Is it time to end dieting?

Ok this is going to be long. But it has been building up all week.

Earlier this week I started watching a tv show called "diet land". Basically the main character is about 300 lbs and is trying to get weight loss surgery. Over the course of the story I am sure she is going to decide to stop dieting and eat what she wants. Most of the first episode was filled with zingers that... anyone who is fat knows is true.

Such as, the main character feels that people wish her dead rather than look at her fat. Such as, the main character says that she has a hard time getting a job because of her fat. (and I would extend that to have a hard time not being bullied by a boss when you are fat) These things were said and my gut was like "omg -- they said it... so it is true" because that is the sensation I get too. The main character has tried EVERY SINGLE DIET PLAN... and none have worked.

This was too on the nose. I am not 300 lbs I am only 190ish. But my entire life I have been on a diet. It is a way of life. I am sometimes shocked to see a journal from my 20s or something and seen that I was on a diet. I have tried everything, diet pills, liquid diets, weight watchers, you name it. And I had this thought... is it time to end it?

The only thing that keeps me from doing so is that around 190 and up I tend to get very bad health results. Knee pain and sleep apnea. But also I know that when I get up past 190 it is because I am binging. I am binging because I know I will have to stop eating what I want and go on a diet soon. And I am trying to get it all in. I suspect that it is this BINGING that causes the health issues not my weight.

Also though, I know that my health can take a hit at my age -- over 40 and with excess fat. I know so many people who have died of uterine cancer who were over weight.

But the truth is I know in my heart I am simply unable to lose weight any longer. Perhaps from years of dieting but the fact is that I have a low metabolism. This, combined with working, makes it straight up impossible to lose weight and not gain it back. I leave my house at 7 AM every day and return at 7 PM --IF public transportation is on time. There is just not condusive to eating a good diet and not eating out. Eating out is fine for people that have strong metabolisms but if you don't... and you have just ONE large overcaloried meal --- you will not lose for days. And don't even speak to me about exercise.

For me, I have to do a lot of exercise to lose weight. We are talking hours. When I was a kid I was thin because I skated every afternoon after school. I spent about 4 hours at the rink even if I didn't skate the entire time. Now there is simply not enough time to exercise even an hour on a consistent basis.

So I know in my heart I am just not really going to be able to lose weight until I am retired or no longer working where I am ... about 10 years away. I am just so confused and torn... this is the time in my life where being overweight can really make a health difference and I am just too mentally exhausted to go on one more diet. And indeed I don't think there is an option really to lose weight -- things go so slow that it can take months to lose 7 lbs and then gain that back in a few meals.

Anyone have any thoughts / books etc?

I actually heard about diet land after it being preached by a body positive girl I follow on Instagram. Her name there is @bodyposipanda, I would recommend checking her out, she has struggled with anorexia in the past I believe, and beat it. She dislikes diets and dieting culture. As an overweight person who has been dieting ever since I knew what dieting was, she posts some really inspiring stuff.

I don’t think I could give much useful advice as I’m so much younger than you (I don’t know what it’s like having some extra weight at your age), but I’m kind of in the same place as you. Been dieting all my life, it worked once, but I quickly gained it all and more back. Diets are a part of my life as well as binging, they go in cycles but at the end of the day I’m always stuck in a fat body with little clue as to what to do.

If you want to give up diets, but still lose weight, I think you’d have to rethink your entire lifestyle, see doctors and professionals for help with binging and metabolism questions etc. Basically do it a healthy way, but do a lot of change to your life.

Just sharing some thoughts, I’m not a professional and remember: I’m just another fat girl struggling

Hope you find some help. Diets are literally the worst, especially when they NEVER work.

Thanks for the support. I feel like I have hit the dead end of hope and ideas. I previously had this idea that I was going to lose 20 lbs per year and then eat normal for most of the year. The problem was that I gained weight too easily during the times off. Almost wiping out my weight loss.

I realized I felt the need to binge when I wasn't dieting because I would be dieting soon. That set up an intolerable situation.

Also it seems like my weight loss has slowed and I suspect that is due to age. Even if I kill myself and eat about 800 cals per day... I don't lose weight. So the maximum i think I can lose for 13 weeks of dieting is 13 lbs which I can easily gain back 7 from.

