How to lose weight without losing my sense of self

March 26, 2018 3:00 AM

I know I need to lose weight, but I've spent half my life battling with my weight and the remaining half of my life battling with the psychological scars from that process. I would like to lose weight, for my health, in a way that does not trigger the demons of my childhood and early-20s to raise their ugly heads again. Can I do this? How can I do this? I am scared.

I've outlined elsewhere on Metafilter how I had a pretty unhappy childhood in relation to my weight and the dieting that I was basically forced into doing from the age of 9. At 19 I went on my last diet - it was the most successful in that I lost a ton of weight and became 'hot' and got all the positive feedback from friends and family I'd been hankering for my whole life, but the coruscating self-hatred, obsession with the number on the scales, weighing myself 100 times a day, waking up crying after dreaming of warm toast (?!??!?!), and days of constipation are not experiences I am in any hurry to repeat.

Right now, reading diet books or witnessing dieting behaviours gives me a sense of great anger and - I hesitate to say trauma because that sounds excessive, but those times were very painful for me. It means I have avoided dieting behaviours consistently throughout my 20s. I binge-ate in my 20s, but I don't anymore.

I am 35 now, overweight but after many years of reading body positive literature I feel better about myself. With AskMe's help I embarked, 3 years ago, on a fitness regime which goes on in fits and starts but I'm definitely no longer the fat girl who was afraid of stepping inside a gym for fear of being laughed at. I was thinner before but I am much fitter now and more confident of myself in exercise-y environments. So I've come far - but I'm still overweight, and my knees hurt, and I should lose weight for my health. I'm pretty sure I can do it, because although I still have times of disordered eating, it's definitely not as bad as it used to be, and I feel much more in control of what I eat.

So I know I can lose weight but I am worried about going about it in an obsessive, disordered way. I don't want to read any diet books. I don't want to log all my food the way I used to. I don't want to become obsessed with the scale, and I definitely do not want to cut out entire food groups. (Low-carbing is not something I will do.) But that means going in blind.

I would like some advice from people who lost (or are losing) weight while coming at it from this 'recovering' perspective. How do I keep my sense of perspective? How do I keep liking myself when I stumble, especially when I am trying to change something so fundamental to my identity and sense of self as being overweight? I currently only exercise 2x a week and am dealing with an injured knee so I need to deal with that side of things - I know I need to amend how I eat but not sure how to do it.

Please do not recommend 'magic' diets that recommend cutting out major food groups. I guess I am looking for help to formulate an approach that is healthy, balanced, sane and something I can aim to do all my life.

I got a little teary as I wrote this question. I feel like this is a hard question to answer and I feel the answers may also be hard for me to read, but this is a great and supportive community, and I feel confident of being understood here, in a way that I don't always in real life.

posted by Ziggy500 to Health & Fitness (29 answers total)

You don't need to be obsessive about it, but you also need to accept that your progress will be slow.

You don't necessarily need to log your food, but you do need to get a better handle on what what things are healthy and what aren't - you will have to do this by paying more attention to nutritional panels on food items. There is no way around this. Also realise that you will need to make sacrifices in what you eat, in order to achieve your weight loss goals. Things won't taste as good, you won't be able to eat as much, you won't be able to eat the things you like as often as you want to, but again, there is no quick fix. If you can't exercise because of injury, you will need to be even more vigilant about what you eat.
posted by ryanbryan at 3:15 AM on March 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

Congratulations on your fitness achievements!

When I was following the body-positive community I read about people losing weight through intuitive eating (though IIRC for most the point of intuitive eating was not weight loss but a healthier relationship with food). Some online searches found this book. Based on the description and the reviews, the idea seems to be listening to your body and nourishing yourself in multiple ways.

The goal of intuitive eating is not weight loss, but (based on reading I did a few years ago) many people seemed to lose weight as a side effect.

Good luck. I'm frustrated with my weight right now but very uncomfortable with dieting, so you have my full sympathy and I'll be watching this space with curiosity.
posted by bunderful at 3:19 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

One super cool thing is to focus on what's great to eat. Start a meal with something low-calorie and fiber-rich. For me that means salads as the first course(because i don't like dressings my salads are always low-calorie). For someone else that might mean a cup of bean soup first or switching to whole grain pasta or rice. Focusing on what I can eat means I eat what I want for breakfast, but I always eat a full serving of vegetables with it, which means I naturally less of the higher cal options.

