Ola!

[Auri]

I'm your typical overweight westerner who would like to be healthy. Not enough I guess since i haven't been very succesfull at it.. 

Anyways. In an attempt to better my live, i've put an interest in age-less food and stuff. I guess raw paleo is an extreme to start with, but we'll see right?

I believe that when it comes to food "doing it all at once" is just way too extreme for me. So i'm mainly here investigating and searching for recipes and stuff to slowly add into my habits and better my life

[eveheart]

I'm your typical overweight westerner who would like to be healthy. Not enough I guess since i haven't been very succesfull at it...

Focusing on diet alone is not a good way to approach typical overweight in Western society. In fact, choosing a healthy diet is often a sign that you have resolved the factors that trigger overeating. Your lack of success is a sign that you have not gotten to the root of your overweight problem.

Finding your triggers and learning how to make effective choices (that means: a choice that leads you where you want to go) will lead you to natural, wholesome food choices. The triggers can be biochemical (such as hormonal imbalance, blood-sugar issues, inflammatory responses to allergens) and/or emotional (such as anger, boredom, sorrow), and are easy to find if you look for them. Eliminate your triggers and it will be a simple matter to eat foods that are healing.

If you are eating cooked foods, a first step would be to eliminate grains, legumes, sugary foods, and allergens. That will reduce inflammation and go a long way to balancing blood sugar and other hormones.

A balanced, calorie-sufficient, nutrient-dense diet is easy to obtain while eating raw paleo foods - very good for effortless weight loss.

[Auri]

I'd like to know more and be able to choose a healthy diet.

And if it's that easy to eliminate the triggers and stuff, I'd like to have some help of you, or others, who have gone before me.

The triggers aren't the problem indeed. I know (most of) them.
- What triggers me most is strong emotions, sure. Also the feeling of being tired. In some strange way this encourages me to eat. I've known this for a long time, and am getting a bit better at accepting emotional and physical discomfort in stead of eating it away. It also seems that focusing on the positive, and watching my boundaries in general helped a lot in feeling better and eating a bit healthier. 
- Right now my biggest challenge however is with saying "no" to others. To the colleague who is celebrating his birthday with mediocre pie, but mostly to my boyfriend. Who will ask me almost every night if I won't have some chips or something. Who bakes pie, chocolate chip cookies, and generally knows really well how to make stuff tasty as hell (and if I say "no" and he has some anyway, then i really should not indulge too...).

Eliminating these triggers for a full 100% is obviously difficult. I can't remove birthdays or ask my boyfriend to not eat stuff without major consequences. So there's the hardest part for me. Saying "yes" to others and myself on the short run simply feels easier "in the moment" than saying "yes" to myself in the long run. Allthough the latter is much harder to live with of course. It's like a lie, the truth will catch up with me. I know this! But in the heat of the moment, all is forgotten.

It must sound really stupid to some of you. How difficult can it possibly be to just say what you want, really?

So. That's shrink stuff if you ask me. i'd like to keep it to the chemicals here. My family has been struggling with weight before it went into fashion. So I'm not entirely sure what biochemical stuff might have been in our disadvantage. Probably a bit of a lot. My mum has a iron discipline, she's not overweight. But she really does eat little. It's not the weight I'm interested in though. I want a healthier lifestyle. And whatever weight will come with that it is. I'm not striving for a size 2 or 4 anymore. I want to be proud of myself, for taking good care of myself. 

[eveheart]

I walk into donuts and bagels almost every day at work. The employees cafeteria has a full buffet every day for only $4. I realized that this food was poison to me, as it probably is to everybody who eats it.

So, ask yourself: "Would I eat rat poison, or would I say no to it." All that other stuff about not being able to say no is merely self-justification. Stop trying to fool yourself; it might work to some degree, but deep inside you know you are lying to yourself. You eat those foods because you want to. Your friends and co-workers really don't care if you do or don't eat the same foods that they are eating. Mr. Birthday-Party-At-Work doesn't care if you have pie.

[goodsamaritan]

I went cold turkey 100% because I had health issues.  After noticing the difference, I then tried those exception times you were talking about... but then I would know my limits or how to get away with such minimal participation.  I would also be able to feel the penalties of cheating.

You would have to know and feel the joy of being healthy first.