Food obsessed, always feeling guilty

Antonia one sentence of your post stood out for me - "I can't help regretting the days when I was younger and could eat anything".

The problem is that maybe those were the days when you were building up to your high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, and being a bit overweight.

It's hard for me to advise anyone as I am a skinny thing who has never had any weight problems or weight related illnesses. But please persevere with your "better" eating plan and I am sure you will see and feel the benefits.

Oh Gill I do sympathise. The first few pounds came off fairly quickly but now has slowed up and at least 1.5 stone to go.
We passed some lovely gardens on the way home today and DH said 'shall we go in for a . I said 'No' because they do such lovely cakes there and we'll be tempted.
Then he said 'I am missing chocolate' - he is not a chocolate person normally but I am.

Having an unhealthy 32 BMI to a 27 BMI and eaten a fantastic array of food without guilt. What is more, they have lots of lovely recipes so you can have all sorts of dinners and puddings which you can eat without guilt. I've gone from feeling totally anxious about what I am putting in my mouth so that even the naughty things weren't particularly enjoyable with the amount of guilt involved to someone who can just relax about it.

I've never tried low sodium salt devongirl but it sounds like a good idea.

Oh dear me too. Loads of food guilt even though I cook everything from fresh LOADS of fruit and veg almost no sweet things, but I get overwhelmed at times and long for chocolate or a cake- not today I am strong!!! (not) crusty bread and homemade veg soup for lunch, salmon stir fry veg and a small amount of rice for dinner and maybe a yogurt. Lets not talk about the wine!

What a wonderful philosophy Maggiemay, maybe I should market a cake stand with that sentiment painted on it!

Mmmmh cream teas! Had an accident last year after which I lost a lot of weight, and I treated myself guilt-free to scoanes with clotted cream and jam - my big treat to myself!

antonia I have never tried it, but you can get low-sodium salt these days, would you be able to have a little of that on your food?

I love afternoon tea, I could just eat something like that now

As a wise woman once said, just think of all those ladies on the Titanic who waved away the dessert trolley.

I hate all this feeling guilty about what we eat, and good foods versus bad foods! Hands up, I do need to shift two stones, and I am working on it ( less carbs, more exercise, alcohol only at weekends...) but don't you find that sometimes, the 'fun police' spoil things? An example; last week, I went out with 11 friends and acquaintances/friends of friends for an afternoon tea. All very nice, but almost without exception they were all 'oooh, I shouldn't eat this' or 'ooh, I couldn't manage all of that' and 'I will take that home for DH'.....(yeah right, we all know you scarfed it in the car on the way home). Personally, i don't think that four tiny sandwiches ( which equates to a round of sandwiches), plus one scone is a HUGE meal, so all this virtuous packing up of the two tiny cakes to take them home for later was really annoying. Yes, it was a high carb meal, but if that is the problem, don't go for afternoon tea! All the virtous waving away of cakes rather spoilt it for those of us who wanted to eat it. It is not as if this is an everyday event, it was a treat, and to be frank the behaviour of some rather spoiled the afternoon for a few others.

My DH has recently lost 12Ibs. I am so proud of him and it has all come off his tummy. He has stuck to 3 small meals a day and no snacks. He also aims to walk five miles a day.

I lost about a stone and a half on the 5:2 diet, and then stuck fast! Then we went on holiday and when we came back I started it again and didn't lose more than a few ounces. DH, who said he would keep me company, lost more weight than me! The only thing that I was eating that he was not was fish.

Antonia we were always recommended salt tablets many years ago if you lived in the tropics!

I do think your body needs some salt when the weather is very hot. (But I am not a doctor)

I can recommend the 5:2 fast diet, which is now second nature to me. It doesn't suit everyone, but for me it means I don't have to stint myself at all on 5 days out of 7. Of course I still aim to eat healthily, but I don't deny myself anything I fancy. It definitely brought down my blood pressure, and though I'm not losing weight on it now, it's keeping me at a size I'm happy with.

