Hello Trock,
I think a lot of the answers you're looking for are in the posts you've already written, both with what's there, and what you've left unsaid. I'm taking the liberty of unpacking some of that. Some of it's kind of tough-love, but this is your life you're talking about here. It matters a lot.
You said that you've been doing Atkins, but you don't mention a specific plan (as in JustJo's '72 induction lifer). If you haven't actually read any of his books, I highly encourage you to do so. Robert Atkins is probably well past spinning in his grave about misunderstandings of his eating plan--he got enough of that while he was still alive.
He said that we've been eating an unbalanced diet by indulging in the carbs, and need to swing the pendulum another direction for awhile--essentially to another "unbalanced" way of eating, i.e., the meat-and-veggie induction period. But he also says that's just for awhile, while you get the carbs out of your system. Then you start slowly adding carbs back in a measured and deliberate way until you find your critical-carb-level, and stay there and ride it out in comfort.
He also said, "If you're not exercising, you're not doing Atkins." Lots and lots of misconceptions about the plan. A mantra you'll see a lot of around here: "Read the book!" So, read the book. Pick an Atkins that looks good to you--his original one, New Diet Revolution, etc., and read it and give it a whirl. I am confident you'll find that you are not expected to eat nothing but meat.
Another piece of the puzzle is planning. This is really a failure-to-plan is planning-to-fail WOL. Analyze your mistakes. Something happened on Father's Day. Was it telling yourself you can handle it? Sitting in a restaurant? Having someone make dessert and telling you, "I made it just for you. You can have one piece. You can diet later. You'll hurt my feelings if you don't . . ." etc.
Something.different.happened. Your job to figure out what it was and proactively protect yourself from that happening again.
Treat yourself with love and respect and hopefulness. Fall down seven times, just keep getting up.
I think stress and emotional issues are a bigger part of this than we might want to acknowledge. Consider working with a therapist, just as you might if you were trying to kick a different kind of addiction. Make meditation, stress relief, gentle, non-punitive exercise part of your regimen. Change the parts of your life that hurt so much that you are eating to squelch the pain. Speak the words you are swallowing. Require that people treat you with courtesy and respect.
And make yourself your priority. I know that sounds ridiculous when you have small children, but the reality is that unless you do this, you will fail. When you're sitting at a table too long because you're trying to be polite to other people, and sooner or later you start eating. Or you polish off the leftovers because no one else will. You have to put those days behind you. It doesn't mean not treating the people around you with love and respect; it means treating yourself that way first. Even right now, bloated, disappointed, off program.
Make a plan for tomorrow, starting with your first glass of water in the morning, and go from there. If you need to do some shopping to get ready, that's the most important thing you'll do all day, so prioritize it. Put on your own oxygen mask first. Shop the fresh produce aisles. If your store doesn't have nice produce, shop somewhere else. Stock up on fresh, vibrant whole foods. Stay out of the middle of the store with the packaged, dead foods. Start meeting your body's needs for healthful foods and it will stop asking you to shove the crap down the pie-hole.
Don't tell yourself that it won't make any difference and it doesn't matter because you fell off the wagon. It hasn't moved that far down the road. Get your butt back on it and keep going. A year from now, if you do that, you'll still be at your goal, and it will be a whole different Father's Day. And you can spend it in a park playing Frisbee with the kids and dog and treating yourself to an LC picnic, instead of trapped in a restaurant or kitchen waiting for people to bring you food that isn't going to help you get healthier.
Believe it or not, you still have youth on your side. There's plenty of us older than you who are getting back on that horse for the umpteenth time, because you know why? What's the alternative?, that's why.
And here's the other piece. Stop looking at the 100 pounds you have to lose. None of us can not feel daunted at taking off triple digit numbers, whether it's 100, 200, 300 or more. But each one of us is responsible for losing the next pound. You can do that. Lose one single pound. When that's gone, tackle the next one.
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