Diet Mentality

[off-topic]

Hey guys,

I use to float around this site a few years back, things were going great, training seemed solid, I had my 2nd cycle under the belt, always felt like the gains were coming, be them small or large, all was good, my diet was mainly based around portion control and I ate what I fancied, in all honesty 75% of the time was just paleo... I personally felt amazing, on top of the world, physically and mentally.

Around 4yrs ago, I started a new job which involved a lot of travelling, and I just kind of stopped everything. Living in hotels 6days a week changed my life completely and I started eating rubbish, takeaway after takeaway, pre made sandwich whilst on the go, 1,000,000 coffees in the morning, you get the gist.

Over then past year I've slowly got back into the gym, and finally feel like I've got the desire to get stuck back into it properly, no longer travelling, decent work hours and the gym is 15mins away from my work.

BUT there seems to be 1 monkey I can't shift, I can't for the life of me fight the addiction to get away from crap food now a days, sugary drinks, packets of crisps, I'm just finding it really hard to say no, even when I eat decent meals at home or as a lunch for work, I can't stop snacking.

So my question to you guys is, how can i beat this? it was never a problem in the past, I'm jusy really I'm need of some advice in relation to how I could over come it?

Sorry for the rant, but I've really needed to get this off my chest for a while.

If you have spent the time reading this and commented, thank you in advance.

[Mr. Small]

I think if you spreads your cals and meals over 6 even sized ones every day, then you will snack less. About 500 cals per meal of clean food.

[tarmyg]

Generally speaking, this has very little to do with Diet and more to do with Behavioural change. Do not kill yourself over having a hard time as this is extremely common. Try to document the moments when you usually have these craving as they might correspond with other things, watching TV, socializing with people in a break room and so on. Once you have identified these culprits, try to change one of them, not all at once, one. Stick with that for a couple of weeks and then add another one. These smaller behavioral modifications have proven to be far more effective than focusing on the food itself. The funny thing is, sometimes nutrition and diet have very little to do with the food itself.

[MuscleScience]

All great advice!

A food log also helps too. For me, seeing how many calories a snack or an extra serving adds up to and how much cardio I would have to do just to burn that off makes me think twice about eating extra.

I use MyFitnessPal App, it’s very easy to use.

[Couchlock]

I'm struggling with this as well. Its terrorizing my mind every waking second. Like part of my brain is a fat man tempting me all the time.

[Chicagotarsier]

My cure?

1. Metformin...really removes the urge to eat
2. HGH...the additional fluid makes you get full super fast.
3. Broccoli...with the above two you never really get hungry because there is no room.

Yeah I still get the Behavioral stimulus that says..it is Saturday night lets order Pizza w/Mt Dew and game till the girls want to go to bed. It is like fat life is normal. I moved a smith machine in the house and go hammer it for 30 minutes when I feel hungry. Having emergency meals made (chicken broccoli and rice) and downing 250 calories usually stops a crving with me...a lot of broccoli in 250 calories.

[Cruising]

It is indeed to do with addiction. For the most part, whole foods are actually nicer than junk, but when you become accustomed to junk you get hooked on it. It's like when you drink Pepsi for ages then try Coca-Cola or vice versa, or move away from soda to water. It's really hard at first but then once you get accustomed to the new way, the old way seems bad. I previously couldn't image eating without a Pepsi, but now I legit feel as though cola ruins most meals.

Takeaways and fast food are usually good though lmao, KFC is always good... But for other food I think there's a big addiction component and it's not actually that great...

The way to beat it is to not cut it out, but to limit it, then you can limit it more and more. One junk meal per day, one junk meal every other day, one junk meal on a Saturday night... The other way to beat it is to find some good food you REALLY like. Like oven-cooked sweet potatoes, they're legitimately great.

[BrockBadger]

Hey guys,

I use to float around this site a few years back, things were going great, training seemed solid, I had my 2nd cycle under the belt, always felt like the gains were coming, be them small or large, all was good, my diet was mainly based around portion control and I ate what I fancied, in all honesty 75% of the time was just paleo... I personally felt amazing, on top of the world, physically and mentally.

Around 4yrs ago, I started a new job which involved a lot of travelling, and I just kind of stopped everything. Living in hotels 6days a week changed my life completely and I started eating rubbish, takeaway after takeaway, pre made sandwich whilst on the go, 1,000,000 coffees in the morning, you get the gist.

Over then past year I've slowly got back into the gym, and finally feel like I've got the desire to get stuck back into it properly, no longer travelling, decent work hours and the gym is 15mins away from my work.

BUT there seems to be 1 monkey I can't shift, I can't for the life of me fight the addiction to get away from crap food now a days, sugary drinks, packets of crisps, I'm just finding it really hard to say no, even when I eat decent meals at home or as a lunch for work, I can't stop snacking.

So my question to you guys is, how can i beat this? it was never a problem in the past, I'm jusy really I'm need of some advice in relation to how I could over come it?

Sorry for the rant, but I've really needed to get this off my chest for a while.

If you have spent the time reading this and commented, thank you in advance.

Ok, so you were fine before and did well... Then you had a hiccup-traveling and work happened... It would seem you could go back to this discipline. Basically, you did it before you can do it again. You've got to cut the sugary beverages out completely, as those are associated with disease... If it's discipline which some of this really sounds like it is then just start cutting back slowly... Start with the sugary beverage... Go to half the sugar of a beverage then 1/4 of the sugar of the sugary beverage. Or else go to diet cola... Then if you need to fruit juice until you can get to water...You're going to have to go through this again and get discipline back... Once you've done that, have any cheatmeal besides cola... You could have it multiple times a week to start. Even once a day... Then try to limit the cheatmeals to less... But if its not hurting your gains or loses and its not cola most cheatmeals are probably not that bad... So go for moderation of cheatmeals. And ultimately how disciplined can you be...So if your really disciplined like some then 1 cheatmeal or 2 a week if not so much disciplined then maybe 4 a week. To be completely honest, if your on gear then these average cheatmeals you should run right through for the most part... If you can gain a pretty sound diet with some cheatmeals even 4 times a week you should run through them... But yes you've got to get some competence back.

[off-topic]

Cheers for the advice guys! I am aware its simply a matter of addiction/discipline.

I've been using the Samsung health app on my phone to try and be more self aware of what I'm eating and how it's effecting me, and more in importantly (as suggested) have made more of an effort when craving sugar, to go for a sugar free carbonated drink. So far so good, and as we're all aware, it's the beginning that's always the hardest, I just need to carry on.