I need help stopping eating

[Anonymous]

Hi. I can't stop eating. I don't know what's going on but every day I wake up and think that I'm going to "be good" and try to eat less and I just can't stop. It's out of control. I'm not binging or anything like that, but tons of sugar, lunch, dinner. It's gross. I don't want to take ozempic. I just want to not be a human vacuum cleaner. Plus now I need to lose about 15 pounds. UGH. Any tips for getting started welcome. (I'm also having trouble exercising.)

[Anonymous]

Gym that has group workouts. You need peers.

[Anonymous]

Go to the grocery and buy lots of the healthy things you love. Think of some swaps you can live with.

There are many healthy things worth getting excited about. They’re more expensive but your health is worth it.

[Anonymous]

You need a food tracking app.

I personally use Cronometer, but started my journey with Noom. It took about six months, but was so worth it - I learned to identify triggers and food habits that were sabotaging my daily plans. Once I had a good handle on those things, I could make a meal plan that was satisfying and full of good choices.

[Anonymous]

eat big piece of celery before you eat anything else.
do a self hypnosis program
track your food on noom or something.
If you only have 15 to lose, that's not so bad. Within normal weight. It's probably fine.

[Anonymous]

For me it's also about food tracking. I use Lose It. Just having to log everything makes me so much more conscious of what I'm putting in my mouth and I pay more attention to the calories in things.

I also need to just not have certain foods in the house. For example, I only buy lunchbox packs of chips for my kids. If I have the big bags, I'll just eat a bunch of them, but I don't touch the "kids" chips. It's more expensive, but cheaper than years of medical bills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need a food tracking app.

This. MyFitnessPal has a free version. Don't adjust your habits. Just commit to tracking everything you eat. If it's not a pre-portioned serving, weigh it. Sometimes, just knowing I'd have to log it keeps me from eating junk.

Once you have a log of what you're eating, you'll probably see where the problems are. Then you can course correct.

[Anonymous]

Binge eating is like alcoholism. Make a commitment to stop and then don’t be around the unhealthy stuff. Don’t keep junk in the house, don’t go out, don’t be around your triggers and temptations. And remember when you have it under control and think you can handle it, it is SO easy to slip back to your old ways. Ask me how I know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need a food tracking app.

I personally use Cronometer, but started my journey with Noom. It took about six months, but was so worth it - I learned to identify triggers and food habits that were sabotaging my daily plans. Once I had a good handle on those things, I could make a meal plan that was satisfying and full of good choices.

This. You need accountability. Or try Noom or one of the courses from Lose It

[Anonymous]

Drink lots of water before every meal, then you won’t eat so much.

[Anonymous]

I think you need to take a long hard look at why you are doing this. Is it stress? Is it your coping mechanism? Address the why and the rest should follow.

[Anonymous]

Also, is it as bad as you think? You state lunch and dinner as if that’s part of your problem. You can eat 3 meals a day and be healthy.

[Anonymous]

1. As previous posters have said, track what you eat.
2. Buy a scale to weigh portions. When you weigh a serving of popcorn (that is supposed to be 3.5 cups), it's volume is actually a lot less than 3.5 cups.
3. Exercise. Just make it a non-negotiable. (Ugh, I know). Once you get in the habit, you will be happy that you can eat 250 or so more calories because you've worked out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. As previous posters have said, track what you eat.
2. Buy a scale to weigh portions. When you weigh a serving of popcorn (that is supposed to be 3.5 cups), it's volume is actually a lot less than 3.5 cups.
3. Exercise. Just make it a non-negotiable. (Ugh, I know). Once you get in the habit, you will be happy that you can eat 250 or so more calories because you've worked out.

This is fine advice except for the last part. Any calorie expenditure estimator or counter should be ignored entirely if you are actively trying to lose weight and you aren’t already an experienced athlete. This is true because you simply aren’t capable of working hard enough for it to even matter.

By the time somebody can crank out a 2-4 hour effort that actually uses a realistic estimated expenditure (like with a bike power meter) they are looking at that information to make sure they are eating enough for recovery.

[Anonymous]

Your body is looking for something that you aren't giving it. My theory is that you need to feed your body what it needs rather than try not to eat.

You probably start the day with something like a bagel or a bowl of cereal, right? For a week, try starting the day with eggs and fruit. Lots of eggs. 3 or 4 - eat until you can't eat anymore. Then as soon as you start to think of food, eat something like nuts or hard cheese. If you crave sugar, eat hard chocolate - like a flat hersey bar. Do that for the rest of the day and then have a dinner with meat and vegetables (and carbs if you want them.) Do this until you no longer feel you need to eat all the time.