Having a hard time keeping it going after about a month

SkinnyCJK

I get into the right head space for about a month. i have rewards in place, exercise variety in place, personal challenges, etc., etc. Then, suddenly, hormones kick in or something in my world causes a bump and I lose my momentum.

It's making me crazy. And it so crazy easy for me to fall back into my comfortable space... and gain the weight right back.

What do you do to push through? To stay tough?

The whole concept of something become habit after 21 days (or whatever) does not apply to me. It is more like I have to push against what is natural to me, but it doesn't really ever turn into habit and at some point I fall back.

Thanks.

adventuresofaschoolmarm

I feel the same way! I will do well for several months, then fall off. I can't really allow myself "cheats" or "off days" because once I have one, I go right back to my old habits. This time, I am focusing on making sustainable changes in my diet and exercise. Nothing too unrealistic. I am hoping that helps keep me motivated and on track. I feel like if I do something too "extreme", once I slip up, I will lose my momentum. But maybe if I focus on small, sustainable life changes, I will be able to stick with it for good this time. Good luck!

WaterBunnie

Even after 3 years I treat every day as a new challenge but the difference is I've reached the stage now when I actually want to do it rather than feeling like I should. It will come. If the month thing is TOM hormones just switch to maintenance or lower your deficit for the worst of it (first 3 days I need more) so that you can eat the things that help you through it and then cut back and get back on track towards the end. The other thing that helps is not to see it as a diet you'll follow for a while but as your new way of eating making the bad stuff treats rather than part of your usual diet. Keep at it, you won't regret it!

kbsangel1986

I was the same way for the first bazillion times I tried losing weight. This last time, before I really even started trying again, I looked back on previous attempts and why I failed. I was able to realize that I am a boredom and emotional eater. I also found that for me, eating only good foods completely caused me to just break during week 4, so I would secretly binge everything I could get my hands on....and I mean everything, both the good and the bad. I have found that not just measuring out my food the day I get it, but also having (and pre-positioning) my "bad" foods like chocolate covered peanuts, have breakers, ice cream (etc) helps me alot. By allowing myself the "off limit" foods, I don't feel deprived and it helped me a lot to get through my week 4.
In addition to all of that, as I mentioned before, I realized what behaviors I had that led to me giving in. Instead of stressing out over finances and burying myself in a book with a whole bag of tortilla chips and salsa at the kitchen table, I now choose to take the book (or my phone and browse the mfp success stories) and take a bath. Other times, I go for a walk. I just make sure I am far enough away from the kitchen that I don't go to it mindlessly.

That's just be though....everyone is different

Edit: my smart phone is not very smart. I hate autocorrect. Water = eater. In=on. Etc. Stupid autocorrect

karensuegill

For me, as a person who has lost and gained weight many times in my life, I unfortunately had to have a big wake up call. It was when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. So I finally decided I can't keep doing this yo-yo dieting. It's eventually going to kill me! So I read the book Never Say Diet by Chantel Hobbs, who lost 200 pounds on her own and is now a personal trainer and weight loss coach. In her book she says to make weight loss permanent you have to make a brain change and make five decisions and stick with them for the rest of your life.
They are 1. be honest (no more excuses) 2. be forgiving 3.be committed 4. be interested (in learning all you can about health and nutrition) 5. surrender to God. It has been a game changer for me! I highly recommend reading it. She has recipes and a workout routine in the book too. Since I've already made these decisions, I don't worry about whether I feel like it or not. I just do it! No decisions to make. Is it tough some days? Yes! Is it worth it?
Yes! Yes! Yes! Get tough! You can do more than you think you can. Get a support system around you. Don't listen to nay sayers or unsupportive friends or family. In fact you can count on some of them sabotaging you, maybe without meaning to. Don't be shocked when that happens. Your commitment and results will shut them up. Good luck to you! You can friend request me if you want.

RedRockChic

Franklin Covey states it takes 6 weeks of continuous effort to "begin" a habit. Doesn't mean in 6 weeks you will have new habits, it means that in 6 weeks the psychological aspects of doing something regularly will create "memory".

