This is getting out of control. Well, it is already out of control. In this (http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=12311) thread I was complaining about my binging habits and how conflictive were my feelings about them. Now it is getting increasily difficult. I cannot eat clean for more than three days in a row. After that, all of a sudden, I go nuts. Before I realize I'm downing INSANE amounts of rubbish in amazingly short periods of time. The only thing I need for that to happen is a little event on my environment which will cause some stress slightly above the usual level. Any sight of will power then disappears and I just don't care, go and buy chocolate, pastries, cakes and milkshakes for a battalion. And devoure it within seconds. After any feast, I feel disgusting about myself and wonder how I could kill so many hours of hard work and commitment because of a spontaneous urge.

I'm not blaming the circumstances. I'm not even gonna go into my circumstances, either. All of us have problems every day, but successful people don't allow the problems to interfere with their lives. They improve themselves to master the skills needed to beat the problems and carry on. At the moment I cannot cope with the different aspects of my life. I'm weak and I don't understand how have I reached this point, because before Christmas I was doing great, 4 lbs. away from my goals, feeling superb. Now I'm 10 lbs. away from my goals and it's getting worse. Whenever I finish stuffing myself, I think that's it, I'm gonna stick back to the plan from now on. But today I realised that I'm the slave of my own body, and my cravings are driving all the aspects of my life. And it's scary.

If I manage to follow my cutting diet, or even merely eating clean, let alone caloric deficit, my cravings are going to be unbearable. If not, I'm gonna gain weight, spoil my health and hate myself and it will be a vicious circle. Neither of the options seems very appealing. On top of that I'm training for a marathon, which implies a constant source of stress due to the demanding daily training. My personal life is not fantastic, either, my girlfriend lives 1000 miles away, I see her every three months, we have been having a hard time lately, etc... I cannot remeber last time I felt so miserable about myself, and the continuous tone of selfpity my thoughts and words are loaded with just sucks.

I know the answer lies inside myself. I have to struggle through this issue on my own. But I wonder from where could I get the strength I need. There is a very fine line between enormous selfdiscipline and enormous lack of control. Maybe I've asked too much to myself in a short period of time. I have no idea about what I'm gonna do from now on. I'm in a nice physical shape, just shy of my desired goal, but it seems I'm gonna crack the whole thing within weeks.

I cannot ask for advice regarding how should I drive my life. I'm 28, I'm an adult person and should approach this with some clarity of mind. I've overcome tougher things in the past. I've succeed sometimes, I've failed some others, but always with a positive attitude, trying to learn from my mistakes. At this very moment, I'm unable to do that anymore and the only thing I can manage to do is to express the powerlessness I feel.

That's why I've written this post.

Thanks for reading.

Probably the first thing to do is to not beat yourself up. You said yourself that you've come within a few pounds of your goal. Even if that's slipped, that is still something to be hugely proud of. When I was cutting I went through some of that, too. Some of my cheats were of epic proportions and while shoveling down candy bars, I wondered how I'd ever recover. It passes, though, and something inside just lets you know that it's time to get back on track.

It sounds like you just need a break for a bit. Why not take a week or two off and just not even worry about exercise, counting calories or whether or not you've eaten enough protein for the day. Just take some time to relax and enjoy a bit. The hardest part, the learning, is pretty much done for you. You've got the knowledge to be able to accomplish what you've done so far, and you'll be able to do it again. Dieting and exercise will always be there for you, when you're ready to pick it up again. But for right now, it sounds like you need a good break. You'll know when it's time to get back on track, your body will tell you.

Sorry things are so hard for you right now. Can't help you with the personal issues. Tried to do the long distance deal with my girlfriend two years ago. Very tough. But as a former competitive distance runner who now is focused on serious weight training and just runs for heart health and calorie burning, I can tell you that in my opinion you should NOT be trying to train for a marathon and do a cutting diet at the same time. It's setting your body up to fail. Marathon training requires a surplus of calories as surely as bulking does. It will probably result in weight loss (even if minimal muscle loss) even when consuming a relatively high calorie diet Trying to cut when marathon training is setting your body up to binge as you've been doing. Doing both at the same time is detrimental to running and weight loss as the binges more than outway the amount of food you would be consuming if just eating a normal, healhty but non-cutting diet. I would suggest choosing one goal right now. Hope this helps some. Good luck

