The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Amanda]

Hi everyone -long time no see- i haven't posted in almost 2 weeks because i am having such a hard time. I can post so easy when i lose weight but when i don't i get very discouraged. I am going throgh some relationship issues now and at first i was so upset i couldn't eat (hence my 6 lb loss week before last) but last week and this week i have been so stressed and emotional i can't think. I feel like no matter how hard i try i always fail -my relationship, my diet, my life. I don't want pity from anyone -I want help. I need to get back on track- i've lost 30# and have 97 to go. I'm 3/4 of the way to my goal and i don't want to give up- but the harder I try the more i fail. I'm fine all day (most days) at work when i get home its over- I've tried going to sleep early , keeping busy but my emotions take over. I feel better for fessing up- but i am not ready to give up i just want to find the motivation i had before. Thanks for listening.

[Jeanette]

Amanda:

I'm so sorry you are struggling. Boy do I understand that!

If you haven't already read my post called "Do-Over", I recommend it. It documents the struggles I have been facing as of late.

This is how I am getting through it--one meal at a time, one hour at a time. I find I can do anything for an hour!!

It is so easy to feel like we can't do anything right if one area of our lives doesn't work. But that's NEVER the case! We are not TOTAL successes or TOTAL failures, no matter what it is!

Sit down right now and make a list of ALL the things you are successful in. You will find that you are NOT a total failure!

One other important thing I have learned--staying away from the forum does NOT help a bit! This is where you get and give support. If you don't come and contribute, I won't benefit from your presence. And you won't benefit from anything you read here. So....don't stay away, no matter what!

Hang in there sweetie--we are here for you!

[Carrie]

Hi Amanda,
Honey, I think many of us understand exactly what you are going through. This is it, this is the big barrier to us losing weight - eating to cover our emotions. I've recently been exactly where you are, but for different reasons.

Last weekend I was eating because:
1. For vacation I went to Michigan to see my family and it's always so traumatic when I come back home - I get depressed, I MISS THEM.
2. Work is just plain stressful, I deal with a few women who seem to thrive on creating discord, and I'm exactly the opposite - discord drives me nuts.
3. I'm not getting my houshold projects done fast enough - and I'm physically and mentally exhausted over it. And that makes them drag out even more.
4. Because it was fun to go out with my friends and EAT for a change instead of having a salad and piece of fish.
5. etc, etc, etc.

I was almost on the verge of 'taking a break' from the Medifast program, because I kept starting over, and by the evening, I'd be bingeing.

So I thought about it.

I listed all the reasons I was eating, and I thought about how crummy all my problems were. And then I asked myself what eating was doing to solve those problems........ I realized that eating food does not make me miss my family less, it doesn't settle anything here at work, it doesn't get my house stuff done any faster, it doesn't really do anything for me other than make me feel crummy about myself. Eating because I'm having problems just adds insult to injury, because then I feel bad about eating too! AND when I follow my program I feel GOOD about myself and proud of myself, and I want to feel good, not bad, so I CHOOSE to keep going with my program.

So I picked up my program where I left it off. (It's only been three days) I feel better now.

This taught me a BIG LESSON.

We must use the logical part of our brains to reason with the emotional part.

I'm not saying the problems and emotions will just magically resolve themselves. They're still there and they still hurt. BUT at the same time I'm feeling good about myself for not eating my way through them. And having something to feel good about helps me keep going. It's all interrelated.

What we're saying to ourselves in our heads is determining what we're doing. A positive attitude is half the battle. Do what I did in my 'what do you think' post. I wrote out the stuff I think when I'm feeling bad. A laundry list of all the negative stuff that goes through my head. Then I turned it around and wrote out all the stuff I think when I'm feeling good. I didn't realize at the time what I was doing, but when I looked at those two paragraphs and saw the difference I had an epiphany. Looking at that - it became apparent to me that when I'm negative in my head, I'm going to fail - I'm making myself fail, because I cannot overcome the onslaught of negativity. BUT when I'm thinking positive, I'm fueling myself for success and setting myself up to get to my goal.

The only way I have been able to switch from being negative to being positive is to reason my way through it. Maybe that will work for you.

Pick yourself up, do yourself the favor of surviving your heartache WITHOUT food. You deserve freedom from your weight problem. Get back on track, don't treat it like a major failure, it's just a little detour, and you can get back on track RIGHT NOW.

C'mon Amanda, you can do this.

Carrie

[Sylvia]

Carrie - as usual another great post.