If you like to cook and play with your food this becomes even easier and more fun as you experiment. Work on volume and swapping in options that are slightly lower cal.

Think about what compromises wouldn't make you unhappy. I like food. A lot. So I stopped drinking my calories aside from homemade breakfast smoothies.

And I've learned to make some insanely decadent chocolate desserts and creamy fruit desserts that are so healthy and filling they work as meals, to satisfy the sweet tooth.

If you like to cook, drop me a message letting me know some of your tastes and I can give you some recipes.

If you don't cook the advice on front-loading meals with fiber and volume (bagged salads, cups of soup), or plates of food at are at least half veggies still works.

I agree that if you eat lots of prepackaged soups, salads or so on you're going to have to check the nutrition labels, at least at first. It's way easier not to so that when you're cooking at home, and you know what is or isn't hiding extra calories in the form of cheese or oil or sugar. All things I want to taste up front in the form of indulgence, not bland hidden calories to make substandard food more palatable.
posted by liminal_shadows at 3:50 AM on March 26, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'm not normally one to go straight to the "therapy" answer, but I really think it could be useful in your situation. This sounds like it's going to be an emotionally difficult journey for you, with lots of opportunities to fall into unhealthy modes of thinking and living if you're not careful. Having a neutral, empathic, well-trained party to act as a sounding board, help you maintain your equilibrium, and walk you back from the edge if necessary, could really make things easier for you.

Also, I agree with the folks above who say that this needs to be thought of as a lifestyle change rather than a diet. That is, you don't have to do anything extreme, but you do have to accept that you're making permanent changes to the way you eat that you won't go back from. You should expect slow and steady progress that occasionally plateaus, requiring additional lifestyle changes if you want to continue dropping your weight. You don't have to change everything at once, and it's up to you where you want to stop. But think of it as a long-term, gradual thing rather than a quick fix.

And consider therapy.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:50 AM on March 26, 2018 [12 favorites]

I'm hesitant to answer this, but I think maybe a focus on eating for health, rather than weight loss, might be the way to go? Try buying ingredients, rather than meals? Grow a few veggies in the summer, spend some time in the kitchen preparing your food, visit the occasional farmers market and buy in season? Make your own sauerkraut or kimchi? Think of it as eating a more traditional diet to avoid the diseases of affluence, rather than to control the shape of your body.

I can buy cheap mass-produced cheddar anywhere, but the best cheddar I can buy comes from a farm shop about 30 minutes from home. If I limit myself to the really good stuff, I eat less of it and I relish it when I get it. If I make my own pizza from scratch - I mean make my own dough, tomato sauce, etc - then it's much more satisfying in every sense than chucking a store-bought pizza in the oven for 12-14 mins, and I do it less often because of all the prep work. This is the relationship with food that I want to have, and I'm slowly struggling towards.

(I'm also a big fan of probiotics in the form of kefir + fibre in the form of leaves, but I suspect that might be verging on placebo, so lets just leave that in parenthesis here).
posted by Leon at 4:52 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

A while back I wanted to learn how to eat healthier and maybe lose some weight but not by dieting, by changing my lifestyle. MeFites recommended this book and it is both evidence-based and realistic. It is also the most compassionate writing on the subject of weight that I have ever read. The author is an obesity specialist but doesn’t treat being skinny as the pinnacle of human health or achievement, or some kind of moral triumph. He just wants people to get to a good-enough weight which doesn’t require them to deprive themselves of everything enjoyable about food.

Since following the plan in the book, I have lost most of the weight that I wanted to, and should reach a maintenance level sometime this year. But more importantly, I have a much happier relationship with my body and with food.

I’d also recommend therapy if you feel this is an identity issue for you. Getting your head in the right place will make any other things you try so much easier, and will probably make other aspects of your life better as well.

Good luck! And remember to be kind to yourself.
posted by harriet vane at 5:37 AM on March 26, 2018 [8 favorites]

Somebody used the issue of weight to beat you up. I'm sorry that happened to you. Healthy food is a gift you can give yourself. A healthy relationship with food, healthy knees, reducing risk of diabetes are ways to be good to yourself. You can use affirmations to remind yourself. Therapy with someone who is very experienced with these issues might be a way to be good to yourself.
posted by theora55 at 5:39 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

For me, it's helped to frame it as getting to eat delicious, healthy foods that help me take good care of my body rather than as having to cut back on delicious less-healthy foods.

