I need help with these "issues" please

[Kettei]

So this pretty much is my first post here and not as a lurker. I need some help with some issues I've noticed that keep cropping up which is sabotaging my weight loss goals.

Some background on myself:

I'm 5'2'', weigh anywhere from 140-150lbs (stopped weighing myself long ago as I became too obsessed), my bodyfat was 19% but has gone up to about 21% because of having a Fleur De Lis with ab repair done 7 months ago and have just been laying around but within the last  few months have I been able to slowly get back into working out. I wear a size 4-6 jeans depending on the maker. My biggest size was a 24. At my maximum weight I weighed closed to 300 and have lost 150lbs. Of course with that you get loose skin which is why I had the surgery on my tummy. It has been 4 years since starting my journey in case anyone would be interested. I still have a lot of loose skin on my inner thighs but I'm not here for that. I will say this, after being on this life changing journey I'm on, no one tells you that you may get some "mental" battles. I still see myself as that huge girl. But I have my good days and bad ones. Everyday is a work in progress.

 

Couple issues I've been noticing is that ever since getting into a relationship 2 1/2 years ago my "perfect" diet i was able to maintain being alone in the beginning for almost 2 years has sort of clashed with my boyfriend's way of eating. He's naturally very thin, 5'11'' 155lbs, and has AMAZING food control but can eat pretty much anything and never gains weight. He can have a piece of cake sitting on his lap and somehow forget it's there. :/  It's hard to tell him no don't bring home nutella, pasta, chips, etc without feeling like I'm an ass for "controlling" what he brings into the house. I don't want to be that person. My self control with food sucks. Period. I never grew up knowing how to eat and before my lifestyle change I would eat out 2/3X a day every day or boxed meals. Never ate veggies. So you can say I don't have a healthy relationship with food. I on occasions have binged and my mindset has unhealthly gone back and forth on I should remain in "lose weight" mode and not maintain mode. I don't eat anything near what I use to and never eat at fast food places but my bf has taught me to enjoy eating out at all natural restaurants. Thank you PDX for having so many options on healthy restaurants! But where I'm getting at is that with my horrible self control I catch myself eating things I shouldn't be eating every week. It wont be everyday but overtime stuff does add up. I haven't been able to lose the stubborn fat I have because of my self control that doesn't work. I know we shouldn't be obsessed with the number of our weight but I'd love to be around 130lb. When I'm on tract I eat my protein, carbs, and healthy fats.

 

Another habit I've recently started as in within 2 months and I'm kicking myself over this, is alcohol. I'm what someone would call a social drinker. I pretty much never drink at home and when my bf and I go out to eat, which is once a week, I have one maybe two beers. But when we go clubbing with friends or to bars with friends or boating with friends it turns into binge drinking where I drink like 4-6 shots or have a whole bunch of beer where it went from enjoying to I want to get drunk like everyone else. I need to kick this but with my self control and even low self esteem I for some reason can't. Funny thing is I hate the taste of hard liquor but love the drunk side effect.. I'm thinking of telling myself two alcohol beverages a week to start with until I can just go without having to feel like I need to "fit in" and get drunk. I'm a little socially awkward but I'm friendly. When I'm drunk I turn into super outgoing and everybody is my friend. Not sure what some peoples' thoughts on this subject would be but any advice would be helpful.

 

Learning to love myself is a major hard one for me but I have an amazing man who tells me I'm beautiful. 

 

I am planning on seeing a therapist but any input from you group of lovely men and women will be gladly helpful. I'll add a photo of myself

[Eleanorsbee]

hard game !

 

you what you need to do, you know how to do do it .... but the hardest thing is your will power and sticking to it with so much temptation.

 

one word

 

"accountability"

 

you need to find a way of making yourself accountable for your choices ..... have you tried tracking your food in a log (app or paper) ..... just seeing what you are eating, writing it down, noting the calories, can go a long way to making your self accountable as each time you go to eat something, or go back for seconds, you see just how much you are eating and can stop it.

 

That my one tip ..... I am sure by the end of today you will have loads more as everyone else jumps in 

 

oh .... and congrats on your journey so far, that some awesome results and success you have had 

[Lou186000]

Kettei,

 

Thanks for that thoughtful and honest post!

 

I'm in agreement with Eleanorsbee re: tracking food. My wife and daughter are not as conscious as I have to be about food input, and writing everything down gives me an awareness that I don't otherwise have. Knowing the amount of calories/sodium/etc in a small bag of chips makes it much easier to resist it.  

 

I think that tracking might even help with alcohol too. I love me some beer but once I started seeing the calories in a pint it made it much easier for me to cut my consumption down. As everyone says, enjoy it in moderation. Also, I'm convinced there's a point where alcohol stops with the "makes me feel good" and starts with the "keeps me from feeling."

 

It's awesome you're in a gratifying relationship! If you're comfortable doing so, enlist his help. He loves you and once he recognizes how deeply you need these things, he'll help.

 

Finally, if I may say, hubba-hubba on the Black Canary cosplay!

 

[Kettei]

I have always tracked my food but after years of doing it, it became too self awaring. If that makes sense. Just by looking at most food I can say how many calories is in an item...lol Honestly, it's weird that I know what I should be doing but for some reason I can't follow all the way through 100% all the time. 

I may though go back to writing things down just to stay accountable.

