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Whenever I've tried to lose weight, and denied myself everything, I always wound up gaining the weight back because I depended more on willpower than on my ability to punish myself by not dealing with my eating realistically. It took you all your life to get to where you are now, and you won't change it overnight, and you won't change it by asking yourself to do the impossible.
You have to give yourself permission to eat something you really want to eat once a week, or twice a month. Whatever you think you can stand. But you have to have rules that you follow. The rules have to do with the amount of the food, and the frequency with which you eat it. This is where you have to be rigorously honest with yourself. But the whole idea is not to reward or punish yourself, but to have a food program you can stick to, that doesn't punish you for ever being overweight in the first place. Our shame really gets us into trouble when it comes to doing what we can realistically do.
So pick only a couple of favorite foods. Mine were ice-cream, and pastries. I had ice cream twice a week. But I fasted twice to 3 times weekly in order to have it. And it was worth it to me. I also allowed myself to eat real pastry every six weeks. My fasts were not total fasts. I had healthy fresh fruit drinks, or carrot apple juice, twice, or 3 times on a fast day, and I drank lots of water.
This worked for me. That was 4 years ago, and I lost 60 pounds the first 14 months and I haven't gained it back except for 15 pounds that I did lose in about 6 weeks.
But most important is to know what you are eating over. Once you stop overeating, all the feelings, emotions, fears, shame, etc., that you ate to hide from come barreling to the surface. Get in touch with those things. Once you do, you may find you're not as hungry as you think you are. Deal with them one at a time, and take as long as you need to for each thing. But resolve them. Until you do, you're just putting your weight in a bank until you need it again to help you not to face something else. Believe me. I know what I'm talking about. People with addictions have to change. They have to find out why they are eating, and face the reality that it's not just a bad habit.
You can do it. I know you can. Just find the person you really are, and be that person.
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