I think I have stumbled upon another of my ‘issues’. Im addicted to dieting! Yes dieting! When I am dieting, and eating what I should, I feel like my life is in control. I feel like I am going to be thin and when I get to be thin my shitty life will be magically replaced by a life with pink elephants swimming in lemonade. Yes thats right its obviously a dream. But just the idea that I am going to be thin allows me to not worry about things in my life right now. Its a way of coping. And this way of coping is highly addictive. When I think to myself I no longer want to diet its like taking away my only coping strategy. My way of dealing with life and bringing happiness to myself. So giving up dieting is not simply giving up dieting. Its huge. At the moment its giving up hope.
However, things are going well not dieting. I am eating what I want (non-processed) and when I want. I lost another kilogram today and so I sit at 118kg. Back down. It absolutely blows my mind that I am still dropping weight. I expect, hope, that I am going to lose weight very slowly and not maintain. I read over at free the animal that he lost weight at about 1/2 pound a month. Thats incredible but also impossible to monitor if you are weighing yourself everyday. But he really must have been confident he was going along the right path in terms of his eating. This would be hard for someone like me who needs instant gratification and needs to see results immediately.
What I have also noticed is something that I have brought back into my diet is definitely not agreeing with me. Lets just say my gut flora have been busy! Now there are two obvious choices that in the past have caused this. I have narrowed the culprit items down to either chickpeas or milk. They are not mutually exclusive. They both could be causing my issues and they both are non-paleo. But since I like milk better I will eliminate the chick peas (or legumes etc altogether) and see if this stops. It has lasted for two days in a row so no coincidence.
Obviously I don’t want to do dietary breakdowns as then I am counting calories. What I can do is start taking pics of my food.
Pavlov's Ape 
I also have to be careful to not be addicted to dieting. I think that for me worrying about my weight all the time allows me to avoid worrying about all the other things in my life. What a relief it would be to think only of my health, and not about how much I weigh. I am not actually overweight anymore, but I keep thinking about how I want to be skinnier. It’s weird. My husband even tells me that he likes my size now, he likes the athletic look, but I still get those feelings that I want to be skinnier!
It is a huge relief! It also reduces stress etc. But those old paranoia’s about whether or not you will lose weight always lurk. Thats what I am fighting now.
I just woke upsomy mind isn’t out of first gear yet but my initial thought here is please say this isnt possible, to be addicted to dieting. I’m working my butt & brain off to shed my addiction to food; the thought of replacing it with another addiction doesnt set well with me. Being addicted to dieting could end up being a food disorder of another nature too, again not appealing. I’d rather look at it as embracing the foundations of becoming healthy and living a healthy life style. While becoming healthy there is a greater or more frequent need to utilize metrics such as the scale, tape measure, etc. My hope is that once at my desired weight the use of those tools which validate our efforts, those tools we have such a dependence for, perhaps even addiction to, that we’ll want to use them infrequently as the need for validation decreases. So is my hope.
Keep going!! This is just what I found for me!!! I am not you and if you are feeling really good about yourself, and motivated, then keep going and don’t stop!!! The last thing I would want to do is shake someone elses good progress.
I like the idea of you taking pictures of your food. I am interested in what you are eating while you are doing this little experiment of eating when you want. People love food porn which I need to provide more of on my blog.
What are the main things you are eating? Or is it a large variety?
Hi Toad I was holding off until I posted about this. More recipes for sure but over at Darwin’s Table.
Just as a note about the beans or the milk — is the question of preparation. If you soak your beans overnight and then use a pinch of an indian spice called asofetida or “hing” in the cooking water, this is an antidote to the “digestability issues” most people have with beans. It really works. If you’re using canned beans, this could be the problem. Just a thought. 🙂
Thanks Lindsay. I usually soak it but here in Canada they don’t seem to sell dried chickpeas so they were from a can. Maybe thats the problem. Have not had any today and I feel better. So I think I can drink milk at least.
I was also addicted to dieting and training. I constantly monitored every gram of food that went into my body down to the olive oil I cooked with and I would never go over. I measured my snacks and ate every 3 hours on the dot and would start panicking when I would be late eating. It’s no way to live. I just made grain free cookies and they are so good. I don’t miss out on anything changing my life to being more primal. Now when I train I do it for strength and for fun. I used to monitor my training so carefully and if I had to miss a day I would stress and diet so hard the next day.
It’s no way to live, life is about adventure and fun not about spending every second of the day stressing about food.
That’s my 2 cents, sorry it’s a ramble, I ramble when I get passionate 🙂
Hey Brooki. Checked out your website! I agree too lving in that mindset is a constant struggle.
The only way to avoid endless dieting is to become a vegetarian.
Think about it, we have the ways and means to do it, plus we don’t need to kill God’s animals anymore.
No its even easier than that. You just stop dieting.
I think that dieting is much more complex than just being vegetarian. There is psychology, biology and environmental factors that need to be taken into account. Saying people can avoid dieting by vegetarianism is kind of simplistic.
No, I disagree, try eating vegetables – seriously. Eating meat is environmentally unsustainable.
I don’t see how eating meat has anything to do with my addiction to dieting. Seriously. Carbs make me more addicted and meat has no carbs in it. The environmental sustainability argument is completely separate from this issue and not really relevant to this post?
I do realise that, just wanted you to consider vegetarianism, and aside from losing weight, you could achieve secondary end points – having lost the weight, the addiction would disappear?, plus the environment would be better of with less meat consumption
Im sorry. I might have sounded a bit harsh. I have a post at darwins table that a lot of vegetarians took offense too. I was trying to explain the benefits of meat but went about it the wrong way. As a result I have become trained to be defensive when this subject comes up. Thank you for your comments. Im sorry but in this instance I will be sticking to meat. If its any help I prefer to eat grass fed beef where the cow has not been in a factory. If I could I would eat wild game all the time.
No – you didn’t sound harsh. Interesting website – keep up the good work. Interesting, but will stick to eating vegetables (try tofu….)