Hi everyone, I have only just come back to this thread so thank you for all your replies. (We are moving from France to the UK very shortly, so we have been a bit busy). About the 'guilt' thing. Because I have borderline diabetes and am on medication for it, I know absolutely that I shouldn't be eating carbohydrates. I try to limit them as much as possible, but still feel guilty if I have a few chips or the odd (shock, horror) biscuit. About the exercise, I know that walking is very good and does lower my blood sugar, but it is 35° in the shade here at the moment, so we stay inside with the air con on nearly all the time. Tbh, I will be glad to get back to the UK to a cooler climate. The blood pressure medication means that I shouldn't eat salt, but I am unwilling to eat flavourless food. My choice, I know, but for me, food is to be enjoyed and I can't enjoy it if it is completely devoid of salt. So, guilt again. On a positive note, I know that wine lowers my blood sugar fasting level, but then it's bad for the liver!! Oh well, I hope I can sort myself out when I move.

I agree, guilt isn't good, and just try and eat sensibly ( most of the time! )
With certain health issues though, being careful is the watchword.

Antonia Forget all these must eat, and more often, must not eats. There are no such things as 'good' foods or 'bad' foods. Almost every food stuff you can think of can be eaten by almost anyone, regardless, of health conditions, providing it forms part of a balanced diet.

What is a balanced diet? Well, I am a fan of the US food writer, Michael Pollen. He came up with a simple phrase to summarise healthy eating: Eat well, not too much, most of it plants

Do that and you can enjoy food, eat what you like, providing most meals contain plenty of fruit and veg, which fill you up so that you eat less of everything else.

Personally, I am suspicious about the way people feel 'guilty' about everything. I think sometimes the purpose of the guilty feelings are to enable us to get so churned up and obsessed with our 'guilt' that we can avoid taking sensible practical action to sort our problems our. We nurture our problems because we do not want to face solving them

No Black Forest Gateau paddyann? !!
Well done.

I blame the fact that I have always been the primary chef in this family and have always had to think about food, planning, shopping and cooking meals.
Someone once said to me that she got 'full up' with the smell of food when she was cooking and then lost her appetite.
I must say that it has not happened to me!

Antonia hi, I notice you use the word guilt a lot, do you get told by others if you indulge or are you feeling guilty because a dr has told you what to do for medical reasons or have you read articles in what we eat? You also say you should not ..rather than must not..
Now I'm not one to talk as I have issues but it jumped out at me that a little bit of what you fancy might be nicer for you, you don't seem any different to most of us re weight and yes of course be wary of high blood pressure, I am so familiar with eating the right food but still not feeling satisfied and it all gets really boring, do you exercise at all as my dr tutted at my intake but said because I walked every day it really reduced any risks from 'bad' food.
Please don't take my reply as anything other than friendly interest and not as a know all but guilt is a horrible feeling and I don't think you deserve it at each meal, pleasure is so much nicer!

Yes Ilovecheese it's your body and your health, but it's not true that you are not hurting anyone but yourself if you overindulge to the point you get diabetes or other lifestyle-related conditions.

I know what you mean, but if you think about it, it is your health and your body, so why should you feel guilty? You are not hurting anyone else. I think we have somehow got the the stage where we equate eating healthy food with being virtuous, but it is not.
We are not being "good" when we eat salad and we are not being "bad" when we eat chocolate.

Just had a non guilt inducing tea of avocado & prawns in sauce and my special (yes, you've got it), salad.

Good for you paddyann...... wot, no pudding? ?

I've recently cut out carbs and found it relatively easy,except when my OH walzes in with a huge french loaf .We had dinner out for our 42nd anniversary last night and I stuck to prawn cocktail and a simple fillet steak and salad so I was pleased with myself ,then I realised its probably what I would have ordered all those 42 years ago too so maybe I'm just going back to what I used to do and thats why its so easy...lol