most research I've read shows the opposite. But that research is generally done with participants who are not suffering from an eating disorder!

Anonymous, please consult with a doctor or a therapist before you continue trying to lose weight!
posted by muddgirl at 12:11 PM on July 28

I'm a binge eater and an emotional eater, so I can sympathize with the issue you're having. *Sometimes* it helps me to keep something around that it's ok to binge on, such as super low calorie soup (veggies in low sodium broth), sugar free jello, etc. Doesn't always work. There are other times when something pops into my mind and I just gotta have it. A brownie, for example. I will drive myself crazy until I get that damn brownie and I'll eat everything in the fridge to fill myself up and make myself forget about it. Trouble is, I NEVER forget about it, so I'll just throw my out of control ass into the car in the middle of the night and hit the grocery store to buy one and I'll stuff it down my gullet before I even get back into the car. Ahh, finally some peace. Now I can relax and sleep.

I've found that a much better solution to cravings is to just satisfy them. If I want a brownie, I'll buy a sugar free brownie and eat it before I eat EVERYTHING else in the house. 300 calories won't kill me, but 1300 calories to avoid the 300 would kill me eventually.
posted by HotPatatta at 12:24 PM on July 28

Ok first, you should not try getting under a certain weight. That is a bad goal, especially for having an eating disorder. Your main focus should be reworking how you eat and pairing it with psychical activity. I find 5-6 smaller meals a day is very satisfying, also opt for a mix of fruits/vegg/etc. But don't hold back on having something like ice cream or chips, just make sure you opt for a single serving. Plus if you ad some exercise like walking and light weight lifting you will help tone yourself up. Overall it is about feeling good about your body and appreciating what you have instead of trying to get to an ideal weight.
posted by TonyDanza at 12:24 PM on July 28

By the way, if you're going to eat something bad, at least find a healthier option if possible. I mentioned eating a sugar free brownie instead of it's evil brother, but there are even better options. Chocolate protein bars have a lot of sugar, but there are some zero sugar options that also pack 15g of protein and a few grams of fiber in there somehow. That certainly will leave you feeling fuller and less guilty than a brownie with nothing to offer in terms of nutrition. You can mix fresh fruit in with sugar free jello. If you like pastries, make your own and replace some of the white flour with soy flower, which has some protein, or whole wheat flour, which will give you some whole grains. Telling yourself "no" too often will lead to failure, but, ultimately, the two of us also need to figure out how to adequately address the reasons why we tend to binge.
posted by HotPatatta at 12:31 PM on July 28

Get help for your eating disorder. You should be in therapy or counseling to help you deal with this issue. Others are absolutely right that dieting, in any form, is not good for people who have eating disorders. Get that under control, and then if you still want to set fitness or health goals for yourself, you can do it from a healthy mindset.
posted by decathecting at 12:32 PM on July 28

(Note that I have binge eating disorder, so for me overeating automatically means +2 or more pounds.)


What the hell, this isn't a "note" or "footnote," this is the cause! The fluctuating weight and self-sabotage is the symptom! You are in therapy for this, right? Have you discussed with your therapist on your focus on reaching the "magic number"?

Also: look, one or two pounds is not a big deal. Seriously, if you've hit your goal weight, and you're within five pounds of it, you are pretty much that weight. +/- five pounds is pretty much the range of someone's "real" weight depending on their hydration levels, carb intake, salt levels, and whether or not they've taken a dump recently. Wrestlers are known to drop 10+ pounds in the few days before a competition, but that's not "real" weight.

Do your pants still fit after the two pounds are gained? Do you look the same to people around you (I'm guessing along with the ED you have a distorted body image, so don't ask yourself that question)? Then the number is not important, the body composition is.

I think it is worth for you to throw out the scale and focus on body composition. That is, what size clothes are you wearing? How big are your waist and hips? What kind of muscle definition do you have? I am a full twenty pounds heavier than I was three years ago, yet I wear the same size clothes since a lot of that extra weight is muscle mass from weight training. The change in the scale doesn't make me Fatty McFatterstein, because the body composition doesn't reflect that.
posted by schroedinger at 12:40 PM on July 28 [2 favorites]

If you insist on dieting, try something like South Beach, which doesn't focus on portion sizes, but instead focuses on what you eat. I think your goal should be more along the lines of keeping yourself from being in a situation where you will get the urge to overeat. Make sure you have lots of water with every meal, and those meals should contain a good amount of protein, fiber, and healthy fats. This will help to keep you satiated throughout the day. Avoiding processed carbs as much as possible will help to control those urges to eat junk food. When you do have those urges for something, go ahead and splurge on just a little bit (if you are craving ice cream, go to an ice cream shop and just get a single scoop, don't go to the grocery store and buy a while quart).

