I'm with taradorf...I can't STOP EATING!!!

[lowcarbing4ever]

I have re-started, re-started and re-started Atkins so many times, I am going crazy! :anger I just can't stop cheating!! I don't know why I am purposely sabotaging myself. I will do good at work and then when I come home, I am a maniac with food. On my way home, I will use any excuse to eat at one of the 18 places of fast food within (this is for real) 2 blocks of my home. All these places are crammed within a 2-3 block section of my house and I constantly eat at one or another of them.

I have tried to stay clean; hard, hard have I tried. I usually never get past 4 days but actually got to 3 weeks once. Now I can't get past 1. I always screw up halfway into the 1st day or the end of it. I am frustrated to all end!!! :raving

[Becky Sue]

Juju,
It is all about making up your mind that you are going to do this. It is your mindset. You have to want to become healthier, happier, and slimmer, much more than the taste of the foods(carbs) that you are eating, and controling you.

You just have to bite the bullet and say to yourself that you are taking back your life. You are no longer going to let food control you. Eating low carb for approximately one week will give you the control over the food. So that first week you may have to white nuckle it and be prepared . Meaning, prepare your foods ahead of time, prepare a menu and eat only the foods you have written down, and eat only what is on the Induction list .

Cheatfree is the only way to go. As long as you stay cheatfree you will have the control. So don't cheat!!! It will empower you.

This is the best gift you can give yourself. Good health, and being able to control your food instead of it controling you is the best feeling of all.

Welcome to our Atkins family. Eating this way will give you back your life.

Becky Sue

[lowcarbing4ever]

Thanks for the welcome. You are right; I have to make my health more important than the food. But can I ask you something? How do you get thru the first "craving" days? The first 4 or 5 days without letting your craving drive you nuts? Even if I am prepared, a craving will come from nowhere and knock me flat, no matter my reserve. Is there anything that you did or anyone here that they do that can help get over that short hump? I know that if I can make it 1 full week on Atkins, that I will be ok and I can get some control but I just don't make it that far because the cravings hit hard. Maybe I am crazy but it seems each time I re-sart, the cravings seem more and more difficult to control. :help

[Becky Sue]

JuJu asks:

I know that if I can make it 1 full week on Atkins, that I will be ok and I can get some control but I just don't make it that far because the cravings hit hard.

You can make that first week if you will keep busy. When those urges come over you, head out the door for a walk. Get a hugh glass of water and drink it. Turn on some music and dance around. Just got to get your mind off the food issue. The cravings will pass.
The main thing is to keep busy, go shopping and look at things that interest you, except food, window shop, don't need to buy.
Call a friend and talk and get them to support you into not eating. Come to ADBB and read and post. This will get your mind off of eating.

Others will come up with good ideas too. These are just some that come to mind to me.

Please do this for you. You will never regret doing this. It is so wonderful liking myself and getting compliments from others. Please join all of us BIG losers!!! LOL We are here to help you thru these difficult times, just remember we all had to do what you are doing right now and it is possible if YOU REALLY WANT THIS FOR YOU. I promise it will get easier in time.

Welcome aboard!
Becky Sue

[Chupa Cabras]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with this problem.

I don't eat because I'm hungry. I eat because I LIKE IT.

When I'm at home, after a healthy and delicious balanced meal, I go back to the kitchen...over and over and over. I sit down in front of the TV, finish my snack, and 2 minutes later I'm back in the kitchen looking for more. If I'm not eating, I'm thinking about what's in the fridge, what can I eat.

And as soon as I know there's something I can't have, I want it even more. I love bread, but tell me I can't have it, and I'll be hiding behind the chair with a whole loaf, stuffing it in my mouth like someone's gonna take it from me.

Has anyone tried hypnotism? Or behavior modification? Im seriously considering.

[smiley2]

Hello,

I can honestly say your not the only one. I eat just to eat. I will also do well at work unless I have an occasional love affair with the vending machine. I go to lunch late so no one is in the lunch room. I eat cakes and nobody knows but me. How's that for rationalism and self sabotage? When I was younger I wasn't allowed to eat sweets until I finished all of my dinner. The cake or pie would sit in front of me and tempt me... Yes, you know you want a piece of me. Be a good little girl - eat your food and then you can have a nice big piece of me. That was the beginning of my poor eating habits and secret binges. Once I was old enough, I skipped the good foods and ate nothing but cakes, cookies and pies. Anything with sugar will do. This is a serious problem for me and there's no way around it accept to deal with it head on.

