I want to want to be healthy, not even necessarily for aesthetics, just to be all I can be... To know I'm reaching the full potential.

Yet whenever I get a chance my heart skips in excitement at the thought of junk food.

I wish I could eliminate this desire permeanently. The past month was the best I've had in the past six months, but even so I'm about 5 days on, 2 days off (and those 2 days cancel out the five). I'm happier when I'm on, but my body's lusts are fulfilled when I'm off. So I'm happy when I'm off too, but when I'm off for too long of a time I get depressed & suicidal. Then when I'm on for too long I feel as if it's pointless and I don't care about weight loss anymore.

I wish I could remove this 'lust' but I guess it's impossible. The good must ride with the bad, and all I can do is try and minimize the dark spells... but it's tough to just accept it when it cancels out all my progress. I find that it has a life of its own.

I also think I might have binge-eating disorder because when I'm off my plan, I go way overboard. Usually with addictions someone has to hit rock bottom before they can pick themselves up... Once I tried to fight a box of cookies so hard, it was impossibly hard. Finally I tossed them in the garbage. Later I went garbage diving to retrieve the cookies. Maybe that's rock bottom?

My best shape was last summer when I was 179 lbs and lost over 30 pounds. I was dumb to fall out of it, and dumb not to take any pictures. I wish I didn't take it for granted. I wish I could make it a lifestyle change and stop letting good-looks be my primary motivation.

I know exactly how you feel, I'm the same way. These last few months I've fallen off and gotten back on wagons, but each time I come back feeling more inspired. I don't always say no to a helping of pudding or a beer, but I'm far less hung up on it than I was. Knowing that I'll feel bloated and hungover the next day is enough to keep me away from excess.

Sometimes I wished I was stronger, or a better person, and more able to resist temptation- but at the same time feeling good from being fitter is a strong motivation in itself. Moderation is sometimes a better way to do things. Overall consistency is the important thing. Five days on, two off is better than seven days off. :tu:

-Take pictures now. Right now.

-Weigh yourself and record it

-Set a specific exercise plan

-Plan all your meals for the next week, and sometime before the week is over, plan your meals for the week after

-Get a vision in your head. A specific incident that's going to happen soon after you've achieved your goal. Perhaps you're going to get out of a pool or something, and every one is going to turn their head at you because of your 6 (8?) pack. My vision involves walking into a room filled mostly with people who haven't seen me in months. They're stunned.

-Find pictures on the net of your ideal body. Keep them with you along with your starting pictures.

-When you see junk food. DON'T EAT IT. THINK ABOUT YOUR GOALS. FOCUS ON THAT VISION THAT YOU WANT SO BAD. If you continually eat the junk food, that vision will NEVER happen. But, if you stay the course, that vision WILL HAPPEN. Guaranteed.

-Perhaps go to the gym earlier. It's a lot harder to cheat after you've already put in such a great work out in the gym

I want to want to be healthy, not even necessarily for aesthetics, just to be all I can be... To know I'm reaching the full potential.
The choice is yours. That is the way life is, daily by the minute choices. You control your actions, no one else does. The past is gone, only today and the future counts. Actions are a thousand times more important than emotions and thoughts. Choose and act.:tucool:

The same strategies do not work the same way for all people. If I'd have attempted a John Stone-like transformation, I would have failed miserably. I'm an emotional eater too, but instead of forbidding those foods, I look into possible options for them, or I allow myself only tiny portions of them. Instead of taking cheat days or cheat meals, I usually have some kind of small treat built into each day. Then it doesn't lead to bingeing.

You probably can't eliminate the desire permanently, but you can squash it down so small that it's insignificant. Ten years ago, I drank about 5 cans of Coke and day and rarely went a day without a chocolate bar. Now, I can limit my chocolate to about once a week, and I've been able to completely eliminate my Coke habit. I didn't do it overnight; I did it with gradual changes.

With the cookie issue, did you try distraction? If that happened to me, then I'd tell myself "You can have two cookies after you go on the elliptical for 20 minutes." Quite often, I didn't even want the cookies after that, but if I did, and if I still felt like having more cookies, I'd say "You can have two more cookies after you wait 20 minutes." Rarely has the craving ever lasted that long.

i havent read all of the above responses..although im sure its all good advice...

but if you WANT to change then do it...thats it..there is no secret is it easy??..hell no..is it fristrating sometimes YES....but what you WANT has to out weigh wanting to go through a drive thru...

working out has to out weigh sleeping in....

become addicted to your body ..not french fries...nobody said you had to give up all bad food...make your changes slowly....if your doing it right i promise you will become obsessed with what goes in your body..if you do your recearch the changes in your body will keep you motivated...a year ago i weighed 330 pounds...330!!!!!todya i weigh 204......i could have sat back and gotten fatter all year...but youve got to say FUCK that...and take control...you are stronger than what your mind tells you ..

the bad news is nobody is gonan do any of it for you ...

DO IT NOW..STRIKE HARD!!!

and for gods sake take it one day at a time...

just like guava said...find alternatives for when those cravings are too much

I've taken to making a cottage cheese based ice cream/pudding snack that is freaking delicious...almost as good or better tasting than much of the junk that I eat

satisfies my junk cravings but doesn't harm my cut

good luck

I dropped my weight 12 years ago. I still love junk food as much as ever. I just don't allow it in that often. I eat cleanly for 5-6 days in a row and then will slack for a day. Or, I load my calories so that I'm eating really light early in the day (currently I'm doing so much exercise that light for me is 1800 before supper) and then eat more at night.

