I had maintained a healthy weight most of my life, but my thirties have been a different story. Remaining thin does not equal healthy eating. I am the prime example of that. My relationship with food has always been unhealthy. I viewed it as a comfort, a friend, and a stress reliever. However, I have made more progress with my food challenges the last few years, and I hope to reach my goal weight by February or March. When dealing with a food addiction, log your Meals, plan all of your meals, get some physical activity daily and give yourself grace.
Log Your Meals
Keeping a food diary can be key to long term weight loss. When you are addicted to food, you overeat without realizing it. So use a journal or notebook to log every single thing that you eat every day. The best way to log meals and excercise is to use the My Fitness Pal app or website. My Fitness Pal is the easiest way to log your meals because it can give you the most accurate calorie readings for almost anything that you eat no matter where you eat.
Cancel Food Delivery Services
If you are addicted to food, using doordash, ubereats, or grubhub can tempt you to overeat more frequently. Deleting them will make it harder for you to access high calorie foods more frequently. When you do go out to eat, walk or drive to go get the food. This decision will make it more likely that you will eat at home more often and eat out less. But if you want to keep these services, you can limit how much you will use them.
Get Some Physical Activity Daily
You have to move your body regularly whether you want to maintain or lose weight. I walk almost everyday and this has helped me lose weight. If you want to go to the gym to tone up, great, but walking is quite effective. I combined the walking with logging my meals consistently and the weight came off. However, be patient if you only choose to walk. If you want quicker weight loss results, the gym may be the way to go.
Give Yourself Grace
If you have a food addiction, do not be discouraged. You can do this. Make small changes and you will see results. The results just may not be as quick as you thought. If you mess up on your daily calories, just reset the next day. Be Patient with yourself! Weight loss does take time and may take longer than you anticipate. Read Atomic Habits by James Clear to help on your weight loss journey.
Hope this helps,
Dominique Duarte