Help. I seek joy in food?

[Anonymous]

I'm a fat gal with psychological problems. On top of that, I have no support system to help me. No family nor friends around me at all, to whom I can talk to about my feelings and shit.

I have very little joy in my daily life. So I've realised a few months ago, that I try to fill in this hole by eating. I try to seek joy through food. I love chocolate. So I eat tons of chocolate. And then all kinds of sweets and savory things. Pretty much the first thing I think about when I wake up is "what yummy food am I going to eat today?" Food has literally become my source of joy.

Which is why dieting has never brought big results for me. And being depressed as I already am and no one to help motivate me, I can't motivate myself to eat healthy and stop putting food in my mouth once I'm full.

Below is a video that I find interesting, that should also make you fatbashers rethink your attitudes toward fat people. Fatbashing hurts more than helps. Because some fat people are fat because they have psychological problems. So putting them down will only make them turn to food for comfort. Besides, that's just a mean thing to do.

I'll be discussing this with my therapist, but I want your ideas on what I can do to help myself. Nothing excites me, the stuff I used to like are not as exciting anymore, and I'd have to think really hard if asked what my hobbies are. I guess I don't have a hobby. And trying new stuff alone with no friends would just make me feel even more lonely sometimes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr8Lho29np4

[Ferretman21]

Well first off you need to identify WHY, why are you feeling this lack of dissatisfaction and lack of joy in life? As far as being depressed, there are a lot of simple mood elevators that you can do that do NOT involve the use of medication.

1.) Exercise. Yes I said exercise (Yes I'm aware I sound like one of those cheesy commercials or salesmen). Not everyone is motivated to exercise, but they do it any way. You just have to have the will power and just dive right in and do it.

Exercise will elevate your mood by releasing stress, as well as ''Feel good chemicals''. like endorphin's.

2.) FORCE yourself to eat good foods that are good for you like bananas. Bananas have some vitamin or something in them that is said to boost energy, metabolism, and make you ''Feel good''. I know this to be true first hand because when I eat them, I feel a boost of energy and feel happier. They're also inexpensive. I eat 2 banana's prior to working out and it's a huge difference in energy, and motivation.

3.) Drink water, refrain from soda/sugary drinks. Your body needs around 8 glasses of water per day, depending on your weight. Water helps hydrate you, clear your body of toxins, and is either absent of calories, or very low calories (Can't say for sure which it is off the top of my head).

4.) Uplifting encouraging music, or just a song that makes you happy. I like to listen to the song Barbie girl occasionally because it makes me happy I don't know why (Yes I'm straight). You can listen to relaxing piano music, it's very calming and soothing.

5.) Masturbate. Masturbation gets your heart going, and depending on how much you get into it, and how often you can burn some calories.

6.) Hot baths. Hot baths get your heart pumping and has a similar effect as masturbation. Hot baths help you remove toxins by sweating. I sometimes combine the two ( It really gets my heart going).

Ran out of room, won't let me post more.

[Ferretman21]

7.) Swimming is a fun activity that has the potential to burn many calories. Swimming uses more muscles than just walking, and you can do many exercises in water to burn even more calories.

8.) Keep track of what you eat. Write down the calorie content in what you eat, the trans fat, saturated fat, sugar. Set a limit and gradually decrease over time.

9.) Throw out all your bad foods. If you don't have the bad foods, you can't eat them.

I know it's difficult to find motivation, and if you simply can't for whatever reason just try sheer willpower. I truly believe you can do most things through sheer willpower if you want it bad enough.

Losing weight mostly has to do with dieting.

[Asker]

Thanks for your inputs.

1. When I still had a membership at a gym, I used to force myself to go, even if my friend had stopped going. I thought that the adrenalin would make me feel good afterwards. But guess what? After an hour of workout, all I felt was just exhaustion and general shittiness and hating people. So somehow exercising only drains what mental energy I have left, leaving me only more tired and feeling shitty.

2. I can do this. But only for a short period of time before I go back to my chocolate. I sometimes eat bananas for breakfast, if I need the energy for working or studying. But eating it doesn't give me satisfaction. Eating cold, healthy fruits and veggies doesn't make me satisfied. Fully maybe, but not mentally satisfied.

3. I barely take sugars in my drinks. Maybe once a week or once every 2 weeks. All my sugar intakes come from chocolate and stuff.

4. Yeah, music does help. Thanks for reminding me! I love listening to 90s songs!

[Asker]

5. Masturbation distracts me from my problems for a while, but after masturbating I feel more pathetic than ever because I'm all single and lonely and I crave human touch, another skin rubbing against mine. But I'll never have that while I'm still fat =(

6. I don't have a bathtub =(

[Asker]

7. I do love and enjoy swimming, but if you do it regularly it's expensive and will give me wide man shoulders.

8. I did that, but that would also involve not being able to eat food that gives me pleasure. So it would further extract another source of pleasure from my life. And it's VERY time consuming counting all those things. And eating out makes it just impossible to track calories.