 

Thank you for your thoughts.

 

Lou, thanks lol, I love cosplaying which was one of many reasons why I wanted to lose weight

[jfreaksho]

Don't tell your boyfriend what to do, ask for his help. 

"I need help controlling what I eat.  It would really help me if we can keep ____, ____, and ____ as treats for not at home.  Can you help me with this?"

Then he gets to feel good about being a good boyfriend and helping you feel good and he can eat whatever he wants when you aren't physically together.  Everyone wins.

[Lou186000]

Honestly, it's weird that I know what I should be doing but for some reason I can't follow all the way through 100% all the time. 

 

 

My goodness, isn't that the truth for me as well. As evidenced by the cream-filled donut that found its way into my nutritional input yesterday. 

 

Writing here in the forums about what's on your mind and some possibilities for getting a leg up on it all is really good, imho. It helps to provide yourself perspective that you might not otherwise get, and I think you're doing a really good job of self-assessing. It's a necessary step in moving forward. If you haven't done so already (or recently) hunt down the Nerd Fitness blogs and have a gander, there's good advice in there for people at every point on their journey. Forum member wanderingcavegirl turned me on to fitness site darebee.com. While I'm not usually one for motivational posters, I really like this page:  http://darebee.com/motivation.html

[Juni0r83]

It's interesting the changes in mindset that you go through on a journey like this. I haven't nearly come as far in my journey as you have, but I too have a big food discipline issue. One of my vices used to be coca-cola. Every opportunity I had, I would drink some. I started controlling portion size when I started tracking calories. But I still just thought "it's only 150-200 calories, it's not that bad".

Then I started tracking macros and everything changed. It went from a couple of hundred calories (a relatively small % of my daily intake) to 30 carbs per can. I only get around 175g of carbs per day, and I'd rather fit something else in for those 30g of carbs than a single can of coke. And that was when I stopped drinking coke just because i could.

I don't know if that little story is likely to help you at all, but it's just my experience with having no self discipline when it comes to food.

And congrats on your success so far, very motivating for me personally to keep going!

[Ilham]

Congrats on the work you've accomplished on yourself so far. I know how hard it is, how it isn't just about restricting calories, it involves profound changes in one's mind and behaviour.

 

I'm not going to repeat what my fellow NFers said, all had good advice and a sensible approach to it. I love this site so much.

 

I might just add something. You haven't talked much about your work out routine. How is it? How consistent? How intense? Do you record what you do? Have you been doing the same thing for too long (thus adapted to it)? I'm no suggesting that you're not doing enough, or that you could give up on working on your food control problems by ramping up the exercise, but pushing the workouts a bit further for just a few weeks can help you break through a plateau, both mentally and physiologically. I'm not talking about overhauling your routine, but performing it at a higher intensity would allow you to burn more calories for example. 

 

Here's maybe a blog post that can help you: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2014/01/21/what-to-do-when-you-hit-a-plateau/

[Polaris]

One thing I've realized about temptation is that you need to "quit what you can quit, change what you can't, and recognize the difference". Yeah, kind of like the one they use in AA But hear me out. For me, I'm a recovering chocolate addict. I had to quit it cold turkey and I got withdrawal symptoms like I'd been on drugs. Even though so I broke the addiction, thinking about life without any chocolate ever made me miserable. So I have a single chocolate bar on some days (usually as a pre-workout energy boost) and that goes in my food log, and it's 221 kcal less I can eat that day. It keeps me sane, and ensures I won't completely abstain and be miserable until I snap and binge eat ALL THE CHOCOLATE.

 

So maybe you could try something like that with alcohol? Like, ask your friends if you could, as a group, drink less for some time because you're trying to cut down on alcohol consumption. Or do activities that don't involve alcohol more often. (Funny thing, btw, you're the opposite of me - I hate being drunk but I love the taste of some liquors. Like whiskey. Whiskey on the rocks is <3)

 

Willpower... is pretty hard to advice on, because you just gotta do it. Even when you reaaaaally want to, or don't want to do something, you do it. Even when it's hard, every time. It's gotta do with short- vs long term gratification, which some people find easier than others. The good news is, you must have it since you already employed it to lose 150 lbs, now you just need to apply it on stuff that you still struggle with. It might make you less happy in that moment, but it's gratifying in the long term.

 

Good luck on reaching 130 lbs! That's where I'm aiming too.

[Kinger138]

Hey Kettei.  Congrats on how far you've come.    I wish I could say I had epic advice to give, but everyone seems to have said a lot of what I could even think to come up with.

 

With booze...oh man, I know what you mean.  To quote Dimebag Darrell "I love being drunk, I just hate being hungover."  My friends and I were pretty hard drinkers (some of them still are).  I've stopped drinking at this point to try and help take down the weight and it can sure be tough.  It's also way easier for me to be social after a few adult beverages, too. 

 

Things I do to keep myself from drinking, or drinking too much, are to buffer every drink with a glass of water. Or, I'll get club soda or something with a lemon/lime.  The hard part is trying to be more of an extrovert without alcohol to knock down the barrier.  What I like to do is remind myself "Hey, everyone else is drunk...if I do something embarassing, they won't remember!"     Worry less about trying to fit in and just be you...which is super hard, but if you can manage it yourself you won't need as much booze to turn your personality up to 11. 

 

I hope this helps.  Good luck to you.