This is getting out of control. Well, it is already out of control. In this (http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=12311) thread I was complaining about my binging habits and how conflictive were my feelings about them. Now it is getting increasily difficult. I cannot eat clean for more than three days in a row. After that, all of a sudden, I go nuts. Before I realize I'm downing INSANE amounts of rubbish in amazingly short periods of time. The only thing I need for that to happen is a little event on my environment which will cause some stress slightly above the usual level. Any sight of will power then disappears and I just don't care, go and buy chocolate, pastries, cakes and milkshakes for a battalion. And devoure it within seconds. After any feast, I feel disgusting about myself and wonder how I could kill so many hours of hard work and commitment because of a spontaneous urge.


If I manage to follow my cutting diet, or even merely eating clean, let alone caloric deficit, my cravings are going to be unbearable. If not, I'm gonna gain weight, spoil my health and hate myself and it will be a vicious circle. Neither of the options seems very appealing. On top of that I'M TRAINING FOR A MARATHON, which implies a constant source of stress due to the demanding daily training. My personal life is not fantastic, either, my girlfriend lives 1000 miles away, I see her every three months, we have been having a hard time lately, etc... I cannot remeber last time I felt so miserable about myself, and the continuous tone of selfpity my thoughts and words are loaded with just sucks.

I know the answer lies inside myself. I have to struggle through this issue on my own. But I wonder from where could I get the strength I need. There is a very fine line between enormous selfdiscipline and enormous lack of control. Maybe I've asked too much to myself in a short period of time. I have no idea about what I'm gonna do from now on. I'm in a nice physical shape, just shy of my desired goal, but it seems I'm gonna crack the whole thing within weeks.

I cannot ask for advice regarding how should I drive my life. I'm 28, I'm an adult person and should approach this with some clarity of mind. I've overcome tougher things in the past. I've succeed sometimes, I've failed some others, but always with a positive attitude, trying to learn from my mistakes. At this very moment, I'm unable to do that anymore and the only thing I can manage to do is to express the powerlessness I feel.

That's why I've written this post.

Thanks for reading.

You have a ver STRONG SWEET TOOTH, but it doesnt mean you have to quit. If you want to be serious about your dieting, give your diet some work. I cant eat all healthy food witout taste in it or i'll flip into a binge. Take your time to see, what you can add to your health food that settles the beast within.

For example: I hate the taste of Tuna alone, and i'll never put fat free mayo on the tuna... but since i know i like hot and spicy stuff i put tobasco sauce on my tuna, thus giving me the tatse i prefer and stil allowing me to eat in a healthy fashion. Same thing goes for chicken i put some BBQ sauce on it, make sure its a healthy kind or the healtiest you can find, but the BBQ sauce gives you that little kick you need. And another thing my Whey protein is a choclate flavor yeah it doesnt tatse as good as a milkshake, but if i put a little Milk (dependeding on if you add it into your diet) it will fight off any tiny sweet craving i have and its still a protien shake.

So dont quit man, just start to find flavorings like sauces and stuff that have good nutritional value and begin to put them on the food that sucks...hey you might find a new recipe and can share it with us...good luck man, and dont give up

All of us have problems every day, but successful people don't allow the problems to interfere with their lives. They improve themselves to master the skills needed to beat the problems and carry on.

At the moment I cannot cope with the different aspects of my life. I'm weak.
I don't agree with this. The really successful people I've run into tend to fail most of the time. They run into setbacks, they are definitely affected by their problems, they have to cope with a lot of interference, and the word "mastry" doesn't really enter into it.

Personally, I think the big thing successful people do is, when they hit a setback or a problem that really hurts them, they regroup before they continue. They don't keep bashing their heads against the same wall; they are persistent and determined, but they try new tactics and new ways to succeed and reach their goals.

It's not that you're weak and they're strong and could handle what you handle without flinching. Everybody flinches. It's that you're not that different from each other in capability, and the people you admire acknowledge and learn from their setbacks, even if they do so privately, rather than just steamroll ahead blindly when they're in pain or running into opposition.

