How do you develop healthy eating habits without a formal diet program? I have been trying to lose on south beach for some time and the weight loss has nearly stalled the last two months. When I went on WW I went completely crazy with all the food choices and ate everything in sight. When I'm hungry I seem to reach for the things I shouldn't eat and especially when expecting my period/having hormonal changes my cravings literally go through the roof! I've been told that my problems with multiple miscarriages is due to my excessive weight and that at a certain BMI (which I am very near) my RE will not work with me anymore. Despite all these threats I still seem to make poor food choices. Only when I hate how I look and can't stand to look at myself in the mirror do I stop the bad habits for a while (only till I lose those 5-10 pounds and then I go back!). How do you get control of yourself to do what you need to do???

I think that is a good question for everyone. What people don't realize is or at least for me is I am a food adict and when you are addicted to something say like cigarettes or alcohol it is really hard to quit but one of the things you do is stop using/smoking/drinking those things and stay away from where they are but how can you do that with food right?

I have yo-yo dieted from age 19 on and as I get older the harder it is to lose a lot of weight and the more I put on after I diet for a while. The best I ever did was on WW and what I did before I started was commit that I would not eat anything fried, would only eat good carbs like the veggies and wheat bread, wheat flour, etc. and only allowed myself two sweet stuff a week and just by making that change I dropped a ton of weight. Also which I firmly stand by I always scheduled weigh in for a Saturday morning and I made a deal with myself that if I lost I got the day to do what I wanted but if I gained or didn't lose anything I had to stick to the program and having that one cheat day worked wonders because I knew if say I was craving a cheeseburger and fries I could have it on that Saturday as long as I was good.

I also have read by just making some changes to your norm you will lose weight.

Good luck.

Dear Dee32,
thank you so much for your reply. I like your ideas about the three rules (no frying, only WW carbs and only 2 sweets). That may work for me. Part of my problem is laziness with cooking and it's nearly impossible to diet without preparing healthy foods. Not sure how to conquer that one. Oh, well. Got to overcome the laziness. Making that lifestyle change is really hard, because it's changing yourself, not just your lifestyle. Growing is hard (or in my case, reducing!). Anyway, thanks so much. Good luck with all.
shef

I am the same way. Part of my problem with not succeding is that I am lazy and do not want to cook or prepare anything but when I am hard core dieting the first few weeks I make it very easy for myself until I get into the groove of things and that is stock up on a lot of WW frozen dinners/desserts/snacks and get fruits and veggies and when I get home from the store and all motivated I cut up all of them and put them in serving size baggies.

Wow amazing how much I know about dieting now if I could only stick to it - lol.

I'm going to do that too (prep food like I do when I start a food plan). Thanks so much. Good LUck!

I devote at least 2 hours on Sundays to food prep and grocery shopping. I easily tire of foods--I need a lot of variety. I pick one or two fruits for the week, my fresh veggies of the week and whatever I'm going to cook. I usually make a soup (filling at the moment, or at least I can eat a pretty good volume of it without calories, etc) with 4 servings or so. I cut up my veggies and put into baggies. I wash my fruit so all I have to do is pick it up and eat it when I'm exhausted or snacky or just awnry lazy. I also prep the things I plan to cook for the week (marinade chicken or whatever). I almost always try a new recipe a week. There are lots of ways to get lots of veggies without salads--casseroles, soups, stir fry, sandwiches, mexican dishes, etc--and for low points. Most of the time I go ahead and cook the food so all I have to do is warm it up. I can be in a cooking mood if it is time limited, but everyday as soon as I walk in the door, DH is asking about dinner, I could just clock him. This takes some of the guess work and labor out of meals. Then I take it some to work and leave some at home--less eating out, saves money and calories.