How to have self control with food Reddit

19F 5’4 CW: 213 lbs

Hello everyone, I’m currently a student in college and my eating has gotten out of control. I’ve been overweight all my life and have attempted so many times to lose weight, but I fail every time. Last summer I even went to a nutritionist (she put me on a low cal diet, I could only eat about 1100 calories a day) and I lost 30 pounds in a span of 3 months. Then school came along, I got tired of the food I ate, and I let myself go. Every single day, till this day, I’d eat junk food in large portions and I can’t get myself to stop (i have extremely bad cravings, if I want something I’ll do anything I can to get it. I even eat junk food when I’m not hungry, I just eat it cause it tastes so good and is so satisfying). I love to eat fast food with a lot of cheese, sugary snacks, and soda. I gained 23 pounds ever since I stopped my low cal diet and I’m just so tired of this. Today, I decided that I needed to put an end in this, and ate healthily until I saw mac and cheese in the dining hall. I put just a tiny bit in my plate, ate it, couldn’t control myself and got myself another big plate of it and ate it all. Im just so disappointed in myself, all I wanna do is eat healthy but my cravings are so bad and I can never control myself. Every time I tell myself not to eat something, I always do it anyway. I do like fruits and vegetables, but to me junk food will always taste better and I’ll always crave it more. I had to torture myself during my low cal diet because I was just so sick of the food I ate, and nothing tasted remotely good to the normal junk food I eat, so I had to force myself to eat what I was told to eat by my nutritionist, but obviously, I came to a breaking point (I would cry sometimes from how bad my cravings were). There would be times that I wouldn’t even eat at all during my diet cause I was just so repulsed by the food I had to eat but still wanted to lose weight. When I’m hungry, my mind loses control and I eat whatever I want and as much as I want and I can never help myself. I have no idea what to do, I have no idea what could work with me, and I have no idea how to control myself, eat healthy food and actually enjoy it without having to crave junk food. Losing weight and being happy with my body is my biggest dream, it has been all my life. Some advice would be really helpful, and I appreciate everyone who took the time to read my post. Thank you.

My food cravings are anything that have to do with cheese & chocolate: chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, brownies, pasta with cheese, cheese pizza, etc.

Of course, I limit those to once or twice a week as I'm trying to slim down but no matter how hard I try, I sometimes think about those foods on days when I'm not eating those.

So I want to know how can I practice self-control over those foods & actually slim down.

I just weighed myself and I’m at 147.8 lb at 5’0”, just a little less than my 150 lb boyfriend who is 5’9”. I’ve been going to the gym somewhat consistently for the last month, I even have a personal trainer. But food is my worst enemy, I love all carbs, cheese, and alcohol. If there’s anything available in my apartment, I eat it. And I can’t resist grabbing junk food at the store because “it’s been a rough day, I deserve it.”

My bf has a great metabolism, so he can eat whatever. It doesn’t help he loves to bake. I’ve had the conversation with him multiple times that I want to eat better, but either he forgets or I say “no, I really want [this food]” and he supports me with whatever I want.

How do I break this cycle of “wow I really need to lose weight”, then trying for a little bit, then falling back into my old ways??

The main thing that bothers me about my lack of self control is in regards to food. I’m currently 19 and been living with my parents for 18 years. When I say I’ve been living with my parents I mean they always took care of me in every sense. The biggest problem right now is that they provided all the food that I ate over the years. Because I never had a job and my own source of income I couldn’t buy my own food. That’s where I suspect the problem lies (at least I think so... not sure though). Roughly 7 months ago I moved to live with a couple of friends, I got a job, kept getting my own money for the first time and thought that I grew and matured as a person. However I noticed that whenever I go grocery shopping I buy things I don’t need (junk food, unhealthy snacks, etc.). I think it’s important to note that I don’t care that much about my unhealthy eating since I always been relatively fit but the problem with eating junk food and snacks is that I always, and I mean ALWAYS eat everything as soon as I open it. Most of the time I’m not even hungry. When ever I get a slightest feel? of hunger I start with small things (like a peanut butter sandwich) but when I eat a couple and fulfill my stomach’s needs a few minutes later I find myself making and eating more and more (some days I eat a full loaf of bread and a full 500g jar of peanut butter a day). This only stops when I start calculating how much more money I can spend to have enough left for rent. Which is really inconvenient because for the last 1~2 days of the week before payday I live with roughly $0. I’ve even tried fasting (diet?) when I didn’t eat from 12 hours up to 24 hours for some time in hopes to calm the restless void that is my bottomless stomach. So what I want to learn is how to stop myself from eating when I don’t even want to eat. Learning how to stop myself from impulsive buying would be a big + as well.

EDIT: Thank you everyone, for your incredibly kind words. I wasn't expecting such a response, but I really do appreciate it. Thank you for the internet hugs as well. It's an awesome feeling knowing that in my moment of weakness, this community can gather together to help pick me back up. Not going to lie, some of you made me cry. I'll do better now, I promise you guys. Thank you.

