Sabotaging and self-sabotaging

It is always hard when it comes to both eating out and when relatives cook for you and the former is easy simply break the habit of eating things without knowing what went in to them and the carb count. As for relatives your best bet is to to keep reinforcing the message and phoning before hand to remind them

I am sorry I didn't respond to this yesterday. Got distracted with events at home. lol.

Basically, mothers often confuse feeding their children with expressing their love for their children.

I have different, but similar issues from yours. I have a family member who doesn't feed me. She withholds food.
Based, I think on the fact that eating normal food portions always caused me to gain weight and being fat is a fate so terrible that only mass murderers and sociopaths should be allowed it. Oh, and she thinks that eating FAT is a stab in the heart, and only for people who wallow in chip fat.

Plus the fact that as she has got older, her ideas of acceptable portion size have shrunk and shrunk.
She understands food intolerances, but not carb intolerance.

This all makes for interesting meal times.

I am used to it, and can now Fast at the drop of a hat, but my poor husband, with his normal appetite and normal food attitude is effectively starved. I am so proud of his ability to cope with the situation. He is a wonderful man.

Repeated requests for MORE FOOD for him result in one extra potato, or another tablespoon of green beans - nothing like the quantity that he actually NEEDS.

Honestly, I don't think she is capable of changing now (mid 80s) and I have come to accept that her behaviour is a sign of her love for me. Ok, a sign of a slightly twisted form of love, but nevertheless it is because she loves me, and she thinks I would be better/happier/healthier if I was skinny.

So I don't try to fight it any more. That way led to a lot of tension and drama. I let her be, and pack snacks to take with us. We also take them out to dinner if we stay. It is very entertaining to see she and her husband eat huge and hearty portions of restaurant food (paid for by someone else) when they eat like birds at home.

We also take food with us, to have snacks available. I often find that a snack BEFORE she serves the evening meal allows me to behave with more restraint DURING the evening meal. lol.

In your place, I would gracefully and politely appreciate your mother's generosity, while politely refusing those extra portions, with comments such as 'thank you, but I had a big lunch. May I take it home with me?'

You then have the option of giving the food parcel away to a friend or neighbour, or putting it in the bin.

@MikeTurin - Firstly, well done on achieving the weight loss you did. Before responding properly to your query, could you tell me how often you eat with your parents and secondly, could you tell me what your preferred way of eating is; whether you've been eating a "normal diet", but a bit less of it, or avoiding any particular sorts of foods?

Morning Mike.

I'm sure the other are correct about your Mum trying so hard that she's making it harder for you, and that conversation she may interpret as you asking her not to love you so much is a tricky one.

If what you're saying is you eat some of the family meal, but she then makes you additional food, I would suggest considering a couple of things.

Firstly, you could tell her that when you are at home with them you will eat the same as them; no more and no less, and in the portions they eat (as you say their portions are smaller), and I would tend to make a joke that you're trying to emulate them (if they don't have diabetes). Flattery is a great persuader. You could also suggest that you just find you can't eat as much these days as you used to s you get full up.

Although it might not be an ideal diet, it sounds like it'd be less than her idea of making your diet healthier anyway.

Alternatively, you could consider trying fasting earlier in the day on the days you visit the family. In other words, maybe pass on breakfast or lunch on those days?

At diagnosis I decided I would never let people amend their menu choices when cooking for us. Where there is rice/pasta/potatoes or bread on the menu, I'll usually start by serving myself a very small portion of the starchy elements, then perhaps have a bit more veg when everyone else has made their choices from the serving dishes.

When I have been asked why I might have eaten so little rice/pasta/potato or whatever, I usually say I found I wasn't getting along with them so well these days, so just limited (or passed on) their intake. I'll usually back that up by saying something like "and I really love green beans/cabbage/sprouts/salad or whatever I've had more of; thus inferring I've made room for the veg.

I've never had any strong attempts to persuade me, except for puddings, but then I usually just say I don't have room - which is mainly true.

It's not easy Mike, and those closest are the trickiest to change (including ourselves!). Our loved ones love us and want us to be happy and healthy. Sadly, both my parents are watching me from their clouds ^^^ up there, but I know my Mum would have been a challenge. When I visited them she always used to make my favourite foods and so on, so I can imagine she'd have found my dietary shifts to be a challenge were she around.

Good luck with it all. Take it steady.

@MikeTurin - I'm glad your latest visit to the folks went pretty well.