I took a pill last year Belviq. it worked to kill any cravings but it was just intolerable. I could hardly remember anything and ended up having palpitations. I took Phentermine this year and it just didn't work. I was still hungry.

But at the same time I am exhausted and my knees hurt. One time I went on this liquid diet plan due to pain in my feet and I stuck to it. I lost 60 lbs but gained it back. I am considering doing that again.

Dieting is very hard. I only lost a little, and the weight returned eventually. I think some people gain weight easier than others thanks to their genes. For now, my goal is not to cross the obesity line because I can't go on a harder diet or exercise plan.

I suppose it returns to how far you are willing to go for your current health. Your work does seem like a possible root of your unhealthy lifestyle, so I wonder if there is anything you can do about that. Maybe you can also consult the professionals to find out more about why you can't lose weight the way you want.

I feel like I have "done it all" I have consulted every professional out there multiple times. I feel like they are clueless. I have done every possible thing at my workplace. I truly don't have any thoughts on what might work. I feel like I have tried everything. The work is a particular kind of work where it is expected that it comes first even if you want to go to lunch or not stay late. Additionally I have tried for years to kindly suggest to people that I don't want to go out to eat because I can't take a high calorie meal but they just don't get it.

Of course, they can't. For them a large meal won't do much. For me it derails me for the week. They just can't understand and then assume I don't want to eat with them.

I did decide to give it one more try. I discovered a few things that might give me hope.

What I need to find is a way to reduce the calories I consume. Even If I could do so by 200 calories per day. I happened to find a few interesting things this weekend that gave me some hope. I decided to try and find out why I seem to take in so many calories. I looked to see if there was any evidence that some people could absorb more calories and apparently, yes. A calorie is not a calorie.

Highly processed food is easily digested and so you get the FULL calories the food has. While some non processed foods... are not easily digested and it takes more work for you to digest it.

So 200 calories of Hershey's Nuggets is 200 calories (I suspect more)
But 200 calories of Peanuts is really 170 because not all of it is digested and your body will use more energy to try to digest it.

Also, I discovered that you can change foods into less available food just by chilling it. If you take rice, cook it, chill it and then eat it.. you can save calories because this process turns some of it into resistant starch. Resistant starch resists digestion. So you don't get as many calories and it takes more effort to try to digest.

You can even reduce the calories in bread by chilling it or letting it get stale. (usually via fridge).

What I have just talked about is factual, you can find it in Scientific American, but no professional has ever told me it.

I think about this a lot too.

The proven, from what I understand is that commercial diets, extreme diets, eliminating food group type diets, or really any sort of magical thinking diet really isn't sustainable in the long run for most people. Despite going down the diet rabbit hole myself several times, that's, intellectually at least, the easy part to understand.

But the kicker, for us who overeat is, that if we think about it, we're not fat because of an absence of weight watchers or *insert whatever plan here* , but because we don't live moderately with regards to how we eat or exercise.

Most people who are slim all of their adult lives don't diet, but they do have rules of behaviour around food and exercise that they adopted early in life and fine tune as life demands. They seem to just stay slim effortlessly because
they've been doing these things for so long they just do them automatically, without a great deal of thought.

So my question to myself is, why can I no longer just eat and exercise normally, and allow the weight to come off slowly? And slowly it will come off. I have lost 70lbs before, and I ate sanely, and exercised daily for 3 months before I lost a single pound. Meds will do that do you..but I did lose weight and I did keep it off for 5 years.

But then of course life got really stressful, and there was a lot of awful stuff,
and emotional eating, comfort eating, and eating because "it's the only damn good thing in my life" all came back.

So why don't I just return to doing what I did before? Why have I become so intolerant of sitting with uncomfortable feelings?

Most diets are pretty stupid. But eating sanely and getting a bit of exercise each day isn't. So why don't we do that?

This is what I'm trying to address in myself - the psychological side, the emotional side, the addictive behaviour part, when I have the attention span to read what psychologist have to say about it all...but often I read the same paragraph over and over again, the wander off and eat a few cookies, because what the expert has to say might convince me to give up some of the self-destructive thoughts and behaviours I still cling to.

I feel like dieting takes a tremendous amount of emotional energy. Like there is an reserve of motivation that, perhaps, over a life time, gets depleted. Add to that, that someplace in the back of your head you know... or suspect that it will fail because of the many failures before.

