The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Serendipity]

Well said Joyce! Ok, group hug .......

[Hyperion]

Wow, a lot of posts since yesterday...

Seren, you are sharing my opinion from A to Z.

MusicalMomma, I never intended to put myself as superior for not cheating, this is so not true! In fact, I even have my beloved girlfriend who is cheating from time to time. Do I feel superior compared to her? Not at all (and she feels that way, I just asked her!). In her case, she can't restrain from cheating, so we work together to limit its negative impacts (choosing cheating food carefully). And as weeks go by, she cheats less and less...

Maybe I'm mistaken when I talk about cheating. We have to face the facts though. People who cheat have a harder time getting back on wagon. People who still reward themselves with food usually have problems on maintenance. HOWEVER, there always are exceptions. If you feel strong enough to do it, then do it. Control, discipline, it just takes a lot to handle cheating.

That is my opinion though, based on past reading on physical (ketosis) and psychological aspects of a VLCD, as well as the differences between men and women. I am no doctor, no psychologist, I am not an example of a success story yet, I am not superior to anyone here nor inferior (well maybe Nancy and other people who have maintained for a couple years)... Lol superior and inferior, that is one concept I really don't like. I would refer more to "newbie" and "experienced", like child and parent

I don't ever want to feel "superior" to someone. I will just expose facts, which can't be denied, and my opinion on the subject, which can be debated. I mean no offense to anyone, and refer to my old posts, I repeat that often.

As a man, I sometimes am more direct. But I really respect each of you, because you are here. If you're here, it means you're still on the wagon. And even if you leave MF, remember that other people will not be mad at you. The only person in the long run who will be mad at you... is you.

Now enough rambling for today

[cynben]

I wanted to thank all of you who were so supportive of me during my first 27 days on MF. As for the 28th day........ I wish that I hadn't responded honestly to the first post about cheating. I don't think that I will be doing that anymore. I think I gained about 500 pounds yesterday with all of the dogpiling, but to each his own.

I wish each of you good luck...I hope everyone loses their weight and keeps it off.

Stay healthy and be NICE to each other.

[suzyq]

Cindy - I was right there with you on that first post! Any cheat I have had has not been worth it! I feel so much better when I am on plan 100%. So those are my words of wisdom (not!) - don't cheat - it is not worth it!

Susanne

[BerkshireGrl]

Cynben,

Please don't feel you can't be totally honest here... God knows I am

As far as you using food as a reward, all I can say is if it works for you, stick with it!

Yes, there are MF rules. Yes, getting out of ketosis will make for another 3 intro days. But if you are sailing along and still losing, and feel this is best for YOU, then I say do it.

Some of us go about this 100% "pure" and don't eat ANYTHING off the list. Awesome! Doing it by the book will mean you lose faster and smoother.

My suspicion is that there are many lurkers saying "yeah, um, I cheated but I'm not posting it IN PUBLIC!" So please don't feel alone in saying you had a cheat. (Pssst, I have too, but I'm still chugging along. And for the record, I DEFINITELY feel much healthier ON Medifast than off it. It's like night and day! )

Now, of course this is a MF support board, so I'm not going to go on and say eat whatever whenever. Then we'd be somewhere far away from MF heh!

But a small "cheat" that doesn't throw you off the MF program into a feeding frenzy, I certainly wouldn't think that deserves any ol' dogpile

[Dayna]

Whew! That'll teach me to go away for a couple of days - I missed all of this! It seems to me (not a psychologist, don't play one on TV) that a lot of what we're dealing with here is emotion. "Well, duh," you reply, because chances are pretty good that if we're here Medifasting, there have been lots and lots of emotional issues when it comes to food. And while there are generalities that can loosely apply to most of us, the details of those emotional issues can be unique. It seems that cheating is an emotional hot-button for many of us, and we're all trying to approach it in ways that spell success. Some of us have made a plan that includes, as Hyp put it, learning to mitigate the negative aspects of cheating, which can be a good learning experience for later on. Some of us know that, for us, once we start down that slippery slope it will be a long, hard, miserable climb back up, and so absolute discipline is our answer.

Emotions can't be debated, because they're, well, emotions. Emotions are what they are, and reason and objectivity don't often have much to do with them. I get what people where saying about staying 100% true-to-program; that's the road I have to take, because I know (finally, it took me a too many years to admit this) that I have not yet shown an ability to eat "dangerous" foods in moderation. (Isn't Moderation a small tribe in southern France?) I also, then, get the fear (emotion) associated with the very idea of cheating. Maybe this doesn't apply to anyone else here, but the thought of cheating, or even of someone else cheating, elicits an honest-to-goodness fear response in me. Cheating has taken me to dark, dark places (dark chocolate, dark rum, darkened cookies . . . ), and I don't want anyone else to ever have to experience that. And because this is the way it is for me, it must be that way for everyone else . . . right? Even though I know in my brain that not everyone has the same exact food issues, my fear response has a hard time acknowledging that fact.

At the same time, I can see that I will need to adjust my thinking about "cheating" when I get closer to maintenance. It seems that "planned cheats" (I plan to have a piece of cake on my birthday, I plan to eat some mashed potatoes with gravy on Thanksgiving, both of which will hopefully be post-goal) can be managed while still remaining in control of food. It's the cheats that I don't control (which has basically been all of them) that have landed me here. I know that I can't use food as a reward in the "I deserve this quart of ice cream because of [insert good or bad thing here]" mode, but I still think that food can play an important and postive role in celebrations (e.g. birthdays and major holidays), as long as I am controlling the food, and not the reverse.

I would offer a reminder that communication on a forum like this lacks so much of what makes communication effective. We get no voice inflection, no body language, no immediate give-and-take to clarify statements and ideas. We run into problems of symantics; two people might use the same word or words while meaning two different things (for example, I bet if we were all to sit down and clarify exactly what we think a "cheat" is, there would be some variety in the answers). Our interpretation of someone's words is hugely affected by our state of mind when we read them. I think this forum has been and continues to be a great place to come for support and answers, but when we hit on highly emotional subjects, the weaknesses and limits of this form of communication can be dramatically highlighted. Here, many of us are honest and open (and therefore vunerable) in ways that we might never be with the people we live and work with. Criticisms can seem magnified because of that, and hurts can happen more easily and more quickly. It makes me think of a discussion (well, fight) I had with my husband. He is so good at discussing hot-button topics with other people (politics, religion, you name it) while still staying calm and friendly. But when he and I started debating the literary merits of Harry Potter, it blew up (seems like it's often the silly little things that become the big fights). Finally, he was able to put into words the difference between debating with me and debating with the people he's not married to. "When I discuss with other people, it's just my thoughts," he said. "But when I discuss with you, it's also my feelings." That's why my disagreement with his ideas turned into a perceived attack on his feelings. (And of course I've never been guilty of perceiving things that way, too . . . nuh uh, no way, not me . . . ) Just something to keep in mind, maybe.

Okay, people, group hug. Feel the love. We're all in this journey together.

- Dayna,
who apologizes for the extreme rambling-onness of this post

[cydj21]

Dayna....well said.