Give yourself some credit! You've done some great work and have overcome a lot of setbacks yourself. This is just another setback, not a breaking point. Not anything nearly so dramatic. Give it a good, long think, get a couple of good nights' sleep, and maybe try something new if you think the old stuff isn't working. You have lots of options.

But today I realised that I'm the slave of my own body, and my cravings are driving all the aspects of my life. And it's scary.
Maybe you've lost some self-control because of stress or something else that isn't working right, but you have the power to change your situation and free yourself of this stuff. Nobody's holding a gun to your head, and cravings, even really tough ones, aren't tantamount to such a thing. You're no slave.

It sounds like you need to do something to empower yourself.

On top of that I'm training for a marathon, which implies a constant source of stress due to the demanding daily training.
I agree that you might not be doing all you can to support your marathon training nutritionally, and I suspect you're not getting enough rest. The yang to the yin of training is recovery. Without one, the other is ineffective and spoils the whole.

My personal life is not fantastic, either, my girlfriend lives 1000 miles away, I see her every three months, we have been having a hard time lately, etc...
There's the rub!

Ugh, LDRs. Hate 'em. Terrible things. Disempowering in the extreme. I've done a few of those, and nothing else ever made me feel quite so impotent (knock on wood). But if you have a point in the future when you know you're going to be able to be closer, and you've decided you really want to be with that person, you've got to suffer through it, I suppose. Still, they're nasty, mutated creations and bad for the soul.

You definitely need to do something to empower yourself. I'm not saying something involving women; there are many options.

The marathon training is great idea, if you feed it right and get enough rest. You might also try other hobbies or pastimes, even taking classes. Do something you've wanted to do for a long time. Prove to yourself you can take control of your life, like you did when you lost that weight to begin with!

You're definitely capable enough, you're just in a rut, you just need to find an excuse to feel better about yourself.

I know the answer lies inside myself. I have to struggle through this issue on my own.
No, you don't. Your friends can and should help you through this.

It's not a matter of enduring a bad situation, it's a matter of making a bad situation better. It's not a bad mark on you that you ran into trouble, it happens. How are you going to react? Where are you going to go from here?

But you should react to it by attacking the source of the trouble rather than yourself. You don't turn the guns on your own troops when the enemy is coming (unless you're the Russians in '43, but I wouldn't use them as a model for personal improvement).

So dont quit man, just start to find flavorings like sauces and stuff that have good nutritional value and begin to put them on the food that sucks...hey you might find a new recipe and can share it with us...good luck man, and dont give up


right on! dont give up! i was sooooo close a few years ago, then something went down in my personal life that hit me like a train wreck...and it took me a whole year of eating fluffernutter sandwiches and pizza to realize that i had to get back to it. and it was a hard road back to where i was...in fact, it took me almost a year to regain the physique i had before i fell off the wagon. you dont want to go thorough that, now do you? the week off advice is sound...that always helps me when i get bored with training (or stop seeing results)

anywho, good luck and stick with it! (and always remember, soy sauce makes anything taste good :p )

It sounds like you just need a break for a bit. Why not take a week or two off and just not even worry about exercise, counting calories or whether or not you've eaten enough protein for the day.

I can tell you that in my opinion you should NOT be trying to train for a marathon and do a cutting diet at the same time. It's setting your body up to fail.

That makes sense. After giving it some thought, decided that maybe I've gone too far. Neither of the extremes are healthy. I've just come with a decission. I'm not gonna track my calories until the marathon is over, in 9 weeks from now. I'm gonna eat healthy, though, but if I fancy an orange, or a plate of pasta after running 20 miles, I'm not gonna deprive myself. You see, the problem is not that I don't like my healthy food. I love it. The problem is that I've been experiencing some periods of madness where I just ate the most unhealthy stuff for the sake of it. Like if my body were rebelling against the extreme caloric deficit. It was not that I needed a treat. For example, I've been eating chocolate muffins during some of my "attacks". I don't really like them very much. I never did. Actually, they suck. They taste like a mixture of sweet plastic and rotten oil. But it's very much like when some people crave things like paper or ashes. I honestly prefer a nice plate of cottage cheese with peanut butter and peach, or strawberries.

Anyway, I have a kinda self-destructive personality. I have to work on that.


Personally, I think the big thing successful people do is, when they hit a setback or a problem that really hurts them, they regroup before they continue. They don't keep bashing their heads against the same wall; they are persistent and determined, but they try new tactics and new ways to succeed and reach their goals.

