It seems that every day, I have two portions of dinner and multiple sodas, and it feels good when I’m doing it, of course, but then I feel guilty afterward. I’m bipolar manic-depressive, and in treatment.
I’m gaining weight, and I am obese, but not morbidly so.
I don’t like to exercise.
How can I turn this around?
Since you are in treatment, it would be a good idea to bring this up with your care team. It’s pretty common for mental health medications to affect your appetite or cause weight gain, so you may be experiencing side effects that your doctor would want to know about.
I don’t particularly like exercising just for the sake of exercising. But I’ve found that if there is something I can do that I enjoy that also happens to get my cardiovascular system moving, I’m more inclined to do it. I look forward to shoveling the snow from our driveway in winter, and doing all manner of yardwork in the summer. I’m walking more lately (when weather is mild), as I just enjoy moving through my environment. Sometimes my wife and I drive out of our neighborhood to go walking in other places just for a change of scenery. City parks, state parks, that sort of thing.
As @ekedolphin says, since you’re in treatment, your exercise and diet challenges are something your doctor is well-positioned to help you with, and they can also connect you with resources to help you adopt a healthier lifestyle.
What has worked for me is substituting fruit for most of that extra portion - instead of two big portions of dinner, I have one normal portion plus a large (sometimes huge) amount of fresh fruit. Alternately, some days I have a big salad or soup for dinner, and it’s better to have extra salad or soup than to have extra pasta (or whatever).
I’m not going to tell you what you should do, but I will tell you what I did:
Well, everyone upthread seems to have beaten me to the punch (ninja’d while writing this):
The next time you’re tempted to overeat, focus on the facts that you “feel guilty afterward” and are “obese” (quoting your post). Reinforce the connection in your mind between the pleasure you get from eating and your dissatisfaction with your current state.
Insofar as an initial step, the first thing I’d do would be to switch from soda to plain old water. Eat vegetables with everything and downsize your portions. At each meal, don’t eat until you’re completely full. Don’t use food to alleviate boredom (snacking while watching TV).
Exercise will be crucial, whether or not you like it, so find some way to enjoy it. I buy bread in another neighborhood because it’s a special kind of bread that I prefer over all others in my town but also because it’s a source of weekly exercise. It’s about 30 minutes round trip, down and back up a steep hill, and the route is somewhat interesting.
I would like to add that after the first week or so of eating less my body adjusted (stomach “shrunk”?) and I felt much less hungry. Dieting got easier.
Conversely, I have also noticed that after eating a huge meal the night before, the next morning I feel really hungry. I guess my stomach stretched?
Do something like this. It can take 20 mins or more to feel full. So it’s easy to overeat before that feeling hits. Eating more slowly can help as you will feel fuller before you finish the meal. And then don’t be afraid to leave some (or better still make a smaller portion).
These are all good thoughts, I’d also suggest cooking for yourself (if you don’t already) and by doing so understanding what goes into your food, avoiding hidden calories and giving yourself the opportunity to swap to healthier ingredients.
Bulk cooking and portioning up for the freezer in amounts that you are in control of can help as well.
These are all great suggestions and one that I would add is to buy smaller plates. If you’re cooking and eating at home, you are controlling your portion sizing and what goes on your plate. Buying a smaller plate means you put less on it before it looks full.
For a lot of people, there is a connection (and sometimes a sense of satisfaction) in having a full plate, and many of us have grown up being encouraged by parents to clear our plates. A smaller plate will look full with less food on it, you can also buy some that are marked out as protein, carbs, veg etc that may also help you with what’s going on it.
Then don’t exercise.
Chose something you like to do that is physical and do more of it- if it is ‘execise’ that is a bonus.
Bushwalking - join a club.
Tennis - get lessons.
Acting - get out and join a theatre group.
You don’t have to exercise - you just have to be active. Find what you like that requires some physical activity and do it. That’s exercise.
yep, I made a conscious decision to get out on my bike more, and I already played football but I actively enjoy those.
I now supplement those by walking to my office and back each work day (5 miles) and that just burns some calories, gets the blood pumping and gives me thinking time to consider various work problems. I don’t badge it as “exercise” but it serves a useful purpose in that manner.
The formula is actually very simple. Take in fewer calories than you use. The methodology is another matter.
Lose the soda. Soda is syrup and sugar. It’s garbage. I discovered that what I actually liked about soda was the “bubbly”, so I drink one carbonated water a day. Zero calories, but plenty of “bubbly”.
Your body NEEDS exercise not just for controlling weight, but also for general health. Toning up and losing weight is also good for your mental/emotional health and, considering your situation, that would be ideal. Find something that interests you. You don’t have to be a gym rat; the exercise can be in the form of playing a game.
Once you start doing this stuff, weigh yourself every day so you SEE for yourself that what you are doing is making a difference. Once everything is established, you can reduce that to once a week.
Muscle mass weighs more than fat, so don’t be discouraged if, after losing steadily in the beginning, it slows way down or levels off. You will be gaining muscle mass while losing fat.
