Kudos to you for wanting to be fit and healthy!

Diets suck. They really, really do. They do not solve the problem of your compulsive overeating. They cut your calories below what a person of your age/sex/weight optimally needs to survive on a daily basis. They mess with your head because they restrict a lot of foods which might cause you to crave those foods even more.

If you go on a diet and lose weight, after you go off the diet you will go back to overeating. You will gain weight. More than you lost, because your body thought you were starving it while you were on a diet. It will hoard new fat away in case of future starvation. That’s the way our bodies work.

You need to figure out why you eat too much. I ate too much because my dad survived the depression as a child and ever since had a horror of not having enough to eat. He always overfed us and encouraged us to have seconds. He would do things like put water in the ketchup bottle to get the last little bit and eat fruit like apples completely, core and all. He would get very upset of he saw food in the garbage.

Because we were not fat children (he also encouraged us to run around and play, limited our tv time) I had no idea that we were overeating or developing bad eating habits until I became an adult and overweight after my 3rd child. I had no idea about portion sizes or anything! I thought a full dinner plate of rice was one portion of rice. I thought a serving of apples meant 3 or 4 apples at one time, I kid you not. I still have a problem with throwing away food. What helps me with this is to not prepare more food than we can eat at any one meal. I still have trouble knowing when I am full, I always thought being full meant being stuffed to bursting, because that was how I ate as a child.

Whatever reason you overeat, if you want to stop you have to figure out why you do it and if you want to stop it. You have to actively work to change a pattern of eating behavior.

You have also got to exercise, become more physically active. What really helps me is to ‘play’ instead of exercise, to do the things I loved as a child. I ride my bike alot, I play volleyball at the rec center, I play soccer, I run around with my kids. I developed a taste for running as it clears my head. Not only does this help with weight it also makes you physically fit, stronger on the inside and outside.

If you want a plan, try eating 3 full meals (no second helpings) a day plus 2 snacks; one between breakfast and lunch and one between lunch and dinner. Don’t eat after dinner and don’t drink any junk drinks like soda/cola. Drink plenty of water, a big glass of water as soon as you get up and a small glass with every snack and meal.

Sensibly losing weight takes time, you really shouldn’t lose more than 2 pounds a week. Stop weighing yourself if this aggravates you, seeing only a 1-2 pound weight drop every week discourages many people. But after a month or so when you weigh yourself, you’ll be happy to see a loss of 5-8 pounds! and the month after that, and so on.

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