This is something that you can delude yourself blissfully one or two times.. but after the 3rd or 4th try, it starts to occur to you that this isn't going to work. So why try?

I don't feel like I am an emotional eater but for EVERYONE food is somewhat of a drug. Who hasn't gotten pleasure from knowing you could have a slice of cake or something. Most people can have that.. but when you are on a diet 9 months of the year... it builds up.

I feel like I am developing an eating disorder as it seems I am either dieting or, pigging out. Because at this point it seems like I am on a diet all the time. And I wonder what my body is trying to tell me. I believe strongly that I don't eat an outrageous diet. So does my body want me to be 50 lbs over weight? Naturally around the 50 lbs over weight point my weight stabilizes. But how can that be?

I don't feel like it is me. I feel like it is the calories in food. I can't be home all the time and typically eat breakfast and lunch out. I do my best but I can't always know what is in it. Assuming I stop that (which is a ton of work)... it seems *someone* wants me to do some large calorie load all the time. Go out for drinks, starbucks, pizza. I just feel that living in this working world dumps in too many calories for my body to really be able to handle.

I suspect people who aren't fat have bodies that are able to handle this calorie load. My sister was thin until he was 35 and then her hormones started changing and now she has gained 20 lbs. I believe that it is her metabolism that has changed I never had a strong one from the start.

I agree with you about dieting, after a few kicks at the diet can, we just don't have it in us to do it again after a certain age, or a certain number of loss/regain cycles.

If you feel like you are dieting 9 months of the year, it's no surprise you are being driven to overeat as natural response to sustained deprivation. I on the other hand go very long periods of time not giving a ****, so my overeating is indeed emotional.

It sounds to me like your life is really not conducive to weight loss (((((Emily))))) ...long work hours, maybe ****ed up metabolism from extended periods of dieting. Chronically elevated stress hormones can cause our bodies to store and hold onto existing fat like grim death. This must be so frustrating for you. And yeah, the types of foods we eat can certainly play a part - I agree with you there.

You also mentioned set point, and this is something I find interesting. I said I lost 70 lbs and kept it off for 5 years, but I had 90 to lose. The last 20 lbs never came off. I was over 35 at the time, and I think some of us are just designed to carry that extra padding as we get older. Like your sister, I seemed to be permanently 20 lbs heavier than I was when I was younger.

But, like you, I have been in the 50lbs above that for several years. My 20 something weight was 110lbs, my over 35 weight was 130lbs. I was stuck at 172 lbs for a few years, then meds bumped it up to 182 and I've been stuck at this weight, no higher, no lower for 2 or 3 years now. Is this my new set point, am I just supposed to be this much fatter?

It does make me wonder.

Thanks for replying so quickly, Emily. It's an interesting discussion.

I stopped dieting five years ago. I got tired of the lose/gain cycle. Each new med seemed to have weight gain, increased appetite, or being too tired to cook something good. Just fed up with it.

I never took meds but I had the majority of my weight come on after high school when I both stopped exercising (I Had been on track) and started eating out on a significant basis. I gained 40 lbs in 4 months. I have been in various states of dieting for the next 20+ years. But even going back further before that, I had been in constant diet mode even though I was just 130 for my 5'5 frame. But those diets were always successful because I didn't have much to lose.

My life is not conducive to dieting. And that is the rub.

At this point it is no longer about vanity, it is about health. I know several cancers that can come about due to excess weight and I know two people who had them.

I have had my RMR tested three times and for the most part they put me about 1550 (resting) and 1700 moving. So in theory that should be enough to lose easy, but it doesn't work like that. Recently I noticed that dieting seemed to be so much tougher. For instance I would have physical symptoms. Such as inability to sleep and restless legs. I eventually figured out those are symptoms of eating too little (your body releasees adreneline) so I have upped the food intake. But I now lose 1/2 a lb per week. At that rate I would need to be on a diet for 100 weeks. And yet, I can gain weight to the tune of 5 lbs per week.

It seems doomed and it seems to be a TREMENDOUS, use of my energy.