F/25/212 lbs

I took my flair off because all the weight I loss I gained back within a week.

Seriously, I don't know what to do. I'm at a complete loss of how to have self control. People keep saying, "If you want it bad enough, you'll have the self control to do better" etc. Well, I also have depression. And to me, saying that is the exact same thing as saying, "Stop being so mopey, if you wanted to be happy you could be" NO I FUCKING CAN'T I PHYSICALLY HAVE SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY BRAIN I CAN'T JUST DECIDE TO BE HAPPY.

Just like, for some reason, I can't just decide to have self control. For 3 weeks I've been meticulously counting my calories on MyFitnessPal. I've been doing Keto as well, and I lost 7ish pounds (depending on the day). I also have been running.

But I work overnights. Then I'm awake all day going to classes. So when I wake up to go to work (after maybe a few hours of sleep), I spend a majority of my time there and I use up a good portion of my calories while working, which doesn't leave much wiggle room for the rest of my incredibly long, sleep deprived, days. So at night I'm not feeling as hungry, but during the day I am ravenous. And when I get home I just inhale whatever I can find in the fridge, find out that I've gone over my calorie limit, beat myself up, and eat more because hey, what does it matter now?

I feel like I've done everything (Keto, Paleo, running, MyFitnessPal, Weight Watchers, even tried being anorexic once, having multiple personal trainers, going to therapy, being on medication for my depression/anxiety, etc).

So I'm just thinking that I should just accept that I will always have this freaking muffin top. I'll always have old lady bingo arms. My ass will continue to look like the hood of a car after a hailstorm. I'll never be able to wear cute boots or even dresses, and I'll have to keep wearing long jeans in over 100 degree weather.

I don't know if any one can say anything that can help me, but I'm hanging by a thread here. I'm reaching out in hopes that someone can say something that will make me want to try one more time. Help?

Hey guys, I was wondering how you guys control yourself, I binged for 2 days now yesterday and today. I lost 13kgs and have 18kgs more and closer I get to my goal more I eat. So I was wondering what things do you guys do to control your binge and hunger.

Thanks

tl;dr: junk food is temporary, it may taste good at first, but then it disappears forever, leaving nothing but depression in its wake. To conquer it, all you have to do is take a moment to think how depressed you will feel after eating it.

From about the age of 7 to 14 I'd been self conscious. I was a pretty fat kid and it stayed like that until I was 15. After hitting around 80kg at 15 I attempted for maybe the hundredth time in 7 years to loose weight. I used an app (myfitnesspal) to count my calories and forced myself to exercise every week.

I had a massive problem straight up.

I couldn't stop eating. Being in a family that brings home deserts almost every day (my family were a lot skinnier then me, mainly because I didn't do any sport), it was difficult to stop eating bad food. Then I asked myself a question

What is the point of desert? Why do we want to eat junk food?

You could say the answer is because of pleasure. You eat a chocolate, it tastes good while your eating it. But then you get depressed because of breaking your diet.

So how could it possibly be pleasurable? All you have done is made yourself feel guilty... that's not fun.

Eating food is temporary. It may taste good or bad while it lasts but that brief moment when you are eating it doesn't impact your mood directly after eating it. All you are doing is making your current self happy and your future self depressed. If your future self was your best friend or your beloved wife you wouldn't ever eat junk food. It's like pressing a big red button that provides you with happiness but drains happiness from yourself in the future. Why on earth would you ever press that button? If you're feeling sad, yeah you might, but knowing that its going to make you sad later on? whats the point? its just prolonging the inevitable.

Junk food is nothing but a drug that we are hardwired to eat. We see junk food, we lunge at it, gobble it down then hate our self afterwards.

How pathetic is that? We crave food that makes us depressed, if there's a bowl of chips in front of us, we without knowing it, grab a handful, and eat it. We don't even register the pleasure, we're just doing it because we're programmed to think 'Oh look, a chip, chips taste good, lets eat the chip', without even considering how it may impact later on. I bet if you knew that poison tastes good you'll go 'Oh look poison, poison tastes good, lets drink the poison'. You're so hell bent on providing yourself with this background euphoria that you don't even consider how it affects you. It's utterly pathetic.

So next time someone puts a bowl of chips on the table, and your mind does the thing 'Oh look, a chip, chips taste good, lets eat the chip', Stop, just for one second. Let your mind add in the extra detail that everyone completely ignores 'Oh look a chip, chips taste good, but chips are going to make me depressed, lets not eat the chip'

Edit: Since this (kinda) got popular I thought I'd share another way of thinking about this. When you eat junk food, the second after you finish eating it, you're going to be exactly where you began. You're still going to want to eat more junk food, you're still going to be hungry. You could literally throw the junk food in the bin and be in the exact same place as if you just ate it, only now you don't feel guilty.

Edit 2: The title is a little misleading, but I still stand by it. I define discipline as forcing yourself not to do something you want to do. I was trying to say that if you realize that all it does is make you depressed then you won't want to do it, therefor you don't need discipline to not do it. I should of been more clear on that