so frustrated!!! pls help

[chowder]

uggggggggh! i feel so frustrated cause i eat too much!!!

atkins has totally curbed my appetite and im trying to stop but i guess i am conditioned to eat when im anxious or just bored. i honestly feel like im ready to cry. i have been eating around 2000 calories a day and i'm 5'7 and weigh 213. i have decided to eat more veggies in the future. i feel so sad. do these calories matter? according to fitday my ratios are pretty good. it's just calories!

i mean at least im eating all induction friendly foods and not exceeding cheese or cream amounts but i wish i could stop eating!

[2big4mysize]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

now is a good time to learn to break those bad habits. find something elseto do when you are bored. take up a new hobby, come post, do some exercise, whatever it takes to break your I'm bored hand to mouth habit.

It is your Dr Brain based on past feeling and food interactions cataloged in your memories that is triggerring the feeding. Substituting something else for the food will weaking those neural pathways as the cure and establish the new pathways to the new memories as the cure.

Happy low carbing

[sallyseachange]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

Congratulations on making the right food choices carbwise!

If you up your exercise you won't need to cut calories so dramatically. In induction you should concentrate on keeping the carbs down, more than calories (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone) though it's a good idea to keep a watchful eye on calories too, to some extent, as if you go really really overboard it will affect your losses. Most people count calories more in OWL and Maintenance phases though.

Upping your exercise will also take your mind off the automatic eating thing - such a hard habit to conquer. Instead of eating...take a walk. Don't forget to drink masses of water too.

You'll be shrinking soon, I'm sure!

Sal

[Moochiecat]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

There is a lot a person learns about themselves in the first few months of Atkins.
Most of us have lost touch with our bodies and we don't know what 'full' feels like. We can't recognize when our bodies have had enough and we eat with our eyes.

One thing that helped me a lot was to have one serving/plate of food, then consciously stop, and reassure myself that if I was genuinely hungry later that I was allowed to have a snack. This took some getting used to because I was a 2 plates of dinner person, but after some time I realized that one plate usually was more than enough for me and many times I didn't even need a snack later on. That's how out of tune I was with my body.
And emotional eating....I was the queen of emotional eating!

Focus on being a conscious eater, thinking about your portion size and if you find yourself turning to food because of stress etc., STOP, and THINK about what you are doing, and why you are doing it. Ask yourself if you are hungry, thirsty or emotional....stay in the moment, stay aware.

Try a little experiment. For one week, eat according to the Rules of Induction, having the correct amounts of foods from the Acceptable Foods list and focus on the ratios NOT the calories. Ignore those for a week. put a piece of tape on your monitor where the calories show up in fitday...do whatever you have to to shift your way of thinking.
Have you found your caloric range? Here's a site to help you with that:
http://www.room42.com/nutrition/basal.shtml *disregard their percentages and just jot down the min and max calories it suggests*
Keep this info handy and as you lose weight check that site again. When you are ready and more relaxed about your eating habits, you can re-examine the calorie thing. In the meantime though, just do the conscious eating, Rules/List and ratios thing.

In time everything will come together, but in addition to understanding DANDR, we need a healthy amount of patience with the diet and more importantly, with ourselves.

[chowder]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

thanks you guys! i fel so much better today. for the last 2 days i've been trying to be more mindful of what i put in my mouth. i was also so tired and advised to eat a bit more veggie carbs (up to 20) and have been doing that. this in turned has lowered my calorie count a bit and given me tons more energy. i'm feeling great. i have not weighed my self but i think i will hold off for a few days. today i ate about 1800 calories which is still kind of high for my weight but it's much less than it was and i'm considering that a good start.

ok next hurdle - EXCERCISE!

[Elizellen]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

Good for you for not giving up!!

[sallyseachange]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

Fantastic! So glad to hear.

[coitrina]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

uggggggggh! i feel so frustrated cause i eat too much!!!

atkins has totally curbed my appetite and im trying to stop but i guess i am conditioned to eat when im anxious or just bored. i honestly feel like im ready to cry. i have been eating around 2000 calories a day and i'm 5'7 and weigh 213. i have decided to eat more veggies in the future. i feel so sad. do these calories matter? according to fitday my ratios are pretty good. it's just calories!

i mean at least im eating all induction friendly foods and not exceeding cheese or cream amounts but i wish i could stop eating!

First off, I would just like to say that I don't think you are eating too many calories. I am 5'3 and 138lbs and eat about that much, give or take. I may not be losing weight rapidly, but I AM losing weight, so therefore even at my weight and height I can consume that much and am obviously able to burn it off. Second, I like the idea that you will choose to eat more veggies. Why? Not just because of obvious reasons, but I don't think you like them very much. If you liked them, you would be eating more of them, and not telling yourself you need to eat more of them. If you choose a vegetable when you want to snack, you may just change your mind and save that vegetable for a rounded meal. My daughter is a food junkie <and we are converting her nicely btw> but she would want chips at night time. I would say, eat green beans. Now, even though she likes green beans, she would say, "Nevermind". Why? because she wasn't really hungry..and if she was, she would eat them. Over these past two weeks, she no longer wants to snack at night. You have to condition yourself to think differently, and they only way to do that is to give yourself something different. You can still have your snack, you can still have food, just choose something that you normally would not eat, like celery sticks dipped in Ranch dressing. The true test of hunger, is if you actually eat it or not. If you do, atleast you have made a good choice.

[Elizellen]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

Good suggestions, Coitrina

[skdmom]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

Drink more water. I have found that drinking a lot of water just before a meal will help you feel full quicker. At one point I had to force myself to eat( which is very unusual for me ) I just was no longer hungry. Anytime I get the urge to eat between meals I chug water. I don't think you can drink too much water.

[2big4mysize]

Re: so frustrated!!! pls help

how you doing Chowder?