Mea Culpa


(Ian Patey) #1

I just caught myself taking granola bar wrappers from the kitchen garbage and hiding them in the office garbage… what the hell is wrong with me???

Actually… I’ve been at this long enough to have the self awareness to start this conversation (if anyone wants to join in) about what is actually wrong with me without fear of retribution. If I’m
wrong consider these next few minutes a look into what might have been a journal entry in another life.

In as few word as possible… covid sucks. I went from 303 to 217 pre covid I sit at 248 now . Someone told me a 30lb “covid bump” was par for the course. But it doesn’t feel like that to me. This last year and a bit has not just put pounds on… it’s taken me off my game. To put it bluntly… its made it easy to cheat. And I know I shouldn’t and I know I’d feel better physically and mentally if I didn’t… but TBH I am mentally exhausted. So many stresses… so many changes… so much unknown as a business owner… employees at work leaving because this stupid virus has made them focus on what was important to them (good on them) and our work was not it. I’m tired. Chocolate tastes good. Potato chips taste good. This is hard. Doing this now, since last spring, is hard. LCHF/LCHP… you’ve asked too much of me. In this moment I feel done.

But at the same time I’m clearly putting this out there to garner the feedback I expect. I’m asking you to tell me to do what I already know to do. I just need that little bit of positive reinforcement. Someone … just tell me tonm get back on the horse…


(ANNE ) #2

Sugar is an addiction. I do the same, buy candy and eat it in my car.
The last couple of years have been a challenge in so many ways.
Take each day as it comes, and give yourself a thumbs up when you do make a good choice.


(ANNE ) #3

Oh yes, I forgot to say,
catch the horse, saddle it up, get your chaps on and get back on the horse. Giddy yup.


(Laurie) #4

Sorry you’ve had a rough go of it. The strait and narrow path is so much easier than giving in to temptation. Really. Prove it to yourself. Good luck!


(Lynn Weber) #5

Falling off track is all part of your journey. Forgive yourself and move past it when you are ready. Whatever you do…don’t give up the fight. The journey goes on forever.


(Butter Withaspoon) #6

You’ve already ridden this horse and ridden it well. You are still holding the reins. It sounds like you are ready to leap back on. Forgive yourself for every tiny piece of stupid non-food and buy some of your most favourite meats and vegetables. You can do it! Just think of the calming effect the next 2 weeks will have on your brain!


#7

Dude, I’ve done so many pathetic things to “hide” my binge eating over the years it’s stupid. Worst part is we’re hiding it from nobody! You’re FAR from the only one on this stuff!

I went from 300, to 200, to 285, and now I’m back around 200. Not fun regaining/loosing. My goal is/should be around 180/190, but this last stretch is hard. Although I’m leaner than I’ve been in a long time getting this last bit of will mean another strength hit which screws with my head huge. We’ve all got our hangups man. Just gotta keep on going!


#8

Lots of things taste good but it’s still fine not to eat them. We can eat other great stuff :wink:
Chocolate is totally keto by the way if you don’t eat the sugary kind.
I try to do carnivore, good thing it turned off my already tiny chocolate addiction…

Can’t you focus on great, very tempting food that is better for you? I may not understand your situation as covid did barely any change to my life and my favorite items are my carnivore staples but I have my moments and I never resist temptation, don’t even want to as it belongs to my core personality.
Practice helps. It doesn’t work always, we should do it when it suits us to some extent but if it’s not too bad and you don’t go crazy due to the restrictions, the more you do your chosen and kind of compatible-with-you woe, the easier it should get. You form new habits, your tastes may change, possibly even your priorities… And in the end you can’t mess it up too often and too much if you try. At least I see that in your life but it’s super slow with my attitude.
If it’s too hard, maybe you can relax your woe or bit. Or make it way stricter, I found the latter works better but sometimes I need my off times too. Needed? Maybe still, it’s fully mental and less and less important. My body is happy with no plants ever, actually.

I don’t know you so can’t guess what are the problematic points for you… You mentioned chocolate and potato chips… Too much carbs (unless you are good with tiny amounts… it can be learned, at least for some of us. I have items I shouldn’t touch but almost any not too processed thing is fine in moderation. our mind is an interesting thing, it can be content with the knowledge and the tiny flavor while saying no could make it rebel…), the sugar in the chocolate is another thing… If you want crunchy things, you can eat cheese whisps or fried bacon too and so many other things, it needn’t to be potato chips. Unless you want potato flavor, that’s tough as only potatoes have it. But if I can live without them (potato was a very beloved staple food of mine for decades), probably you can too.
Chocolate… First I used my homemade chocolate but to me it’s better to forget about it. Not a satiating food so I easily overeat using it… But I always depended on my sweets (at least on vegetarian keto… eating meat is like cheating, it’s zillion times easier and I liked my vegetarian keto. poor me, I knew nothing!) and now I call them desserts when they aren’t sweet… There are so many options! Some people use sweeteners, others use sugar (like fruit, I prefer cream and mascarpone myself, that’s even carnivore, yay. fortunately I am okay with lactose) and well, my latest chocolate was unsweetened (it took years, I kept lowering the amount of sweetener in everything as less and less was perfect to me)… It still was dessert just not sweet at all. It helps if someone likes chocolate because of the cocoa part… But some sweetener is better than giving up and eating sugar galore.