9. If I don't have bad foods, I run to the grocery store and get me some. I'd rather run to the store than not having any yummy foods tonight.

About the willpower, I thought so too. And I guess it does work through sheer willpower. IF you don't have other issues as well. If you're already depressed and suicidal, you won't even have the strength to motivate yourself. That well where normal healthy people use to extract their motivation from inside them? Mine is all dried up. I've used all of it. I really don't know what to do.

[Ferretman21]

Then there's no magical solution any one can give you. You have to work at it if you want to lose weight. Aside from dangerous and expensive lipo suction, and if you don't change your habits you'll just need anther lip soon.

I guess you could take some sort of pill to lose weight.. if such a thing TRULY exists and it's not just false advertisement or bs.

Bottom line is if you don't want to swim, no motivation to exercise, you're going to have to choke down healthy foods and constantly drink water.

[Ferretman21]

Stop eating out as much, it's really bad to eat out a lot (Not to mention expensive too). Maybe go see a doctor? Run some metabolism tests, test for thyroid problems or anything like that?

A doctor may be able to give you a personalized way to lose weight based on your personal tests and such.

[Ferretman21]

My mom also lost a lot of baby weight drinking lemon water/ eating the lemon pills after. The acid or something in the lemons boosts metabolism and helps you burn fat (Pretty much while doing nothing).

Kiwis are an awesome fruit. Vitamin C, E, K all helping to promote metabolism. Not to mention all that potassium for energy.

You would have to swim a ton to get man shoulders.

[Asker]

Yeah I know. I guess I asked this question just hopefully to get some ideas on what I can to to add some joy in my life so I don't have to run to food... But instead, I got a stupid answer from a very annoying and rude (and super weird!) GAGer... I didn't mean you! =) Thanks for your well thought-out inputs =)

[Asker]

My friend and I only went swimming once a week, rarely twice a week. One hour doing laps. And people around us have noticed a difference on our shoulders within just 3 months. They made remarks on how our shoulders have gotten wider.

[Ferretman21]

I need to go swimming then. I don't know, video games bring joy to me when I'm down. Who says you can't get a man because you're overweight? That's not true. My girlfriend isn't a perfect size, and I'm a cutie! Lol.

[Asker]

Well I'm just slightly exaggerating. I can get a man, but the possibilities would just be a lot better and more numerous if I were skinny. Not to mention tons of people are so mean to fat people. It's like we don't have feelings.

[Ferretman21]

I cannot stand people like that. Everybody has feelings... people who fat, slut shame, make fun of disabled, and things like that are just horrible people period.

We've all had to deal with mean people before, I learned to just ignore them, but then again sometimes it's not that simple and you have to stand up for yourself and let them have it.

I'll say one thing about not being skinny, if a guy only likes you because you're skinny, you don't want to be with him any way.

[kambo_trick3y]

I used to be fat, like, closing in at 200 pounds at the age of 14 fat.

Everyone said I would never amount to anything. I would never lose the weight, and that I would be a (in their words) "fat piece of shit" for the rest of my life.

At this point, when you're mentally kicked down in the mud, you have two options:

A - You can let their words conquer you and you can become every bit the loser they want you to be.

Or

B - Fight back.

I chose B.

I ended up going to the gym, and every single time I ran my pitiful time and speed that a 90 year old grandpa could beat, or lifted enough weights that a 9 year old girl scout would laugh at, every single time I felt like giving up, the only thing that would flash through my head was everyone telling me "You are worthless. you can't do it."

Ever since then, I've physically managed to surpass every single person who told me I was worthless. And you know what? NOTHING tastes sweeter than success.

Ever since then, I've used the words "You can't do it" as the blueprints to my life. I LOVE it when someone says I can't do something.

You and I may receive and react to external output differently Devil, but if there's one thing I can say, it's that at the end of the day, even though names and fatbashing hurt like hell (like HELL), YOU determine your value. YOU determine how hard it's going to affect you and what you will do with it, for whatever positive or negative effect you choose to do with those words.

[Asker]

I wish I could find the strength to power myself like that. Maybe some day I will, once I've gotten my life pretty much together again and no longer suicidal.

But thanks for your encourangement and inspiration. Here's a treat for ya: www.girlsaskguys.com/.../q1281386-isn-t-gag-a-wonderful-place-to-be

[BertMacklinFBI]

well try asking your therapist if she/he has any recommendations.