I have the same trouble. While I haven't my RMR done professionally, I've entered my stats into a few different online BMR and TDEE calculators. I come up with 1600 calories to lose weight. When I stick with it, I don't sleep for the hunger and I experience the same symptoms you have - those of one who is under eating by too much. Which makes me wonder, "what the hell, body?!" I'm not actually starving myself, why does it seem like my body goes into some sort of starvation, survivival mode, at which seems to me(from what I've been reading) like a modest deficit in calories. My body just refuses to do even that slow and safe weight loss of 1lb per week?

I'm worried about my health too. My dad was chubby most of his adult life and he died of pancreatic cancer. But on the daily, my feet hurt, and so do my hips and knees some days. I sweat easily, and it's difficult to find a comfortable sleeping position. I feel tired carrying around this extra weight.

I too want very much to say good bye permanently to any kind of accounting diet. They all make me crazy and miserable very quickly.

I just want to eat healthy, without overeating and get some exercise, and accept that it may take me 2 years or more to reach a healthy-for-me weight. But I'm finding that a challenge.

Like you, my body gives me a tremendously hard time if I try to conventionally diet. I am wildly impressed by your ability to still stick with it for so long. I last about a week at most. But, I guess I have the struggle of clinging to the comfort of food as friend, numbing agent...it's not serving me well.

That is why I am back on the diet trail. I was having terrible knee problems recently and though weirdly, they went away pretty quickly after starting dieting, i know I can't go back.

There always seems to be this tension where I think I am eating enough to be healthy and then don't lose... and then seem to need to eat way too little to lose. One of of my diets, VLCD, medically supervised... I didn't know it at the time but now know my body was suffering stress. My cholesterol went though the roof, my thyroid went down. At least I know what to look for now.

I wish you the very best, Emily.

I am going to stick to recovery from compulsive/emotional eating, by way of a moderate food plan. Which will result in very slow weight loss, I know. But, for me, if I keep going down the diet route, I will most likely still be this weight, or this weight once again 5 years from now. And I'll still be as crazy inside my head with regards to food and diets. I'm aiming for a healthier body and a less squirrelly brain .

For me, diets are not the solution to why I overeat - although my disordered brain likes to hope they might be. Moderate eating is initially harder, because it doesn't have that instant gratification of quick weight loss...but I know it's the path I need to be pursuing for all around better health.

I'm learning that diets just aren't working for me, and actually causing me to binge & purge more. I do need to watch what I eat but I've decided not to diet anymore.

Interesting since this post was done.

1. I had my RMR tested again. In 2015 (after the liquid diet) it was 1250, in 2018 it was 1590 and now, it was 1750. This is all at the same body weight. So you see the calculators could have been way off. I don't discount that this also could be off, but it gives me an idea that my RMR has increased substantially.

2. For over 10 years I have had low blood pressure and low heart rate. My doctor was stumped. Guess what? After over a year of giving my body a diet break... my BP has risen and my heart rate has risen. Don't worry both are still normal. What does that mean? To me it means my entire metabolic system was reduced when I was dieting, EVEN IF I WASN"T DIETING ALL THE TIME. I can tell you I feel so much better. More energy... just general well being. I suspect this extends to thyroid hormone as well. I used to be cold all the time... no more.

3. I have determined that I burn off more calories when I am NOT dieting, naturally. Simply because your body becomes less efficient. Higher heart rate more work around the body.

Example: RMR of 1200. Multiplied by 1.2 (calculation for exercise that you do every day). TDEE: 1440. RMR of 1600 multiplied by 1.2 = 1920. 240 calories vrs 320 calories. Add exercise to that... say at RMR of 1200 I burned 70 calories walking for 30 minutes; now I burn 100 calories walking for 30 minutes. Everything I do burns more calories the higher my RMR.

4. I am reducing my calories a little about 100 under my RMR. But this has basically stopped my binging. One you are full... you will not desire to binge.

5. I am lifting weights. I purchased a "total gym" and I find that I really like it. I have always been one of those people who felt that exercise DIDN"T make them feel better. But guess what... What if, when your metabolism is suppressed your body says *hey cut it out I have no more energy* and you feel horrible. But when you have appropriate food and blood pressure you finally find yourself feeling good after a work out.

I havne't lost any weight at all. However, I haven't gained. It has been said that lifting weights has you gain about 3 to 8 lbs. So I feel like I can't expect any weight loss for about 8 to 9 months. So I am not looking at the scale until then.