The lust for junk will probably never go away. You may think it has, but it's there because it satisfies our instinctive need for lots of tasty calories.

Take things in moderation and count calories (that's what works for me, though for others it may not work). The longest I have gone in years without having a cheat day is 9 days and yet I can still get all the results I need because I allow and welcome those in.

More than this, you have to make the decision to stop indulging as often. Do you want to be thin and healthy or fat and unhealthy like the majority of adults? Decide which school you want to fit in with and take the necessary steps. It was not "impossibly hard" to resist the cookies. If somebody was going to kill you if you ate them, they'd have stayed in the garbage. Their attractiveness simply outweighed your desire to achieve your weight loss goals. It's that simple. You don't want it enough right now, and until you do, the cookies will continue to win. Remember, this is a constant struggle and effort for all of us. You can never "win"; you can merely continue to fight.

the other thing that helps is not having the cookies around in the first place...it's a lot easier to resist them if you have to go and buy them, first

http://www.intense-workout.com/weight_loss.html

http://www.intense-workout.com/diet.html

http://www.intense-workout.com/motivation.html

http://www.intense-workout.com/cravings.html



Reading these helped me a lot. The last one is a tad 'tough love' style but I respond the that well, you might too.

Read 'em for there is a lot of great information there.

Good luck.

Write down your goals and plaster it all over your house/apartment!

I can't stress how much of a difference that has made for me personally!

Thnx for all the tips, I will try them and try harder. By the end of the summer if all goes well I'll be just as I was the end of last summer, the fittest I've ever been :tu:

Try to look at it in the way that your happy when you have done your best instead of how well you have changed your appearance.

Not everyone has genetics to look outstanding but we all can look pretty dam good.

Instead be happy and content when you only do one cheat day a week and strive for that as your motivation.

I know the suicidal part and feelings of worthlessness very well.My lust goes past junk food into hardcore drugs.Ive been clean now for 3 years and can tell you that many times I crave giving up and going back to that lifestyle but I always think back in my mind of how I will feel in a years time.

Junk food isnt that bad so dont fret it but strive to reduce to one day a week.Strive to do 6 days of healthy eating and exercise and hey let loose for one day....you deserve it.

Well I took some pictures, it's very motivational I imagine as I make progress I'll see what a fat tub I became. It's hard to believe my belly was that big but when I took the pics it became clear.

Also I was close to eating some cold pizza but I didn't. I whispered to myself that this is a 'lifestyle' change. And when I saw a delicious bubbling pepperoni pizza commercial, I didn't think of how good it would taste like I normally would, instead I thought of how bad the food hang-over would feel.

Hopefully this 'conditioning' will continue on.

Also I was close to eating some cold pizza but I didn't. I whispered to myself that this is a 'lifestyle' change. And when I saw a delicious bubbling pepperoni pizza commercial, I didn't think of how good it would taste like I normally would, instead I thought of how bad the food hang-over would feel.



Oh that will get better. I used to LOVE chips. All kinds and all flavors.

Two weeks into my better eating patterns, I didn't want them. Now, I haven't eaten a single chip in 5 months. I wouldn't eat them if they were free of calories.

I know this is going to sound redundant but drink lots of water.

I also found that for a feeling of "fullness", SOUP works better than water. Especially if it is a soup that contains food items of small size.

In many cases junkfood is a "state of mind" as far as need.

We live in a burger and snack-food culture that is openly embraced.

We are told that happiness is food in this urban jungle.

And we like the "quick-fix" for pain and discomfort.

Not much shrift is given to making good nutritious food palatable and tasty.

The food companies dwell on marketing attractively packaged s**t.

But they could just as easily come up with fast-food type packaged wholesome food.

The fact is, to me there's a lot of good tasting natural food out there:-

Most kinds of nuts
Untoasted whole grain breads
Honey
Bananas
Low-fat milk
Whey shakes
Turkey Jerky
Unsalted butter
Yellowfin Tuna
Sockeye or Pink Salmon
Pork tenderloin
Lean Steak
Chicken Breast
Turkey Breast.
Roast Potatoes
Broccoli Slaw
Raw Peppers
Types of Yogurt
Pita bread
Swiss Cheese
Mozzarella Cheese
Dark Chocolate.
100 percent natural Jams
Wild Rice

to name just a few.....

I would rather eat any of those than an "everything-on-it" Super Dog-Barf Deluxe from Pizza-Sphincter.

Thnx for all the tips, I will try them and try harder. By the end of the summer if all goes well I'll be just as I was the end of last summer, the fittest I've ever been :tu:


"No. Do, or do not. There is no try." You either will or you won't. There can't be any room up there for this try business not because it will make you fail but because it will make you succeed. You'll do your best. You'll give it your all. You'll try and you'll succeed at trying and that's fine if all you want is to give it a whirl. There's no way but success if you try. Failure is everywhere when you set out to accomplish something. Everytime I find myself saying things like "I need to..." or "I'm going to try to..." I realize I'm in a terrible spot of trouble and have to beat myself out of it.