I try to use more vegetables to bulk up the volume without as many added calories, like using broccoli for about half the volume of a ham, egg, and cheese bake, spaghetti squash for the noodles in a pad Thai, or adding mushrooms, peppers, and onions to the taco meat, things where I prefer it with the extra vegetables and don't feel like it's cutting back or depriving myself of anything. Stocking my kitchen such that the easiest thing to make for a quick dinner on a weeknight is steamed or roasted vegetables or a salad helps, too.

I also tell myself I can eat whatever I want as long as I prepare it from scratch, which in practice means we have pizza once a week and dessert items once a month or so (and then have dessert every day for four or five days straight until it's gone). Sometimes I adapt dessert recipes to be a little more nutritious, like substituting plain Greek yogurt for sour cream in my grandma's cheesecake recipe, or using whole wheat flour in the molasses cookies. When we don't have a homemade dessert in the house, we have some fancy herbal teas that satisfy that craving for an after-dinner treat.
posted by abeja bicicleta at 5:51 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

It sounds like you'd benefit from working with some professionals. Their titles would vary depending on your specific goals and needs, but someone in the realm of nutritionist, personal trainer, counselor, etc. This sounds like a complex set of issues for you with some admirable goals and you're worth the value of trained people helping you out. If you have a gym where you're a regular, you can ask around for any recommended locals in the kind of life-assistance sort of realm that I'm talking about. There will be plenty of woo to wade through but it sounds like you're no longer susceptible to that crap, which is awesome and will make the search for some help a lot more efficient.

A counselor or therapist that focuses on issues of self-image and physical health as it affects mental wellness can be especially great, because they're a person you're paying, not a friend or a concerned family member or anybody else. You could visit a physical therapist to help adjust your exercise routines to save your knees. A nutritionist could help with meal planning or just get you refamiliarized with eating for wellness as we currently understand it, help brush out those dieting cobwebs, you know? A personal trainer, depending on their scope, can serve as facets of all of these roles as well as give you lots of personalized motivation and positivity. Basically, build a team, to the extend you are fiscally able to do so, because you're important, deserve some helping hands, and don't have to do this "blind".
posted by Mizu at 5:53 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

If you don't already look at your meals this way, try to get into a healthy plate model. For me this emphasizes taking away a bit of what I tend to pile on too heavy (often extra pasta, toast or the like) and making sure I have the stuff that might get left off (leafy greens among my vegetables).

This way you can stick with your exercise and focus on proportioning your food without getting into scales and logs right away. Then, if you need to cut back it is as simple as going down one plate size. Moderation is key and progress may be slow.
posted by meinvt at 6:27 AM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Make salad your main dish. You can still eat whatever you want, but try to make the salad (with leafy greens and other yummy fresh stuff you like) the main dish of your meal. There is this Nutritarian Checklist magnet that has a good list of goals for what to try to eat every day. Start small by getting one big salad a day. There are so many nutrients in a good salad (I like to make mine with romaine, a little bit of kale, and some butter lettuce, sliced fresh mushrooms, alfalfa sprouts, maybe some red cabbage, raw sunflower seeds, green onion, crunchy sprouted beans and any other yummies I have in my fridge).

This is what is working for me to lose some extra weight but also to improve my overall nutrition. After the first week, I really truly look forward to my salads.
posted by jillithd at 6:43 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm going to address exercise, which is orthogonal to the question you asked, but it's an important piece of the puzzle. I've found that the more I get into exercise - not just more exercise, but exercise that interests me and that intrinsically motivates me - the less likely I am to fall into my old disordered-eating habits. Some of it is a more forgiving metabolism so I don't feel like my diet is all or nothing, some of it is increased strength and overall health so that I move around better and am generally happier in my body. And a lot of it is that I can feel a more immediate connection between what I eat and how my body feels, so I'm motivated to stay fueled and strong. The more physically and mentally present I need to be for the exercise, the more this matters; it's almost impossible to swim or lift or practice yoga if you're underfed and light-headed.

One of the best things I've done for my wonky knee and my exercise habits is seeing a personal trainer, with the specific goal of figuring out how to work out while keeping my knees healthy. If you go this route, I strongly suggest going to an orthopedist and physical therapist first, doing the PT exercises faithfully, getting the go-ahead to exercise from both, and then being super choosy about your trainer (ideally, get a referral from your physical therapist). Or just see the physical therapist and don't bother with a trainer. Overweight people often get told that weight loss is the main/only way to fix their knee pain, but there's a lot you can do now, at your current weight.