You're probably right about your Dad and his eating, but the older we are, the more likely there is to be resistance - especially if the benefits are potential benefits, rather than most of us who are forced into change when diagnosed.

If you had the option; would you have changed your pre-diagnosis diet? If you would, why didn't you do it earlier? (Those are rhetorical questions).

Lots of people know they should change lots of things; whether it's generally lose a bit of weight, give up smoking, drink a bit less alcohol, or whatever, but unless they see a clear and meaningful (meaningful to them) reason to do that, now, it tends to be put off and put off, or shelved indefinitely on the basis.

Personally, if I wanted to influence someone towards considering changing the way they ate, I would focus on how well I felt. However, I'm guessing, as you are in Italy, you possibly have the cultural factor in play when it comes to pasta and risottos.

MikeTurin said:

Hello to all, I think I've a problem because after a successful period of weight loss I started to slowly ad steadily gain weight again.

I think that sometimes I'm self sabotaging my diet, going to, say, buy ice cream and then instead of stopping the thing, I'll continue to eat something other for instance peanut butter or peanuts or fruits.
I've noticed that I could mitigate it with a rigorous calorie counting, weighting all what I eat or using an app to scan bar codes of prepackaged food.

Unfortunately I have two saboteurs. One is the easier to cope with and is that the local canteen, that tries to put potatoes everywhere and in general makes really heavy seasonings. The problem is solvable going to eat somewhere else or taking only salads, but "unfortunately" they make good foods, especially fish. I'm not sure of the calories of what they're making. The proble is solvable of course ging to eat somewhere else or buy something at the mall, or going to McDonald and take the Mixed salad menu.

The other it's harder and it's with my relatives, especially my mom.
I've noticed that when I or my brother are going to eat at her, she makes always bigger portions that the one she makes for her or mu dad. Also she prepares to me different food than the ones she and my dad are eating an then offer me and then offers me the same food she prepared for them. I've said that I can eat the same thing they are eating but she still prepares a lot of "diet" food especially for me. If I don't eat it she packs it and give me to take home.
Also she buys a lot of vegetables and gives them to me, that is a lesser problem, because when they spoils I throw them in the trash. The problem is to convince her that I don't need so much food because I I always eat outside home at noon, and being polite at this, and the convince her that I don't need special food and I could eat anything, and that eating 30 grams of dark chocolate, that I enjoy, doesn't mean I'm starving and I need 1 kg of salad and 300 g of meat, but simply I like some sweet. If I am proposing a low carb almond muffin, doesn't mean that I'll happliy eat half a cauliflower instead, and so on.

I need some advice to resist to the self-sabotage and to politely stop my mom to give me a lot of food.

Maybe I've ranted to clear my ideas, maybe I need some tricks.

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Hi Mike,
It would certainly be worth buying a Dr Atkins diet plan book....An awful lot about diabetes in it, very educational and worked for me.
I was diagnosed with Type 2 three and a half years ago, the doctor automatically wanted to prescribe tablets but I refused... I do have 6 monthly blood checks since diagnoses but all have been in the normal range.
I stick reasonably well to my low carb diet but consider myself cured

Regards
Toncra1

MikeTurin said:

A quick update. I'm still slowly gaining weight. I'm now at almost the same weight I was last year when strictly following the diet I got from the dietician.
I've found the diet diary of last year.

I think I'll try to strictly follow the diet and in particular stopping to eat at the canteen at all.

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Do you cook or have someone who can cook for you? There are great recipes on the home page of this site.

MikeTurin said:

I can somewhat cook for supper, but for now I'm not a really good cook!
For instance this evening I prepared a salad with fennels and pickled cucumbers and baked eggplant with tomatoes and Roquefort cheese as side. I've some books of recipes for diabetic people.

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That sounds really yummy. There's a 30 day recipe cookbook on the homepage of this site and you have already demonstrated the skills necessary to tackle it. Portion size trips me up more often than anything else, so just pay attention to the portion size. Use the recipes that have ingredients you like or omit ones that you do not like unless it's something baked-best to stick to the recipes on those until you get a little more experience.

I think the the self reflective approach to eating along with learning assertiveness skills could help - lots on line about assertiveness skills; Overcoming Weight Problems: A self help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques: Studies have shown that behavior therapy when used in conjunction with other weight loss approaches was more effective in reducing weight or delaying weight regain ( than diet alone or drug therapy) US National Heart Lung and Blood institute ( one of series British of books) - could be useful... it has a chapter : Dealing with Other Peoples Reactions