I would say that that's precisely the definition of selfimprovement.

I agree that you might not be doing all you can to support your marathon training nutritionally, and I suspect you're not getting enough rest.

That's 100% true.

Ugh, LDRs. Hate 'em. Terrible things. Disempowering in the extreme. I've done a few of those, and nothing else ever made me feel quite so impotent (knock on wood). But if you have a point in the future when you know you're going to be able to be closer, and you've decided you really want to be with that person, you've got to suffer through it, I suppose. Still, they're nasty, mutated creations and bad for the soul.

At the moment, she is the woman of my life and I want to spend the remaining of my days with her. She is just amazing, but it is very, very difficult to maintain a relationship over the phone, mainly. I left my country two years ago. I'm finishing my Ph. D. hopefully this year. We've been together for seven years and after becoming a doctor, I want to get a good job and get married. But now I wonder if we could make it that far. The situation is very tricky ATM.

Thanks everybody for your kind replies. I needed to throw some of my pains somewhere and the forums seemed a more than convenient place. It's amazing how, after months of reading other people's thoughts, you make a picture of them in your mind and feel like you could tell them whatever crosses your brain regarding your personal vicissitudes.

Man, just want to say that you're notalone in this situation. That's what this forum is all about, to help each other, right? I've been in your situation too, just a couple of weeks ago. I've become an emotional overeater and always said to myself after stuffing myself, "Ok, that's it, now I'm going back to my normal eating habit". But that never happen, I believe it's a mental thing, that makes us think that we are depriving ourselves and we better eat all this now or we'll never be able to eat it. That's the wrong attitude, for me, what I did was forget counting calories and eat by portion size, enjoy the foods I ate and sometimes have a cheat food here and there, (almost everyday :lol: ). It's not making me ripped, but at least I'm retaining lesser water weight and I feel better about myself. Sometimes I still overeat, but I don't fell too bad about it, just a normal circumstance...(So I don't blame myself too much :D ). Just relax for a week or two, just get some exercise you'd enjoy and evaluate later... good luck man...
Oh and by the way, if you have the urge to bnge again, try drinking a tall glass of cold water... It works well for me.

There's enough in this thread already for you to digest (and this is stuff you can binge on!). FWIW all I can say is try something different. Health is not something you can give up on. I know that most people in our society have, but your anger and frustration over this issue indicates to me that you're not willing to settle, as most people are.

Nobody can adhere to this lifestyle perfectly every day, and those who get closest are normally those who's professions rely upon it (celebrity or something running a fitness business). It's naturally going to be an up and down thing. Really your goal should to maximize the ups and minimize the downs, but the downs (not wanting to workout and eating like crap) will always be there. You just need to not beat yourself up over them so much.

This can be difficult to manage. It requires a lot of effort for most of us, and when life is not otherwise going well it's just one more stressor on things. It's understandable if, say you lose your job, to not want to eat 1800 calories that day and hit the gym like one possessed. Dito if you're sick, etc.

Just try something else, whether it's training for a marathon or a cycling competition, or hitting a certain bench record or whatever. Take a break if you must, but I hope for your sake that you can't answer yes to the question "Am I content with following in the same path of health-destruction that most others are?". Don't aim for perfection; just aim for progress.

I think that this is a good decision. Hopefully by allowing yourself to eat more of the healthy carbs you need for intense endurance training, you won't feel the need to binge anymore. I suspect this will be true. It's possible that some of the eating is emotional, but it's more likely that your body is in a real PHYSICAL state of deprivation. Marathon training places enormous demands on the body. Training for a marathon on a traditional cutting diet, at least the way I used to train, is analagous to doing a normal cardio program (as part of a weight training program) while eating an extreme 1000 calorie a day diet. Good luck with your new plan.

QUOTE=Cziffra]That makes sense. After giving it some thought, decided that maybe I've gone too far. Neither of the extremes are healthy. I've just come with a decission. I'm not gonna track my calories until the marathon is over, in 9 weeks from now. I'm gonna eat healthy, though, but if I fancy an orange, or a plate of pasta after running 20 miles, I'm not gonna deprive myself. You see, the problem is not that I don't like my healthy food. I love it.