The goal should always be to get healthy, not just to lose weight. Following a structured eating plan filled with lots of veggies, healthy fats, and lean proteins will go a long way to keeping you from feeling hungry, while at the same time giving you the vitamins and nutrients that your body needs.
posted by markblasco at 12:51 PM on July 28

Gah no. Any kind of restriction of your eating, whether South Beach or sugar free brownies (WTF) instead of regular ones will worsen your eating disorder. Trust me. Anyone who's recovered/recovering from BED will tell you the exact same thing.
posted by emilyd22222 at 1:15 PM on July 28 [1 favorite]

Any kind of restriction of your eating, whether South Beach or sugar free brownies (WTF)

Wow, you completely missed my point on that one, emilyd. I don't think I ever advocated a diet of eating ASMANYSUGARFREEBROWNIESASYOUWANTYIPPEEEE!. I used the brownie as an example of satisfying a specific craving to AVOID bingeing.
posted by HotPatatta at 1:23 PM on July 28 [1 favorite]

HotPatatta, no I didn't. The way that people recover from BED is by learning that there is no such thing as bad food, and no food is off limits. When you say that regular brownies are bad and should be replaced with a low-cal alternative, this is something that can trigger bingeing in the exact same way that not eating at all can.
posted by emilyd22222 at 2:21 PM on July 28 [1 favorite]

Weigh yourself once a month.

Wrong.

This just demonstrates how poor is the average person's understanding of how to use math in their daily life. If you weigh yourself once a month -- you are getting LESS data, not BETTER data. You need as much data as possible and you need to be smart about how to use it.

Do NOT get hungup on the short-term fluctuations. As others have said, the ups and downs are mostly attributable to hydration and stomach contents. But carry on weighing yourself everyday. Do what you can to harmonize the conditions as much as possible -- i.e. drink very well the night before so you don't wake up dehydrated, then weighing yourself in the morning AFTER going to the toilet.

Now record that daily number and calculate the moving average for the last week or two. The Google 15 is an awesome tool for doing this -- it does all the math for you and is accessible anywhere.
posted by randomstriker at 3:41 PM on July 28 [1 favorite]

randomstriker - that would be fine and sensible advice if the OP did not have an eating disorder.

The more I think about this, the more I feel there are some signs in this post that the goal to "get below a certain weight" may be part and parcel of the binge eating. It's functioning as an excuse to binge eat. "Oh, right at this moment my Magic Number on the Scale is X, so I can eat as much as I want until I hit Y. Oh no! I've overshot!"

If the scale is triggering disordered eating, then the OP shouldn't be weighing him or herself at all.
posted by muddgirl at 3:49 PM on July 28 [3 favorites]

I'd have to agree with emilyd on this one. Binge eating can be triggered by broccoli, for goodness sake. Also, it's not about staying satiated or avoiding certain cravings, because bingeing is not about hunger. It's an emotional response.

Anonymous, your question was about self-sabotage. I would suggest that the first step is to try to stop using that kind of language. Just a guess here, but I know from experience that this kind of thing is very often related to perfectionism and anxiety. Figuring out how to be kinder to yourself will only help.

I don't know where you are in your journey, so I don't know how enmeshed you are in the behavior, but a full day without a binge is an epic win in the beginning. If it does happen the next day, that's not "sabotage," it's continuation (relapse?). All you can do is start over the next day. Eventually you will go 2 days, then 3 days, then a week, etc. (you may already know all of this or have even reached these milestones, I don't know) As for weight loss, that will happen naturally when the bingeing slows down/stops. Worrying about that now may hinder your progress.
posted by Eumachia L F at 3:59 PM on July 28 [1 favorite]

(Note that I have binge eating disorder, so for me overeating automatically means +2 or more pounds.)

Here's the thing.

Food weighs something. You may well eat two pounds or more of "extra" food when you binge, because two pounds isn't a tremendous amount of food. (I say this as someone who buys salad from the expensive Whole Foods salad bar pretty frequently.) So an upward fluctuation of two pounds after a binge is meaningless.

You may well ingest food whose value is estimated at 7,000 calories above your resting metabolic weight when you binge, but the human metabolism is inefficient, so the likelihood that the "3,500 calories = 1 pound of fat stored" equation applies in the short term is negligible.

Tracking your weight at this level of granularity is almost certainly a symptom of your eating disorder. The gold standard of eating disorder treatment--and I am pretty sure that this is the same for binge eating disorder, though I have not personally experienced that disorder--is not to weigh yourself until you are in a period of solid recovery.

Please, PLEASE talk with your therapist and doctor about this.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:04 PM on July 28

above your resting metabolic weight

Should be "above your resting metabolic rate," of course.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:05 PM on July 28