My mind says eat healthy and two minutes later the same mind wants to eat unhealthy.

[MelbourneKevin]

Hi,

How can I stop binge eating unhealthy food? I desperately want to lose weight and lead a healthy life.

Kevin.

[MarkJT]

Kevin, excellent age of question. We love bad food because for the most part, it tastes good.

What I have done to lower bad food intake is to set myself challenges. i.e. go one day without chocolate and when i get to the end of the day without choccy, I re-assess, lets try for two days and so on. If you cave in and have some, that then is the record to beat, i.e. four days etc.

I removed the temptations at home also. No fizzy drinks, no cordial, no chocolate, no potato chips and replaced with green tea, nuts and wafers. Still have food to snack on without being bad food.

The key is calories in vs calories out. If you expending more out than in, you should not gain weight but if you are taking in more than putting out, you are a chance to put on more weight.

There are calorie apps that you can download which keeps count of how many calories you have had that day by the input you have put into the app. The key is you have to be honest though. Unfortunately a habit with a lot of people that are overweight is to eat in secret. Must be honest with yourself.

Are you exercising? Body movement is critical. If you see an escalator and there are stairs nearby, take the stairs. Get a fitness band or watch and set yourself a achievable level of steps per day you have to take.

You can also go to the GP and/or a dietician and discuss this as well. Get some advice on foods and when to have them and when to not.

For instance, when i was running marathons, I had a very high calorie diet as i was expending so much energy as opposed to when i am not as active, i lower the calories coming in.

Hopefully given you some pointers but I am here to answer any questions you may have.

Mark.

[Sophie_M]

Hi MelbourneKevin, this thread is a good place to start:

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/staying-well/encouragement-for-weight-loss-and-healthy-eating

[white knight]

Hi MK, welcome

Just like waiting for a depressive cycle to come about so to js the mental commitment period.

And when that arrives make sute its a permanent lifestyle change not a diet.

Today we did the shopping.

Pita bread compsred to normal bread. Pita is great fir low fat low sugar fops like hommus.

Chinese noodles. No fat no sugar.

Fruit and veg of course.

Snack? How about frozen dim sims steamed...low fat liw dugar with cabbage etc. We have bought the ingredients to make our own today eg shreaded chicken. We got cooked chickens...our dog can eat that yummy skin.

Dont buy anything higher than 5%fat. We buy a kebab. The halve it. Just lamb lettuce and tomato. Weetbix and allbran every morning. Low fat milk. Or omelette, 4 eggs but discard two yolks. Low fat ham, very little parmesan cheese and tomato.

Baked beans are good but no bread. In fact apart from pita bread no bread at all, nor spuds, sugar or fatty bacon.

Lost 5kg in one month.

We go chinesr but now shate one dish instead of one each.

Casseroles in the slow cooker gets rid of left over vegies. We grow as much as we can. A greenhouse is great.

We grew 42 pumpkins this season. JAP pumpkins are best. We make pumpkin soup. Add one teaspoon of curry powder...thats a secret!

If we have to fry we do it on our ribbed fry pan so fat doesnt soak into the food.

No batter, no crumbs, lots of herbs, no butter...ever!

We walk 4kms a day 3 times a week and we do it fast.

Hope that helps.

Tony WK

[ro63]

Hi Kevin , Jucing is great it gives you plenty of nutrition and is water heavy so fills you up longer and you can juice the veg you don't like to eat ,or the good old smoothy healthy super quick and fills you up too ,hope this helps , Ross

[ifallintofantasy]

hi guys i want to eat more health can you guys give me some tips. ive look you some websits the have tips for battling fatigue that come with depresstion but they all advice different foods. some say more protein, others say more vegs, some say omega oils im confuse - please me some advice thank you

[MarkJT]

ifallintofantasy, it really depends on what you want to do really. When i was marathon training (early stages of recovery from PTSD, depression and anxiety) i had a massive carbs diet however now that i am not running those distances it is all about carbs in vs carbs out, i.e. balance my intake of food to the energy required and used.

There is no way i would be eating those kinds of amounts of carbs now as it would be unhealthy for me and would stack on weight which may contribute to more depressive symptoms.

I would think a visit to a GP or dietician and have a chat about it would be a good way to go. That way you can have you BMI checked & blood pressure checked etc, talk about your established fitness levels, how active you are during the day and have that matched to a diet.

As you point out there are so many different diets and advice floating around, it is hard to narrow it down to what suits you, because what suits you may not suit other people.

Mark.