There are always things in life that don't go as well as we'd like them to. Some are big and some are small. Many we have little to no control of. Eating is something we have complete control of. I find that no matter how bad things are going, if I stay on plan through the hard times, I feel an incredible sense of achievement. It is relatively easy to stay on plan when everything is going smoothly and much harder when it's not. Focusing and building the resolve to do it even in the face of adversity is really motivating and can actually help you turn something really negative in your life into something positive.

While I haven't conquered my food issues yet, I've gone through some similar issues in the past when I quit smoking and then when I conquered an almost crippling fear of flying. Both were incredibly hard to do but once accomplished made me feel better than I've felt about almost anything else I've achieved. Dealing with food is much harder than either of these other things - both because of the emotions we all associate with eating and because it is unavoidable and constant. But one of the things I do when I'm having doubts is focus on past successes. This helps both with finding the resolve I need and helping to build confidence that I really can do this.

Amanda - you can do this. Just take it one day at a time and do a lot of talking to yourself whenever you have the urge to eat off plan.

[Echo]

Amanda, they are right. You get to use your do-over, and as many more you need. This is a journey, and there are bound to be bumps in the road. We have to learn from them and move on. You have had incredible success so far, you own this, you can make it work.

I have noticed how my friends, family and patients teach their children about food since starting this journey. Food is a reward, 'If you are good I will take you to McDonalds'', or comfort 'Five stitches? Oh, sweetie, lets go get ice cream.'

It's no wonder we grow up feeling the same way. That perception cannot be changed overnight, sometimes not even by the time we reach our goal weight. Because the weight loss isn't really our goal if you think about it. It's one way we measure success on our journey but for most of us I think our goal is better health, having control of an out of control situation, etc.

Put yourself first. You are worth it. When I need comfort I call a friend, take a hot bubble bath with candles and a good book, take a nap...anything out of the kitchen It's better than brownies.

[Carrie]

P.S.

Do what you need to do to get yourself back on track within the program.

When I restarted Tuesday I was positively jonesing for food all day. The ONLY way I kept it on track was to shorten the length of time between my meals, and take extra advantage of the bars. (No this isn't the prescribed plan - but extreme times call for extreme measures) On my first day back I ate like this:
7:30 shake
8:30 1/2 bar
9:30 1/2 bar
12:15 1/2 bar
2:00 shake
4:30 1/2 bar
5:30 shake
8:00 chili
10:00 shake

I had 7 total meals, which included 2 bars. But I was so crazy for food that I needed to eat something frequently. I committed to eat as much MF as I needed to get through the day without cheating. I decided to try the half bar thing and it got me through. Probably cause I can fool myself into thinking it's candy. But after making it through that day it hasn't been so bad. Now I'm back on a normal MF schedule.

I just thought I'd mention that, cause it REALLY helped me get back and break the cycle of starting a day on the program and then falling off.

Let us know how you're doing.
Carrie

[Simmshe]

Ditto to what everyone else has said. And this here--

I feel like no matter how hard i try i always fail -my relationship, my diet, my life.

is the story of my life. It's so easy, and seems to be natural progression to go from thinking "I failed at this" and "I failed at that" to"I am a failure," and this is where emotions seem to just take off, leading us into the pit of despair (I've been in this pit more times than I care to admit). You are not a failure--you're growing and figuring stuff out, part of growing is failing.

Something that has been helping me get rid of the tendency of labeling myself as a failure and always succumbing to black and white thinking is changing my view on failure and how I talk to myself. I have simplified failure in my mind by looking at it differently (and it only took me 31 years to learn how to do it--okay, not exactly true--rebounding from failure was simple in childhood--we just got back up. But somehow this all became convoluted by the time I reached adulthood). How many times did we fall down before we learned to walk or ride a bike? How long did it take us to learn to read, write, or tie our shoes--how many attempts did we make before we mastered these things? Countless! Put best by this statement Thomas Edison made: "I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work."

I have also learned (still learning) to separate myself from what I do (if this makes sense). Instead of saying "I'm stupid," "Something is wrong with me," or "I'm a bad person," for example, I started catching thoughts like these and replacing them with thoughts like "I'm not stupid, but I think I made a stupid mistake," "Maybe there is something wrong with the way I am thinking, but nothing is wrong with me," or "I'm not a bad person, I just behaved badly/poorly," etc. Catching and replacing negative thougts is hard to do, but it gets easier with practice and has profound changes in our lives.

Anyways, enough of my rambling--I'm all over the board here! I just get so much from each and everyone of you all's posts (I'm still catching up with the archives, too) that I hope I can give something to you all.

Hang tough Amanda !

Sheryl

[Lois]

Hi Amanda,

Everyone has offered such great advice, that I just want to add that I BELIEVE IN YOU

hugs,

Lois