I always considered keto a long term, final woe. Or almost. It changed my attitude and I can be very stubborn and my very strong inner hedonist self always searches for ways to get everything it wants. I don’t (can’t) do sacrifices in my eating. But you can eat great stuff on keto. It was actually too indulgent for me, I had to go stricter and I must say extreme low-carb is WAY easier than my old keto (even if I would add meat). Because the carbs messed things up. One should choose their carbs well, it’s very individual which kind and what amount we can handle well.

You did keto for a long while, right? You know you can do it again. Most of us have harder times. Oh I had a whole carby summer after keto once. Well, low-carb (my previous woe) but still, too carby. Some days surely was quite carby, I have a fruit garden and fruits are awesome even if unneeded. I went off keto hundreds of times. But I kept practicing my keto and my older, low-carb habits, I kept changing… It was easy for me as high-carb was over when I went low-carb. Occasional days happens but I always run back to low-carb as it’s way better, more enjoyable. And I am a hedonist so yep, I stay low-carb for life.
So I just try and if I go off, I come back almost right away. And I rarely mess it up epically.
And I am no comfort eater but the best food is very low-carb anyway. It’s not hedonistic to eat sugar and feeling bad at all, why people do that? Not like I didn’t need MANY years to stop doing it occasionally but regularly… Stupid decades old habits. They often die hard. In my case, they didn’t even die until I ate lots of carbs (mostly vegetables).

Sorry, I had thoughts and wrote them.

Good luck! If you have some specific problem, tell us, maybe we can help. What is exactly where you mess it up? Can’t you eat something else in that situation? For many of us, being hungry and stressed is almost a hopeless situation. Eating some proper food first may help a lot!

Of course, don’t feel too bad. Most of us aren’t perfect regarding how we eat. We are humans.
You didn’t mess everything up. You surely have your little keto muscles :slight_smile: I become a horrible new person (well, old…) if I let too much carbs into my life but I stop and in no time I look like a disciplined one while I am anything but :smiley: I just want the right things and don’t want the bad ones. For a while, but that’s not a bad start. And it gets better with time.
For some of us, changes take a lot of time and effort and off times.


#9

I feel ya. I did it. Lost and regain the same damn 70 lbs quite a few times :frowning:

in the end every issue be it covid, which was devastating obviously and any other stressors in life are gonna just have to be ‘chalked up to excuses’ cause that is what they are.

It is a mental game mine field point blank.

Say every time you wanna eat junk…what do I want and what am I willing to get it?

for me it was health, I desired so strong to ‘change me’ and only way way to do it…stay the hell on plan! Do whatever the heck it takes in that moment to stay on plan and for me my ‘release’ was EAT ALL THE friggin’ on plan food I wanted at any time…never limit, deny or restrict or feel bad ever IF I ate all the darn on plan food I wanted…and believe me, some days I ATE so big it was scary LOL but it kept me on plan and not one shred of guilt or crazy mind games doing just that.

So yea, back on the horse but time also to ‘cement down in real tough terms’ what the heck do you want? All those lbs back to feel sluggy and miserable again? Nah. All the misery about ‘playing the dieting guilt games’? Nah.

one thing works if you desire change…be the change all the time you desire and you get results.

So it is a hard walk for many of us…I played the game til I stopped the pretending and excusing and said…I want…and my actions got me the results and I know in the end you just gotta keep working on you :slight_smile: and you will find your way.

wishing you the best forward!!


(Joey) #10

@Ian_Patey This might be of interest - not just relevant for women…

https://ketowomanpodcast.com/0196/


(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #11

This is perfectly natural behaviour for an addict. Carbohydrates, especially those of the sugar/grain/starch type, have an addictive effect on a percentage of the population, and you appear to be one of those people.

It’s not easy to cope with addiction. Many people find that they have to “hit bottom” before they can take the necessary action to deal with it.

Try some of the strategies used in A.A. and other Twelve-Step programmes: first, bear in mind that it is usually far easier to abstain entirely than to consume an addictive substance in moderation. Second, you don’t have to swear off for ever, just avoid your substance for right now. Promise yourself all the granola bars you can eat tomorrow, but just for today, don’t have any. Or just for the next five minutes, if you have to. Third, if you have any kind of faith, pray; trust me, it helps. And fourth, hang out, in real life or virtually, with people who understand. Such as us, here, for example, which you are doing.

Lastly, don’t beat yourself up. Addiction is not anybody’s fault, though we are all responsible for the consequences of our addictive behaviour (that’s a distinction that makes more sense, the more you think about it). So you don’t need to blame yourself, you simply need to do what you must in order to take care of yourself.


#12

Why are cars so much like alternate universes, small escape capsules from the perception of reality?


#13

Also, for a moment, I thought this may have been a vegan to carnivore conversion conversation with the classic title, “Meat Culpa”. Sometimes I ask too much of our forum.

But it does put me into a thought stream that is damned and dammed by a conundrum. That dang meme about insanity that is such an obstruction to reseating oneself on a metaphorical horse.

The attribution for the meme is not as important as it’s impact. The definition of insanity…

So, if a person falls off a horse, and in so doing knows what it took to ride a horse, and eventually ride that horse well, they may become obstructed by a false sense that the same steps need repeating with no guarantee of a future of repeated falls. If you fall enough, you, in the main, are flying.

So, if you fall from a horse, and find a fear obstruction at the remounting step, maybe saddle up a cow, or a kangaroo. The main thing is that you have already learnt how to ride.