Not yet but, if you don’t change your lifestyle, you may very well get there. Change your life NOW.
The answer(s) to the thread title question may depend on why you’re eating so much.
If it’s just out of habit or boredom, find a way to change your habits. Do something different, or occupy yourself with something you like to do that doesn’t involve eating.
If it’s because you genuinely enjoy eating and derive pleasure from it, eat more slowly and savor every mouthful, so you can derive the same amount of pleasure from less food. And at least cut out the “low-hanging fruit” by not eating anything that’s bad for you that you don’t really like, while finding things that you do really like that are relatively healthy.
If it’s because you feel hungry, eating more slowly might help there, too. And I’ve found that a big drink of water, with or without a small snack, can make my stomach feel full and assuage my hunger.
As for the exercise thing, I agree with those who have suggested that you find something active that you enjoy, or at least don’t mind, doing, even if it’s something you don’t traditionally think of as “exercise.” I’ll add that it may be easier for you if, instead of thinking, “I’ve got to be active,” you think, “I’ve got to be more active than I currently am.” Then next week, be more active than you were this week. In other words, incremental change in the right direction—which might be a good approach to helping your eating habits too.
Carbohydrate especially highly refined sugar, is like a drug, it stimulates feelings of well-being.
As a general rule do not drink your calories. This means no soft drink, hard drinks, beer, triple-bock Latte’s with whipped cream, sugary foo-foo drinks. Even Milk is 150 calories a cup.
What worked for me, is intermittent fasting, also known as time restricted eating. You need to talk to your doctor before starting something like this, esp. if you are diabetic or taking certain medications. etc. But most people eat far too much, far too often, and not the right kind of foods.
Exercise for fat loss is kind of a red herring, you simply cannot outrun your diet. A healthy spoonfull of peanut butter will take an hour of moderate exercise to burn off.
The only way is calorie restriction. Get yourself an inexpensive gram scale and start weighing out portions. I used to believe the “Nutrition Facts” labels on all our foods was silly and a waste of time. Not any longer, they are very useful. Eventually you will memorize carb, fat, and protein percentages for the most common foods and portions.
What you want to do is find foods that are both filling and nutritious, and don’t spike glucose levels. What I like about intermittent fasting is having large, satisfying meals of foods I like. Mixed nuts, eggs, cheese, high quality protein foods that are high on “satiety”. Junk foods high in carbs spike glucose or blood sugar very high, and then inevitably crash, setting up for the next round of “hunger pangs”, meaning the trigger to consume MORE carbohydrate.
You’ll soon figure out your personal basal metabolic rate - how many calories are necessary just to exist, basically, as a completely sedentary individual. It is a little distressing to discover just how few calories that is. But armed with this knowledge you’ll figure out how to reduce at a sustainable rate. Keep in mind you have to make permanent changes to your food choices, or at least the amounts, or you will put all the fat back on, and then some.
My gf swears by the Dukan Diet. Then again she never strays more than a few pounds from her ideal weight. When she does Dukan I do it with her and I lose weight.
I do not exercise, but I walk. I take one of our dogs and walk on a nearby trail, or I take all three dogs and walk in our woods.
I drink carbonated water. I also drink beer. If I want to lose weight, I switch from beer to vodka.
First and best answer. Get some help shifting your perspective before trying the other advice in the thread.
I think @robby 's list above is spot-on, as is @scareyfaerie 's suggestion about smaller plates (I use that one all the time). But this part here is the critical path item. If you wait until obesity and lack of activity -related ailments set-in, it may be too late to do anything about it. Make the lifestyle changes you know you need to make now, while it still can make a difference in your life.
Both of my parents died younger than they should have, with sharp minds, because their bodies failed. They grew-up during a time when exercise was not a thing and knowledge about the connections between diet and health was slim. Today it’s common knowledge the links among diet, exercise, and well-being, so putting off what you know you need to do does no good. No one is saying it will be easy, but it is necessary. Talk with your doctor.
This. High fructose corn syrup is terrible for human health. On top of that soda has no other nutrients to go with it, so it’s not just bad calories, it’s empty bad calories. And as Jasmine says, the right substitute is carbonated water, not diet soda.
When you struggle with eating too much, the answer is incredibly personal. For example, habitually snacking after dinner seems like a bad idea, but I’ve found that it’s key for me. If I’m not going to have a snack after dinner, I need to eat enough to not get hungry again before bed…so I end up eating more extra at dinner than if I had just eaten the snack. If I know I can take the edge off my hunger later, than it’s ok if I leave dinner less than entirely full. Then I’ll eat a handful of peanuts and raisins later, just enough so I’m not feeling hungry when I go to bed.
But that’s me, and there’s no guarantee it would work for you or anybody else.
The absolute #1 rule you need though is do not diet. A diet is just a thing you will eventually break and go back to how you were eating before. You need to find changes you can stick with. Far better to eat 100 calories less a day for the rest of your life than to eat 1000 calories a day less for 3 weeks.