If you have a history of disordered eating, you probably know more than enough about how to eat "right," as well as all the letter-of-the-law cheats around those rules. Jumping into anything sudden can be triggering or set you up for failure, so it's okay to ease into it lazy-style. It can help to start adding the things you need (protein? fiber? veggies?) before taking out the things you don't, e.g. instead of cutting out pasta right away, make pasta dishes that have a ton of vegetables, and gradually shift the veggie-to-pasta ratio. If you ease into it gently and don't make any sort of rules about what you must and must not eat, it'll be a sustainable change rather than a sucky diet.
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:36 AM on March 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

I got some value from the improbable source of Scott Adams's book How To Fail At Almost Everything and Still Win Big. It contains a very good chapter on diet and eating, but is not otherwise a "diet book".

My value on the topic of diet, if any, is in simplification. The simple diet plan that works for me is this: I eat as much as I want, of anything I want, whenever I want. I weigh a trim 145 pounds and have literally never felt better. My healthy weight is not a genetic gift. In years past I have weighed as much as 168 pounds, which looks portly on my smallish frame.

Obviously there are some tricks involved with my too-easy-to-be-true diet plan. The tricks are simple, but they will take some explaining. Let’s start with the part about eating “anything I want.” The trick there is to change what you want. Yes, that’s possible, and it’s probably easier than you imagine. Once you want to eat the right kinds of food for enjoyment, and you don’t crave the wrong kinds of food, everything else comes somewhat easily.

He approaches the diet question from a psychological direction instead of a nutritional/metabolic direction, and in my experience that is the more effective way to do it. It's easier and more permanent to rewire your systems and habits than it is to push back against a food craving. He does not prescribe any particular composition of foods or methodology - it's really all about behavior and psychology.
posted by theorique at 7:49 AM on March 26, 2018

I would start with "salad/veggies first" and do that 'til it's second nature and then find warm toast alternatives. You still have normal warm toast of the apex-comfortcarb variety, but you also have alternative warmtoast: all the approved fibrous grains and cauliflower tricks people go on about. Go for more food and more kinds of food, not less. Approach asymptotically eliminating sugar and simple carbohydrate, but the point is to always approach, never arrive, because the complete elimination of sugar and flour is unnecessary and causes pain dreams. When I had absurdly long hair I'd have dreams that I cut it all off. One day I cut it all off. Nothing bad happened and I've grown it to absurd lengths a few times since. When I was a vegetarian, I'd have dreams that I ate a ham sandwich. One day I ate a ham sandwich. Nothing bad happened. This was twenty years ago and I still eat far less meat than I did before I became vegetarian. The one thing to scrupulously eliminate from your "diet" is perfection.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:52 AM on March 26, 2018 [10 favorites]

I think it'd be worth while for you to consult a registered dietitian (not a run of the mill nutritionist!) because a lot of what you're dealing with is what they're trained to help people through. Go find a healthcare professional to help you work through all your health (mental and physical) concerns.
posted by astapasta24 at 7:59 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I came here to suggest Yoni Freedhoff's book, which discusses what he calls traumatic dieting (you can google what he means by that, if you're interested). I was able to listen or read his book for free on my phone through the app Libby using my library card. Very common-sense advice like eat as little processed or junk food as you can while being happy, because you cannot longterm sustain something that makes you unhappy.

There are some intuitive eating podcasts that are aimed at restoring healthy relationships with food, I've listened to a couple of episodes from each that were pretty interesting. Both hosts previously had eating disorders and talk about how diet culture can be toxic.

http://www.laurathomasphd.co.uk/category/podcast/

https://christyharrison.com/foodpsych/


A registered dietician can offer some simple food advice so you don't get hungry, and are eating enough. I used to be ferociously hungry after swimming, even with a snack after, so first we tried tweaking my snack and then we tried having the snack before swimming- which worked best for me. Here in Canada registered dietician > nutritionist.

