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New Here...need advice

Kellybean

New member
I've been working out for over 4 years now and I really like the way I look....except I have a carb-addiction - especially sweets. I want to get abs but just can't seem to give up chocolate. I don't have the willpower to stop eating sweets. Any advice on how to fight this addiction would be helpful. How do you ladies find the willpower to say no? Thank you in advance.
 
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:arty: WELCOME TO EF!!! :arty:

You can start with the stickies at the top of the forum as there are some great links to diets and different variations to those diets.

One thing I've learned from this site is that "Abs are made in the kitchen." I thought it sounded silly at first, then I began to realize just how true it is.

I love chocolate. In order to quench that constant desire that I have for chocolate - my whey shakes are chocolate and I have it usually in the evening.
 
I know that abs are made in the kitchen but my downfall is sweets. I just wish there were a trick to get over my cravings.

I used to drink chocolate protein shakes but got so sick of them. I now drink either the banana flavoured ones or I love the iced tea ones.

I guess I just have to find willpower somewhere....
 
Its a little bit of willpower, but its more a change of mindset and lifestyle. I do go thru phases where I can't look at another chicken breast & Ben & Jerry seem to be my best friends, but I also swing the other way and have no desire to even look at sugar. Granted my lifestyle w BB competition has moved me to the extremes of dieting as well.

I would suggest that you start by taking a look at where you are now & what tweaks it takes to move towards a more productive lifestyle. Here I mean that there is a biochemical reason why we crave sweets, i.e. 'comfort food' when we get depressed or whatever. Food & mood are tightly related. But also if junk food is a regular part of your diet, the the craving is already established -- anyone who has moved away from the junk food & cleaned up their diet will tell you that after a while you don't even want your allowed cheat meal because it makes you feel like shit. In other words, if your diet includes a certain degree of chocolate, your body has learned to accommodate that and actually sort of expects it. I love chocolate. I love sugar. I used to be able to eat ice cream by the 1/2 gal in one sitting. Now, I've done several rounds of competition diet over the last few yrs - I occassioanally like chocolate but right now it gives me a sick sugar buzz that actually makes me feel sick and panicky for at least 3 hrs. Ice cream - forget it - I can't digest lactose anymore and that makes me feel bloated and backed up for 2 days -- so I actually start feelinig sick to my stomach if I look at ice cream. Basicaly I've removed these things from my diet and my body has responded by running more efficiently metabolizing clean food. Simple sugars, heavy fats & processed foods absolutely destroy me now because my body doesn't normally process these anymore.

I hope that illustrates the route away from teh sugar cravings. It is a time-dependent process to "train" your body to run more efficiently. It can accommodate almost any change in eating behavior - for the worse or for the better - that's the cool thing about how the body works -- it adjusts to accommodate a trend - for ex, if you take the apparent route towards 'losing weight' that so many people do --- eat less - like drop your total calorie intake below say 900 cals. Sure, you will start to lose weight because your body neeeds to run on somethign - and once it burns thru the little bit of food you consume, it will start to eat thru your bodyfat AND your muscle mass. That's how you get that "skinny fat" look. But your metabolism will also respond by recognizing that the limited cal intake isn't just a one-day thing that it can accommmodate but rather this is how we are living now --> to your metabolism and its survival mechanisms, this now looks like you are livinig in a drought scenario and it will slow down the burn rate to preserve as much energy (bodyfat) as ti can - that's why you see people on these starvation diets who then start to complain about how they can't lose anymore weight -- its all slowing down.

If you disconnect your goal of "want abs" from the method of "change lifestyle" and tie it only to "i crave sweets and can't stop eating them, I must be a complete failure" -- you are basically saying "i'm a victim of myself". That doens't help anything. If you can step back from that way of thinking and allow that that you can actually make changes so you aren't a victim and you can't even keep yourself from eating shit food. Here's a couple thoughts :

-- takes about 3 weeks to change a habit - can you give yourself 3 weeks to try and make a couple changes in your diet and not freak out and feel completely helpless if you have the urge to eat some shit food and then feel bad about yourself afterwards?

- can you take the time to post up what is your typical day's meal plan? It helps to look at what you are eating - because your cravings may be a response to something that you are eating now or even if you aren't eating enough and your body says "FEED ME MORE" and you interpret it as "i need chocolate".