[QUOTE=Wildeve;6557574]Another idea: go see a weight loss doctor or dietician or nutritionist. We eat so much crappy, empty food in our society that sometimes overeating is a symptom of, basically, starvation. [ /QUOTE]

No while i wish weight loss doctors or dietitians would test me for something I am missing I find them completely unhelpful.

And I am an expert at all of this. There is no stone I have left unturned.

Often when I tell them what I am doing with my life they just look at me like they don't believe me. As if I would want this trouble in my life? They always say you need to eat this food or that food, but eating good food can also make you gain weight. They also don't recognize the work needed to eat good food. Such as salads or fresh fish. All of that food goes bad and if you work a job where they don't care about your hours and a commuter system that doesn't care about you... the food will just go bad and you won't have time to buy fresh food.

They say you have to work out and when you tell them your challenges they just don't have any solutions. They ignore your problems and tell you to work out anyway.

I truly don't know what to do. I recently got back to my highest weight and now I am having issues due to it... so I am going to have to go back on the diet train again.

I don't know. One of the diet plans I did had a therapy component to it. But what I discovered is that basically there are strictures in my life that aren't going to change. Full time work and commute there. These make dieting and or fun difficult to have. So having a candy is something that can quickly give me joy and is widely available while other things are not.

Also difficult is that I don't eat that much. I have an efficient metabolism and thus while other people can eat a lot- one or two treats in a week can stall me. Even if I am otherwise eating well.

Not judging but how do you do these things on the weekends? My weekends now have about 2 hours each weekend just to relax. The rest of the time is running errands.

So to add preparing food on the weekends just seems like non stop working. Don't forget your suppose to exercise too.

For me I never really can keep up for it for long. From a time stand point OR a physical / mental stand point. I just have so much energy for the weekends and that MUST be spent on the most important errands. If I expend my mental or physical energy than something isn't going to get done. As it is now usually I don't get something done.

Then there are just some foods that just don't work heated up.

I do think it might be time to end dieting for good. Just not worth it anymore.

As I mentioned, it is a matter of both time and energy. But yes people that work have a lot of errands.

You sound like all the diet people. When their diet and advice doesn't pan out, their ridiculous diet advice - where you have no idea their circumstances, then they blame you. The truth is that I have white knuckled it for most of my adult life prepping food and eating only prepared food and doing what they said. Spending every hour prepping food or going to the gym and fasting or whatever. I have done liquid diets and weight watchers and keto and phentermine and belviq and you name it.. I have done it.

And it didn't work. For any person who actually works there will always be a time when you must go off that merry go round and eat food that isn't premade in your home.

Eventually it is going to fail. Eventually you will get stick of eating the same limited foods that you can prepare on the weekends. Eventually you will get stick of preparing food on the weekends. Eventually your work or something else will demand your free time and weight will come back on.

And if like me you can gain 20 lbs in a few weeks, and then have trouble losing it (because your metabolism has sunk while dieting) you just set yourself up again.

Not gonna listen to the same old diet and exercise bull. It doesn't work.

In general diets do not work for most people, which is understandable from an evolutionary standpoint.

Not to lose weight, but to be healthy and upbeat, why don't you walk one segment of your public transportation commute instead of riding it all the way? Also, do you have a FitBit or similar tracker to track your steps (not calories you eat, but steps, distance, heart rate)?

I think you made the long overdue decision to stop dieting.

Let me also suggest websites with clothing for plus size women, although at 190 you are only very moderately plus size, but still:

Gwynnie Bee

Woman Within

City Chic

Torrid

Roamans

Spend some time on the sites, even if you do not buy anything - you should surround yourself with images of healthy looking, smiling, highly positive and energetic plus size women.

Try to understand that our time on this Earth is very limited and should not be spent dieting. Try to learn to love the body you are in and start clothing that body in beautiful outfits. Also, learn ways to create visual illusions to make yourself look slimmer, such as having vertical lines (open cardigans, long vests, V-necks, very long necklaces).

Oh, any wine! Do you drink wine with your supper, 1 glass a day? Wine in this dosage improves health outcomes AND you would not feel like you are on a punishing diet, but rather that you are treating yourself well.