What helped you to make a permanent change?

[gracezw]

For a few months now I have been journaling on what I eat, how much, failures, successes, what go through my mind, meditation, readings, and more, on a daily basis. That has made me nice and aware of everything to overcome my food cravings.

[Grammy Ginger]

Don't get me wrong, I am not particularly missing meat, but the meals including it. /// *** I have cravings for things I didn't even eat on a regular basis before trying this WOE. And my biggest problem I am not saying no when someone offers me something like this. )

1. Make those things but leave out the meat altogether...if you must replace try mushrooms or extra large canned butter beans

2. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Pizza or cake or hamburgers whatever you fill the blank with aren't as tasty as you remember or imagine.

3. The last one is curious to me. Why are the feelings of others more important than your health?


I say to myself in pressure-filled social situations, "Eat like that. Look like that." The word look can be changed to be unhealthy or have acne or stink. Have you noticed that meat, egg, dairy eaters stink!?

Choose to eat well because you love yourself. That is motivation enough for me. If it's not enough motivation for you, how about tons of energy or clear skin or eating enough to never feel hungry again AND not get fat ever again or not feeling the pains of aging or not losing your feet or eyesight to diabetes or not losing your hair (or bank account) to cancer or not dropping dead from a heart attack or not being incapacitated by stroke or or or or or...Health is motivation enough for me, and I hope it will be for you, too. Love yourself enough to feel and look fantastic. Plus, We love you here and want you to stick around.

[f1jim]

I struggle.....
I struggle with the concept of eating to please others. I cannot abide the feeling that I can be manipulated in my dietary regimen because others feel threatened by my choices. Do they eat to please me? Do they make dietary choices so I will look approvingly at them? That would be zero people in my world. I have a gut feeling I would lose respect from them if I gave in to their choices for me. There is a certain self gratification that comes with being the adult and making your own adult, informed choices. Any other path is like doing the popular thing in elementary school. It scores points but leaves you having doubts about your own self reliance.
I like to think my dietary choices are reasonably well thought out and sensible across all areas of health, the environment, and animal welfare. So making a decision to cave on my choices because someone might think less of me seems rather self defeating.
I miss going with friends to the pizza place but I really relish my ability to make adult, reasoned decisions and stick with them. Any other path would leave me disappointed in myself. I do have to live with myself not just with others but when I am alone. The idea that I caved to others and jeopardized my own health when I internally knew better is not an option for me. I made irresponsible choices as a teen. That's part of life. I like to think I make more mature decisions today.
This makes it much easier to make it a permanent change
f1jim

[gracezw]

Vintagesan, thank you for sharing more of your feelings.

Between you and your husband, there is the difference between eating plans, and there is also a relationship issue too.
May I ask why you wanted to try this WOE in the first place, losing weight? Any health issues? Or else?

For a while I have been doing MWL to get as close to my ideal weight as possible. And I am physically active.

[Vintagesan]

I already read your replies yesterday, but I wanted to think about it and to sort my thoughts because I have the feeling that I react quite emotional to this at the moment.

The things you mentioned, like my husband and my son eating a big pizza in front of me, were my situation when I started this post in March. It took me some time but I got my husband to a point where he accepted my way of eating and ate more and more of my meals, which I then used to prepare for the whole family.

When I started this my main reasons was the health benefits part.
I suffered from some strange things and was tired of hearing my doctors saying "Um, sorry but we don't know."
Yes, I was overweight when starting this, but I accepted this overweight a long long looong time ago. I knew I didn't have a model size, but this was okay for me. Until my husband started to lose weight.

While thinking about my feelings I came to that conclusion: My husband and me have been overweight together for quite a long time. That was simply us. He always struggled more with his weight than I did, so although we both had our excess pounds I still was the more slender part of us. Now, that I am in this situation on my own, I can understand my husbands' attacks when I started this and lost some weight. Because I think my main problem is not that my husband doesn't want to follow the McDougall plan - my problem is he loses weight and he loses it hell faster than me.

So, to put it into words, I am not frustrated because my way of eating doesn't work.
Anyway, I think I could still tweak a little bit more because after The Maximum Weightloss was finally released in Germany this year, I am now doing a combination of the Starch Solution and Maximum Weightloss. Maybe that's the reason why things don't happen as fast as expected. I was always okay with my weight, although I was overweight, but now it's the first time in my life I feel fat and ugly. My husband loses weight and he loses it very quickly. So in my opinion we are now that slightly overweight guy with his fat wife.

Seems I needed this post and your answers to focus the real problem.

[gracezw]

You might want to consult with JeffN and Dr. Lisle. JeffN would help you with the weight loss part, and Lisle would help you with the psychological part – what your best strategy would be as your husband is doing better than you in terms of losing weight.

[gracezw]

Your husband’s opinion and pressure affect you. And you have emotional pain. How are you going to handle it? Do you want to lose weight faster than your husband does, or at the same speed as he does, or take your time to work on and be patient with your health issues? Is it possible that you do both?

[Vintagesan]

You might want to consult with JeffN and Dr. Lisle.

Is this possible in written form? I reckon a phone or skype call could be quite difficult because we are living in different times zones. And in addition to that I am afraid my language skills are not good enough for a professional discussion. But I'd like to consult both, thanks for your idea.

I don't aim to lose weight faster than him and I am glad he wants to change something to get healthier. (Although I really do not think his way of eating is any healthy. But in his opinion losing weight is healthy no matter how you lose it.) The problem is for both of us the excess pounds were never an issue. My husband never told me to lose weight but since he is always mentioning his weight loss and trying to make me join his diet I feel criticized. It's all about how >>I<< can lose weight faster. I tried to talk to him about this, yesterday, but he made it even worse by saying "I am not criticizing you. But you can't be satisfied looking like that"
That actually sounds like "I am not pleased to see you like this" to me.

Well, "looking like that" was no problem for us in years. But now my appearance seems to be the problem.

[f00die]

fwiw, for years (half their marriage at least, 4-5 years)
my sisters spouse has outright told her to lose weight (she hasnt)
about 1.5 years ago they had a baby (awesome little girl)
recently she told me she thinks he's more into her than ever (whats not to like?)
during this time he's lost 20+ lbs by "meal prep" portion control (didnt "work" for her)
he was eating sausages and minimal veggies (disciplined dude, i dont envy him)
yup, btw, she'd rather not eat than eat beans (yeah)
idk, relationships are difficult (eating starch is much easier)

[gracezw]

Vintage:

“Is this possible in written form?”
== You can ask them.
Jeff Novick [email protected]
Doug Lisle [email protected]

You might want to talk with your husband about having your own personal and independent space.