[Jasmain]

Do something else for 30 minutes. Forget the food. Read a book every time it hits, take a hot bath, go for a short little walk, talk to yourself about why you want it and why you shouldn't have it. Go look in the mirror for 5 minutes straight. Get something out of you closet that is too small that you would REALLY like to wear again, or buy yourself something small that you would LOVE to be able to wear. Just DO something for a little while. It doesn't usually have to be long, because a craving is more often than not a short term feeling that will pass if you hold out for just a little while. I know it's hard.

I used to start dinner, make up an excuse to go to the store, stop at mcdonald's on the way and buy a MEAL PLUS AN EXTRA SANDWICH, then go to to the store and stuff my face on the way, go back home, AND STILL EAT DINNER. It was making me sick. I don't know where it would have ended if I hadn't found something to do through the cravings.

Please... do it for you. You're worth it.

[Malka]

The next time you crave chocolate doughnuts, or what ever, STOP & check your watch.. In 15 minutes your cravings will be up, cravings last between 8-14minutes..Use the "STOP WATCH METHOD" to curb your cravings..After 15minutes, drink a large glass of water.. CU Malka

[2big4mysize]

Chupa Cabras I hear you oin the wanting cause you can't have issues. I wanted bread and I actually stopped extended induction to climb the OWL ladder so I could have low carb bread. I ask for it for Christmas in 2002, got 6 loaves, and still have 5.5 of them in the freezer. it was the wanting that made it so got to have but once I had it I ddin't want it.


if y'all are having physical cravings you can use those methods but if as Dr Atkins says it is a deeper emotional craving you need otherr coping stratagies.

One of the best is to find out what is triggering you to want it. keep a journal and answer the Ws who what when where and why are you eating? how do you feel before during and after eating how about 1 hour later?

Soon you can see patterns in your binges and wants that you can make changes in the triggering issue and stop them before they start.

FOlk laugh when they hear food as a drug but it is actually true. many foods like choclate minic neurotransmitters and your brain has cataloged them and knows which make you feel better in different situations and will prescribe then for you. it is hard to tell Dr Brain NO cause unlike real docs Dr brain makes house calls and doesn't stop when you say no.

Once you know what food you are after you can also use other things that create similar chmicals in the body to satisfy the wanting. your stressed and want choclate? exercise and use up the bad chems and creat good chems.

Just knowing you can climb the carb ladder of OWL and get just about any food you want should help you with the wanting controls cause in just X weeks you can have that.

Happy low carbing

[lowcarbing4ever]

I totally agree with 2big. You know, the mind is a funny thing...you deny it anything and it wants the thing you deny it. I am learning that when I have a craving to do two things and they seem to work, at least lately and that is I have a set of cards that I made up called my Craving Control cards. What I did was write down as many things as i could that were positive in me NOT giving in to my craving. Like "you will look really hot in those pants in the Spring if you don't eat that cake at the office", things like that and I also have a few cards of " What benefits will I have if I lose weight?" " I can actually sit in a chair and take up only one space instead of two." These have really helped me put things in perspective.

But mostly, I went to Walmart and bought these big, really nice journals for about $6 and when I feel like eating or I get emotional, out comes my jornal and for 3 or 4 pages, I am spewing out my guts. Afterward, I feel better---or at least more calm! and I realize the craving is gone. Sometimes that is all cravings are: emotions. Once you express and release the emotion by facing it head on, your craving is nothing but a memory or a small want that you can ignore. it sounds like you have some deeper issues, like I do, when it comes to eating. It is not easy to do this Atkins or not; changing how you have been used to eating is not as easy as pie (pun intended ). But you gotta try and you gotta do it for you and noone else. You also gotta get to a point where you say, this it IT. I can't do this anymore and work on how you are going to change. I am doing the Dr.Phil's reading challenge on the LCBB sister board and his book is excellent. You should join and get the book (just for the emotional issues not the DIET. lol!). I know a lot of things he talks about fit me to a T and it is helping me look at how I see myself and my goals that I have never seen before and how to change my emotional issues so that I can stay on any plan; including atkins.