Lastly, be gentle with yourself. I think you already are, but being hungry has long-lasting effects, as does the shame around dieting. I hesitated even mentioning the podcasts as they may be difficult to listen to, but maybe you will find them helpful. Add in some extra self care as you navigate this.
posted by haunted_pomegranate at 8:06 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

This is really difficult, important work that you are doing. Nthing the advice to speak with a registered dietitian (not a nutritionist), especially one with a background in disordered eating. The one I saw for about a year knew all the nuts and bolts of nutrition but was also this incredible therapist who understood all the emotional implications of eating and helped guide me through them. I learned to eat in a way that worked for me, and I think that’s the important thing here, finding a professional who can help you figure out what will work for you.

Wishing you all the best.
posted by corey flood at 8:28 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I absolutely think this is the sort of thing CBT/ACT type therapy is for. You have trauma that you need new frameworks for handling, and you want to undertake a project that has some known landmines and the best way to navigate that is with assistance.

And if you are like most people, you're probably dealing with at least some unhelpful eating patterns that are emotional/psychological in nature, and you can't fix that with any diet anyway. It might be worth tackling that first and see what that does for you; it might mean that on the actual food front all you need to make are minor adjustments, and maybe see a trainer who can help you develop a workout plan that spares your knee

I do think a registered dietitian could be useful to you from a strategy perspective, but I personally would want someone with some kind of credentials in eating disorders because the conventional school of thought is to weigh and log everything and that's not going to work for you.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:39 AM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Hi, I'm so sorry you're struggling with this. I have had similar experiences feeling triggered by limiting what I eat. A lifetime of people telling you your body is wrong and that it's your job to change it is real trauma.

I am going to gentry recommend focusing on healthy behavior without trying to change the size of your body. After many years of trying to lose weight followed by many years of reading about the Health at Every Size movement and the body acceptance movement, I have learned that I am much healthier (with a big emphasis on mental health) when I am taking care of my body rather than fighting it. Linda Bacon has a great book called Health at Every Size that both explains the science behind it and gives great advice about how to set forth. There are more and more evidence based studies proving that a) long term weight loss is rarely sustainable, and b) most of your health goals can be achieved without weight loss.

Some resources that might be useful:
lindabacon
danceswithfat
melissafabello

Best of luck to you!
posted by tangosnail at 9:07 AM on March 26, 2018 [8 favorites]

Second using a plate method - for dinner, fill half your plate with veg (half of that half could include beans or lentils), 1/4 with a protein (meat or tofu), 1/4 with a starch like potatoes, rice, bread, pasta. If you’re still hungry, have a little more.

(Try to cook at home if you can. Easy way to do this is to either cook a bunch of meat on Sunday and portion it off and freeze it for the week (making sides fresh daily, if you care about flavour/texture - I feel like meat can handle freezing better, or you can disguise it with a sauce or then use it as an ingredient in a more complex dish). Or you could make enough for dinner to have leftovers.)

Lunches if you eat out - sandwich or wrap with or without a soup, just glance at the nutritional info and make sure it’s in the neighbourhood of 500-600 calories and has a decent amount of protein (to keep you full).

Rotate the same couple of breakfasts that work for you (fill you up and taste good) - the less you have to think about planning the better.

Have a few options for filling, high nutrition/Lower cal snacks on hand (for me that’d be cottage cheese or oatmeal, or a protein bar).

Keep the foods you know are trouble for you out of the house. Still have them now and then, just outside of the house and in small servings. (I feel like there’s no need to test your willpower on a daily basis, why put yourself through that. Nothing wrong with those foods btw, it’s just about making things easy.)

Eat like that most of the time, but give yourself a few meals a week for favourites that aren’t the superest “healthy” or whatever. And don’t feel guilty about it, this is about making it all sustainable.

See a physiotherapist about your knee. Low-resistance cycling is *usually* safe for people with knee issues (just make sure the seat and handle are set at the right position for you). If you can walk without pain, that’s great too.
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:08 AM on March 26, 2018

Hey, this is important and hard work to do. I've been there in a bad relationship to food and my body. I will outline how I think it was important for me to do, but please take what is useful and leave the rest.

The way I didn't get triggered (I had a lot of Baggage) was to do everything ULTRA slow. I figured, in my late 20s, if I could figure it out by my mid-30s I would be ok. By and large that worked out; I lost almost 50 lbs in my mid 30s and at 47 I have kept them off. (I also got into running and martial arts but that came later.)