- also keep a "food diary" -- along w/ writing down what you eat & when youe eat it, note how you FEEL when you eat -- i.e. are you depressed when you go for the chocolate? Are you bored? Are you stressed? Is there some state of mind that your behavior sends you to respond to it by eating chocolate? If you can identify that, then you are one step ahead of understanding why you go for the junk food. Then you can maybe learn other ways to deal w/ the state of mind - ie. if you are stressed - go for a run, hit the gym, eat fruit instead - somethign other than your simplest, easiest response of "eat chocolate". LIke I said -there is a direct relationship between mood and comfort food -- it makes you feel better immediatley, but the consequences -- the increase in bodyfat, the post sugar-rush crash, etc. are all not worth those first few minutues of "relief".

Basically I'm sayign take a look at the big picture - your body doent' chcange in response to changing just one item in your life -- i.e. these protein shakes or whatever. There are lots of things that are tied together that may promote your "need" for chocolate. Identify them, make a coupel small changes at a time, keep those change in place for 2-3 weeks and you will find that eating the junk food simply doesn't "feel" as rewarding as it apparently does now and you eventually move away form it, feel better, and generally things head where you want.

Hope that helps some -- you need to look just a little deeper than "I have no will power, therefore I will be a fat fuck the rest of my life".. That's attitude is completely self-defeatiing and absolutely not the way it has to be. And it also doens't have to be a painful transition out of the chocolate dependence - just takes a little thought, effort and give it a few weeks of HONEST effort to see the results. I mean what happens if you eat the chocolate? You don't die. You just pay a little more attention next time - get it all out of your house, away from you, replace w/ some better snacks, stay busy and keep your eye on where you WANT TO BE vs where you are. If you don't eat the chocolate, then will you feel like you are cheating yourself out of something? So what? Don't focus on the damn chocolate. Get out of your head and just make it a non -issue.

In the meantime -- I'm sure you are looking for some magic pill or somethign that will help w/ your chocolate craving --- they dont' really exist -- but if you want to try an appetite suppressant --- VPX Dietex has worked for me for competition diet - it is Hoodia-based and doens't have any other sides other than it just kills your appetite. But note it doens't work for everyone - works great for me, others don't notice a difference.

But if you can start by posting up your daily meal plan, use a food counts program like www. fitday.com to see what you are REALLY eating right now. There could be a couple easy tweaks right in there that you can do to change everything very easily.
 
Exactly as what has been said, it gets down to identifying the problem behavior.
Identify when it happens, then as you pick up a pattern of "when", you can figure out "why".

In the end, will power is something that has to come from inside of you (it cant be bought in a bottle), but you can go a long way toward helping build up willpower by finding out why you are weak when you are weak.

I can guarantee you that there is something at the root of the craving other than just a desire for chocolate, when you find out what it is you can deal with it and give your will power a kick in the rear!
 
Often what looks like it needs to be "willpower" is really just making a change in your habits & lifestyle that make the change you are trying to make almost a non-issue as opposed to somethign that appears unattainable except w/ some magical will power.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I am seriously going to try to change my sugar habits. I eat pretty clean, lots of chicken breasts, eggs, salads, etc but I just have to fight the urge to eat junk. I have a goal to have abs by mid-July- I'm hoping that if I have a goal, it will make it more attainable.

BTW, I'm 5'3, between 110-115lbs, unsure of bf% but the most recent measurement was approx. 16% (I think), Weight training 5-6 days/week (one body part a day), 3 days cardio (pretty lazy about it).

Again, thank you.

Kelly
 
Sometimes "cravings" are also just your body's desire for more food. Are you sure you are eating enough? If you are not eating enough, your body will "desire" certain things just so it gets fed.

What SPECIFICALLY are you eating and when? details details details.
 
Daisy_Girl said:
What SPECIFICALLY are you eating and when? details details details.

This is for the weekdays, as I don't wake up early on my days off: For breakfast at around 6:30am, I usually have a couple of scrambled eggs with cheese and water with metamucil. Around 9:30 or 10:00, I will have a granola bar (I know it's all carbs but I really enjoy them). 11:30 or 12, I will have some lean meat with either rice or sweet potato and maybe spinach salad. 3:30 - 4:00, I will have a protein shake. And then when I get home at 5:30-6:00, have more lean meat with either sweet potato or rice, and sometimes broccoli. I then go to the gym. I also drink about 2-3 litres of water a day. I try not to eat anything past 7:00 but sometimes will have either a protein shake or some meat if I do get hungry (this is when I crave the chocolate). I try not to eat ANY carbs past 7:00. My weekend diet isn't much different, except when I totally cheat!!
 
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So you try not to eat after 7pm and then your first meal is about 12 hours later? THAT is a big problem. Your body is starving itself - and catabolizing the muscle you work to get. Going without food for 12 hours - during a prime rebuilding period (while sleeping) - is asinine. Muscle is built *after* your workout, not necessarily *during*.

