negativity and the need to self destruct

I am a restarter after having a baby and am in my second week. when the pounds start falling i get a voice in my head telling me that this is such a silly extreme diet and why bother. does anyone else have these doubt? below is an extract from my diary (which is in the returners forum).

"day 12 and WOOOOHOOOOO. i am buzzing! never felt so good, really!.

yesterday after i posted in the morning i had a miserable day. full of self doubt and self destruction. by 5pm i was in tears and convinced i was doing a stupid diet and would regain everything. then looked on the SW forum here and saw a post about someone who did CD then regained everything and SW people were saying how terrible this diet is. i am planning on doing SW when i have worked up the plans but i became terrified that i would regain everything.

ended up reading an interview by coleen nolan which she said that doing LL was a horrible mistake and when she stopped she piled all her weight on again! I made myself feel so crap. i didn't cheat at all though and have woken up today feeling really good.

why do we self-destruct like that? I know that weight regain is common to every single diet unless care is taken, so why does CD get such bad press. yes it is hard, but all of us on here need a massive round of applause for doing it. its hard, emotionally and physically.

today i feel brilliant, had water and shakes and have lost 3lbs so far this week and weigh in is not until sat so hoping for another pound off! no hunger and most importantly no bad feelings or voices in my head telling me i am so silly. also spent time on doing a fitness dvd which really helped with my mindset and gave me some much needed endorphins. I have had some really down days these last 12 days and hope i have now turned a corner and can deal with any bad thoughts i have. on CD i find that its the bad thoughts and head hunger which is harder to deal with than the actual diet itself????"

leeds123 said:

I am a restarter after having a baby and am in my second week. when the pounds start falling i get a voice in my head telling me that this is such a silly extreme diet and why bother. does anyone else have these doubt? below is an extract from my diary (which is in the returners forum).

"day 12 and WOOOOHOOOOO. i am buzzing! never felt so good, really!.

yesterday after i posted in the morning i had a miserable day. full of self doubt and self destruction. by 5pm i was in tears and convinced i was doing a stupid diet and would regain everything. then looked on the SW forum here and saw a post about someone who did CD then regained everything and SW people were saying how terrible this diet is.

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Oh, urrrgh, been here and got the t-shirt. Several times. In fact, I've got those bl**dy t-shirts in several different sizes because I've had exactly these thoughts you describe at various points in my dieting career...

I think the first thing to say is that it always makes me laugh when people go on about how if you do CD or LL etc., you'll definitely pile all the weight back on and more besides. Hmm... I've done WW and SW (and just about every other diet besides) and guess what? Yep - if you go back to eating the way you did before the diet, you pile all the weight back on and more besides.

There's a surprise.

Funny how the fact that you're just as likely to regain weight after doing WW or SW doesn't come up so often...

The thing is, it doesn't actually matter all that much how you lose the weight (well, so long as you're 'sensible' - whatever that means ), it's what you do when you've lost the weight that matters. People seem to forget that bit.

I ended up reading an interview by coleen nolan which she said that doing LL was a horrible mistake and when she stopped she piled all her weight on again!

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Well, I've never done LL so I'm not really in a position to comment. But I'm fairly sure if she'd followed the advice provided by LL when in the maintenance phase and done the necessary headwork, she might not have piled it all back on again. The same holds true for whatever method you choose to lose weight.

I made myself feel so crap. i didn't cheat at all though and have woken up today feeling really good.

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Well done!

on CD i find that its the bad thoughts and head hunger which is harder to deal with than the actual diet itself????"

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For me, I think it's got something to do with suddenly finding an awful lot of spare time on my hands. When not doing Cambridge, I'm constantly thinking about food. What I can eat, how many calories / points / syns I've got left, how long it is until lunchtime, LOL. So with all that free time, I find I have lots of time to think.

That's probably a good thing. At least, I think it is.

I'm thinking about all sorts of stuff that I'd normally be squashing back down with food...

I too have the same thoughts and as Lily said is not the losing weight that's the hard bit it's keeping it off. This is a really good thread that KD posted about life after CD. I think it's worth printing off and keeping to look at every now and again. In fact, why didn't I think of that earlier, I'll put it in my journal.

Also, I've been keeping a journal for over a year and the most I've written in it has been this last week as I now keep it on the breakfast bar and whenever I have a bad thought, or feel low I write in there. I've written an A4 side and a half already today. It's really helping me to stay focussed.

I am another CD'er that has regained weight after doing Weight Watchers and Slimming World, because I did not maintain a healthy eating regime and reverted to poor habits from before the diet.

I think that Colleen Nolan has done brilliantly with following the Rosemary Conley diet and creating three successful exercise DVD's. Having read her autobiography she has been through some tough personal times in the past, and more recently with her mother's diagnosis of Alzheimers; she has now sadly passed away.
Maybe regaining the weight after Lighterlife was connected to personal pressures and not because VLCD's are flawed.

Just a thought.

Meanwhile, keep trying to think positively, there are many people posting here that have kept off the weight. Good Luck xx