Step 1: Awareness
I spent several months just noticing what I ate and when, with particular attention to the times I was eating mindlessly or due to stress or due to external pressure. I also tried to take time to notice what really tastes good to me. For example: I know it's lousy chocolate, but I like the plain Hershey's Chocolate bar; it tastes like home. But I do not really like the lousy eggs that appear at this time of year. And I know it's terrible but I don't like the super high-end dark chocolate either.

Step 2: Exploration - like 1 year
I then focused on weight maintenance - not gaining and not really focusing on losing either. I just wanted to have a sense of how much to eat to not gain, for a few months. During this time I also tried to collect a growing collection of both skills (how to cook asparagus so it's not limp but not too raw, how to cook and season fish, etc.) and relatively healthy things I like, like pickled vegetables of all kinds, barley porridge, etc.

Step 3: Make the easy cuts - 1-2 years
For me, the first cut was soda pop and other caloric drinks - it took a bit of finessing to flavoured sparkling drinks and gradually getting the sugar out of my coffee, but that was a relatively early and easy win. I also starting stepping down some of my bad habits, like not stopping off for doughnuts.

Step 4: Create positive habits 1-2 years, overlapped with above some
The biggest change for me for having and maintaining the weight loss I did have has been to pack my own food to work. At first I packed leftovers and now I pack a salad (tons of veggies + protein + healthy fat) every day, plus snacks. For me that took at least half the temptation away, plus between that and a smoothie for breakfast, took away 10 meals a week where I could mess up.

My second Waterloo is eating at night and I have tried to not eat after 8 and a few other strategies like snacking on pickles and not chips, but I am working it out slowly still.

Step 5: Actual weight loss. 8 months. For me I did Weight Watchers which has a lot to it you sound like you might not want, but for me it worked because 1) I needed to adjust my sense of a portion size, 2) I HATED the group thing and yet it actually worked for me and 3) by then (years, literally, since I had started) I was ready to just set a timeframe and a goal and go for it. What I've kept from that is that I use My Fitness Pal to track things., a week here and a week there when I feel like I need a bit of a course correction.

This is also where I tried to adopt an abundance mindset, which is hard for me. An abundance mindset is that I don't have to eat/buy/sneak/hide a full bag of cookies on sale for $1.99 because it's a better deal and BUDGET, Y'ALL. I can go to the bakery and buy one perfect fancy cookie for $3-4 and sit down and enjoy it and feel like...there will be another cookie, one day, I don't need to stock Oreos against the Great Famine to Come.

Step 5A: Back to Step 4

Step 6: Then I started in on the crazy kimchi making. It does help to really get down with the food geekery, for me, but I don't think this is universal.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:40 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Stop weighing yourself. The numbers on the scale are crazy making.
Realize that your goal is not a number. Your goal/ goals are xxxxxx. Feeling better, "poking different, being stronger, having more stamina, beating able to do xx again that you can't do now because of your weight.

If you need validation that you are actually losing weight, look at your clothing. Is it getting looser?

This has the effect of making weight control a long term strategy, not a short term starvation for me. It takes the anxiety away from eating a piece of candy or a slice of toast. It helps me live a more normal food life. I've been doing it since January and I am wearing smaller pants now. Also able to walk up a gnarly set stairs without needing 10 minutes to recover. And able to get down on the floor and play with my grandkids more easily (joy).

Not stepping on a scale is the hardest thing to do.
posted by SLC Mom at 5:24 PM on March 26, 2018

I know a couple of anti-diet women who have lost substantial amounts of weight and kept it off following reading Women Food and God by Geneen Roth. FWIW, they were not religious or spiritual and all the negative reviews on Amazon are about how it's not about God, don't let the title freak you out. She also has several other books about emotions and food in case one of them seems more suitable.

The thing I took away from them talking about it was that she suggests finding a breakfast and a lunch that you feel satisfied and nourished after eating and just eating those every day while you're working on your relationship with food. I do this when I feel like I'm stressing over my diet or getting into unhealthy patterns, and not having to make so many choices about food for a bit is really helpful.
posted by momus_window at 7:13 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Conversations with family members have made me realize that we're all messed up about food. I've had an unhealthy relationship with my weight all my life, and though I have finally lost and kept weight off with Weight Watchers for the last couple of years, it took some life changes to get me in a position where I could do it. I left a job that was demanding and interesting but was so stressful that moderating my food intake was way down on my priority list.

