I still live with my parents for financial reasons and can’t move out anytime soon. My parents are morbidly obese and I’m obese myself. I’ve been trying to lose weight for years and haven’t made progress and have actually gotten a little fatter over the years. The screwups are always worse than the brief periods of good dieting. When my parents buy and have the trigger foods I love, which is all the time, I inevitably fail and eat the bad food. I’ve begged them to stop buying that kind of food, that it would help all of us lose weight, but they don’t listen. To them food is the only comfort in life because their poor health brings so much pain that food is one of their few joys, creating a destructive cycle of their own making. I’ve tried to tell them this, but they don’t listen. I know I can succeed if I just wasn’t around the food, but it’s always there and I inevitably lose willpower after a few days or so and eat what I know I shouldn’t and it’s killing me inside both physically and mentally and I hate myself. I know I can’t blame them for my failure, that no one forces me to go in the kitchen and eat the food they freely share with me.
I just don’t know how to permanently resist my trigger foods when they are always there, just a few feet away with easy access. Nothing I know of works to resist this nonstop temptation. I’m hoping you guys have some ideas, anything I could try. Keep in mind my parents will not cooperate with anything that inconveniences them, like for example locking up all the food in a cabinet and keeping the key from me (which still doesn’t solve the issue of tempting food in the fridge/freezer); that means they have to do extra work to get their food and “why can’t you just say no?” as if they are capable of that themselves.
I appreciate all help and advice, even if my responses are depressive and lacking in enthusiasm.
>!What kind of sicko downvotes my response comments. I’m only trying to share my thoughts and problems, so people can better understand me and make suggestions better tailored to my unique situation and thought processes.!<
I’m currently struggling with something similar as well, and it’s hard to accept but it’s really entirely on us. No one forced the food into our moths and we can’t expect other people to change or adjust their own diets or lifestyles for us.
I don’t have a magic answer but I do believe that self control is a muscle of sorts that gets stronger as we use it. (Granted I’m also a binge eater, so there’s that lol)
I think maybe take it one day at a time? Plan a day of eating the night before and make a deal with yourself to just stick to it for that one day, just to see if you can. Don’t think about the day or week after - just get a good day under your belt and see if you can do it the next day.
there’s a sweet spot of being tough with yourself but not extreme. You gotta believe in yourself, you can do this!
Don’t be there. I understand you can’t move, but you can choose to work a second job, go to school after or before work, spend time at the gym or other healthy stuff, or eat at a friends or even in your car. TV is your enemy, and so are idle hands. Be busy, stay busy.
Hey this resonates with me as I have gone through similar situations and if you can’t change your environment, change your mindset. I assume you are in this sub because you are interested in intermittent fasting. I recommend starting small and dip your toes if you haven’t tried any of the popular fasting protocols (16:8, 20:4, OMAD) and you will slowly be able to resist some of the food craving that you are tempted with simply because you will, experience less hunger the more you practice it. Shorting your eating window will naturally make it harder for you to overeat even the bad foods that you have around you.
Everyone is suggesting ways for you to control your eating but you really need to see someone for your mental health. Until you can come to terms with your relationship with food you are doomed to fail. I hope you well.
So I think you can reframe your situation with your parents as a normal expectation… Ie even if you’re out on your own, you will find that temptations are also “nonstop”… at social events, at the grocery store, at restaurants, on takeout menus, etc.
Put another way, self control is something to practice, and to put into practice if you want to be successful at losing weight. Unfortunately, accessibility to bad food is pretty much going to be the situation no matter what.
I struggle a lot with eating as way of comforting myself, and I also live in a house where a lot of my favourite foods are readily available and I can’t expect the people I live with to shut them away either. it’s very easy to blame yourself for caving and eating them because “no one put it in your mouth” but it’s HARD. if it was easy then no one would be overweight or unhealthy, right? don’t blame yourself. you’ve had a lifetime of using food as a source of comfort and all those neural connections in your brain get stronger over time, and you can’t expect to just get over those desires for food immediately.
what I’ve found works for me is finding healthy foods that I get just as excited about eating during my eating window - I look forward to them! I enjoy cooking my favourite things and I’ve found substitutes for things I would otherwise normally like to indulge in. something else I also try to do is, if I REALLY REALLY crave something I normally wouldn’t normally want to have (something hugely fattening and calorific) is that I DO have cheat days. I specifically allot a day/time where I can have that thing I want. because it’s controlled in that way, I feel less likely to spiral (oh I ate some cake, I can’t control myself, if I’ve had one piece I may as well have more, well if I can’t resist cake then I can’t resist anything, etc).
negative internal thinking and self blame are never the route to take. if you fall, that’s okay. dust yourself off and go onwards. we’re all human and we all make mistakes! each time you get back onto the journey of weight loss and living healthy, you’re bringing new knowledge to it - you learn new info about what works and doesn’t work for you and you can take that and apply it to the future.
Have you tried whole30 along with intermittent fasting? You can get a book at the library, it is an elimination diet that helps you identify things that make you not feel well. For me, it’s like a rest. I have to resist the junk for 30 days. I owe it to myself to stay compliant. It’s only 30 days. Then, after 30 days you start to add other food back in, you’ll find the stuff you used to crave makes you feel bad and not worth it. It will be hard to have so many restrictions on food, but could help establish better habits.
Hi, hoping to be helpful here.
If you count calories and keep your window small, then fast food + IF should still work. The calories in, calories out measurement should be where you focus.
Granted you may feel bad which leads to more eating, but if you can, try to stick to your target calories. It may be hard to calculate accurate calories and nutrient breakdowns but most fast food lists estimate calories.
I know how much of a slippery slope trigger foods can be, so it isn’t easy but you can still be successful. Good luck!
Food is a rough addiction. Most addictions you just stop doing that device. Food… well you need that every day.. so its gonna be hard to start with. Somewhere in there you have to say no.. and deal. Its tough i know.. but if to make up your mind and be determined.. You can do it. Its just a day. Nothing more. Tomorrow is another time deal with it then.
Hey, I read all of your responses so far and am so sorry you are struggling. I have a couple of suggestions.