Also - where are your fats? I basically see no fats - maybe a little in the scrambled eggs and cheese - but I bet you think you have to use fat free cheese.

Not enough veggies. Nowhere *near* enough.

Drink more water - you need at least 4 liters a day (~1 gallon).

I highly suggest trying www.fitday.com so you can see how many calories you are eating and what your macro breakdown is. I have a feeling it is way off.
 
You should add some complex carbs in with the first meal.
You should take a look at the portion size of the carbs with your dinner meal... if youre cause flucuations in your blood sugar levels you could be triggering a craving for carbs.

Also, no carbs after 7 is smart, no food after 7 is not. Fat burning is still a metabolic process, and that process needs fuel... youre probably catabolising a lot of muscle, slowing your metabolism at night and causing insulin spikes during the day.

Granola bars are pretty much just crunchy candy bars, you say you really enjoy them, but you have to decide what direction you want to go it. Do you want to go in the direction of eating adn doing what you love, or do you want to move in the direction of achieving your goals? Only you can make the choice.

You need to add in healthy fats, more comlex carbs and try and make every meal have a representative of each three macronutrients. I dont think you are so low in bodyfat yet that you can benefit from any sort of extreme diet. I think you just need to learn proper diet techniques and prioritise.
 
Kellybean said:
I've been working out for over 4 years now and I really like the way I look....except I have a carb-addiction - especially sweets. I want to get abs but just can't seem to give up chocolate. I don't have the willpower to stop eating sweets. Any advice on how to fight this addiction would be helpful. How do you ladies find the willpower to say no? Thank you in advance.

Hey chica. Alright, I'm going to be as nice as possible about this -- but I actually have beef with the whole will-power thing.

I honestly don't believe in will-power. You either do it or you don't. Did I believe in it for a long time? Yes. But ultimately, I faced myself and realized that "lack of will-power" -- for me at least, and this might not be you -- is really just a bunch of excuses.

When did I "see the light" about this? Feb. of this year. I plateaued with WeightWatchers... and then got some help from Ulter and I remember this moment where it was clear:

He said to me "You'll start tomorrow with morning cardio, 60 minutes, before work."
Me: "But that means I'll have to get up at 4:30am..."
Him: "Do you want it or don't you?"

That was it. :lightbulb: I did want it -- bad. I wasn't about to look like someone who didn't care.

Again, this might not reflect your sentiments -- but sometimes you just have to ask, "How bad do you want it?" Am I always perfect about this myself -- hell no... but you have to start somewhere.
 
T-Cake said:
Hey chica. Alright, I'm going to be as nice as possible about this -- but I actually have beef with the whole will-power thing.

Me too... but I was also trying to be nice, lol.


(BTW, are you who I think you are? :D At a bar, a couple of weeks ago... does that ring any bells???)
 
Everything the above ladies have posted is really good advice, they are a really smart helpful group. I am in the same boat and have acutally felt physical results from not eating sugar. Try to avoid triggers that would make you want to eat chocolate. Think about the hard work you put into your cardio and also think about the fact that a few Hershey's kisses will equal more calories than you just burned on the treadmil. But, if you must eat chocolate, stick to darker chocolates.
 
The_Monster said:
Me too... but I was also trying to be nice, lol.


(BTW, are you who I think you are? :D At a bar, a couple of weeks ago... does that ring any bells???)

YES! A big, stinkin' bell! :) Heyyyy :) That was so cool hangin' with all you guys :)

msam76 said:
Everything the above ladies have posted is really good advice, they are a really smart helpful group. I am in the same boat and have acutally felt physical results from not eating sugar. Try to avoid triggers that would make you want to eat chocolate. Think about the hard work you put into your cardio and also think about the fact that a few Hershey's kisses will equal more calories than you just burned on the treadmil. But, if you must eat chocolate, stick to darker chocolates.

That's actually a great piece of advice! When I first shifted to my 'no-junk phase'... I started be choosing my 'junk' wisely. If I was going to have chocolate, it was once a week and ONLY dark and DEFINITELY something worth the money. A Hershey kiss vs. a piece of dark chocolate truffle is such a huge difference and much more satisfying. SO I guess during your transition phase, try that out. Cut down to one day a week (then you're really looking forward to it and you'll be more apt to choose the BEST items) and really focus that day on how hard you worked all week and you're too good at that point to blow it on junk.
 
T-Cake said:
YES! A big, stinkin' bell! :) Heyyyy :) That was so cool hangin' with all you guys :)

I had a good time too! I hadnt seen Ulter in so over a year, I missed him!
If you need anything you know how to get a hold of us (well, you know how to get a hold of CG, and he can get a hold of me). We'll keep an eye on you while the big dog is in the "O"!
 
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