Exercise does not make me lose weight, and when I was heavier my knees hurt so bad (and my feet, and my back) that I couldn't exercise effectively anyway. I like Weight Watchers because it's not a diet and it's low key; I have friends who belong to OA but it wasn't my cup of tea.
posted by Peach at 7:30 PM on March 26, 2018

I have recently had a similar realization about my health being compromised by my eating habits and wanted to share my own strategy. I've lost about 10 pounds and still have plenty to go so my focus is slow and steady.
1. Simplify eating- focus on 3 meals a day and a few reasonable snacks- the same thing for most of the week for breakfast. A pot of something divided up for weekday lunches and maybe 2 options for dinner. On days off cooking something else is an option but in general prep food when you aren't hungry or tired or upset. I have been using myfitnesspal to log meals- which can be upsetting - but if you can talk yourself through it- its a useful tool. Aim for 400-500 calories a meal and to feel full and satisfied.
2. Low/no impact exercise before a meal most days (5-6 times a week) this is the best part of my lifestyle change as it has improved my mood, takes my mind off eating and actually lowers my hunger levels before a meal. I don't exercise when i'm hungry - but by eating about 30 mins after cardio exercise i'm much more in control of my meal time feelings around food. I feel more like i'm refueling and less like i'm craving comfort foods- if that makes sense.
I have been working up slowly to going to the gym more and more frequently. This is something that you can do over a month or longer if necessary.
Take it easy on your body with injuries. If you can take a spinning class and stay sitting that's excellent, if you can swim - even 10-20 minutes- you are working out your entire body also without hurting your knee.
Lastly if you are attached to certain flavors or textures look for sustainable ways to include them into your day in a positive way. Flavored yogurts are something i enjoy and little pieces of chocolate. When you have significant weight to lose you need to not feel deprived- this is important imho!
posted by Ladydetective at 9:03 PM on March 26, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks for the amazing answers guys! You are all best answers. It was the right idea to post this question here; in real life, whenever I've started talking about my issues around dieting and weight loss and the way weight loss culture makes me feel, I usually get told I am imagining it. Thanks for just taking it at face value and seriously.
posted by Ziggy500 at 2:38 AM on March 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

late n-thing everyone who says this is a therapy kind of question, more so than a "how do I manage food + exercise" one. I do wonder if somatic therapy more specifically might be helpful for you.

if not therapy, some self-help options:

- online resources such as this + Thomas Cash's body image workbook*
- trying a mindful eating checklist: [1], [2]
- learning to do body scans - this is great for getting more in tune with your body
- one of the things that I have found helpful as well, though it's more designed to deal with trauma reactions, is the butterfly hug - it's very immediately physically grounding if you're suddenly anxious about everything!!! you're eating/about your body

the last thing, as bunderful mentioned, is learning about intuitive eating - that's what you're looking for practical steps-wise. avoid the bs that's "I always intuitively want salad and green smoothies", obviously.

good luck! I hope this adds something to what I'm sure you already know a lot about.

* I use "body image" as a shorthand for "problems with being in my body generally", not just image/appearance-wise
posted by ahundredjarsofsky at 3:36 AM on March 27, 2018

"Don't drink calories" is an easy diet hack that doesn't feel like dieting because you aren't restricting what you eat, you're just meeting your thirst drive with water instead of with other beverages.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:24 AM on March 27, 2018

I'm in my 40s, just now at what I would consider a healthy mental place (being able to look in a mirror and not feel shame/hate), and I wanted you to know it's definitely not just you. I eat better now, am slowly getting more exercise, but like you just trying to do those things in the past set off some really bad triggered behaviors. I had to do a lot of therapy/mental work to get to a place where that didn't happen.

For me, it was mostly about dealing with relationships in my life with people who, I felt, were disappointed in me for not being thin. Of course they mostly didn't say that to me, but I believed that's what they were thinking. What I had to do was get myself to a place where it didn't matter to me what they thought of my ability or non-ability to lose weight, and that was very difficult, because that shit goes deep. But I had to let that go. I have no control over other people's perceptions. If they think I am a hideous monster, well, they do. I am not responsible for that.

The other part was in understanding my triggers better. If I noticed myself doing something destructive/obsessive when it came to food, I wouldn't berate myself but instead just try to observe and find out what had set me off. Insecurity? Boredom? Anger? This had the unexpected effect of making those triggers weaker--once I knew what was happening, the triggering lasted less time and was less powerful.
posted by emjaybee at 12:41 PM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]