I am jumping in on the comment bandwagon only because I feel and empathize with those feelings of "can I continue this pace" "why can't I continue this pace" "do I want to continue this pace" etc. All I can say is that I do not want to continue this negative berating I submit to emotionally everytime I look in a full length mirror. Self loathing and the negative cycle I find myself falling back into when I am not "keeping this pace".

All I can contribute is that you deserve to be healthy. You deserve to enjoy how you look in the mirror. YOu deserve positive energy in your life.

On that note. We all have days that are hard. We all have days that we don't want to get out of bed. We all have days that a box of HoHo's looks much better than going to the gym (or insert your own personal vice instead of HoHos).

The question we have to ask ourselves everyday is: Is this way I want it to be? Just because you screw up on logging or not working out, or willpower against some yummy vice, does that mean you are automatically DOOMED to screw up tomorrow? The day after? Next week?

No. It doesn't.

What pushes me thru? I acknowledge my weaknesses and move on. Somedays that is easier to do than others. Today I have been up for 2.5 hours and been thinking about going to the gym for the last 2 of those hours. I will go. I don't want to. I want to put my fingers in the dirt and plant some flowers in my garden. I want to bake a yummy pineapple upside down cake, and play GTA later.

The funny part about that whole paragraph above is that I don't actually have to choose between ANY of these activities. I can actually fit them all in. AND... I can have a piece of homemade pineapple cake too... IF... if I go to the gym. And I can sit on the couch, eating pineapple cake, playing GTA for the whole evening if I want... but before then, I need to:

Go to the gym.
Plant my flowers.
Bake my cake.
Sit on couch.
Eat some cake.
Play GTA.

I guess what I am getting at is that you can give yourself permission to behave badly, and excuse it all you want. Or you can forgive yourself for behaving badly and move on.

I don't need permission. I have to work on the forgiveness part tho.

Also, I don't reward myself with food. I read on someone's blog a few weeks ago:

"You're not a dog, stop rewarding yourself with food."

I hope my words help, I hope that you find a path back to your "track". You are welcome to add me as a friend if you like, I always encourage motivational friendships

Be well, don't spend too much time dwelling on the past or worrying about the future... you are living in the "present" it is a gift... treat it as such!

Be well ladies (and gentlemen).\

heatherc369

After being motivated initially, there comes the second part - staying motivated when you don’t feel the same excitement as you did in the beginning. Perhaps something new has come into your life and your old goal isn’t as much of a priority anymore. Perhaps you skipped a day or two and now you can’t get back into it. Perhaps you screwed up and got discouraged.
If you can get yourself excited again, and keep going, you’ll get there eventually. But if you give up, you won’t. It’s your choice — accomplish the goal, or quit. Here’s how you can stop from quitting, and get to your goal.


1. Hold yourself back. When you start with a new exercise program, or any new goal really, usually you're raring to go, full of excitement, and with enthusiasm that knows no boundaries. You have no sense of self-limitation and think you can do anything. It’s not long, however, before you do learn that you have limitations, and your enthusiasm begins to wane. A great motivator is that when you have so much energy at the beginning of a program, and want to go all out — hold back. Don’t let yourself do everything you want to do. Only let yourself do 50-75 percent of what you want to do. And plan out a course of action where you slowly increase over time. For example:

***If you want to go running, you might think you can run 3 miles at first. But instead of letting yourself do that, start by only running a mile. When you're doing that mile, tell yourself that you can do more! But don’t let yourself. After that workout, you’ll be looking forward to the next workout, when you’ll let yourself do 1.5 miles. Keep that energy reined in, harness it, so that you can ride it even further.

2. Just start. There are some days when you don’t feel like heading out the door for a run, or figuring out your budget, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do that day for your goal. Well, instead of thinking about how hard it is, and how long it will take, tell yourself that you just have to start. For example, just put on your running shoes and close the door behind you. After that, it all flows naturally. It’s when you’re sitting in your house, thinking about running and feeling tired, that it seems hard. Once you start, it is never as hard as you thought it would be. This tip works well every time.

3. Stay accountable. If you've committed yourself publicly, through an online forum (MFP has proven to be amazing for this), on a blog, in email, or in person, stay accountable to that group of people. Commit to report back to them daily, or something like that, and stick to it! That accountability will help you to want to do well, because you don’t want to report that you’ve failed.

**** Consider even drastic measures of accountability. Give someone a sum of money and they can only give it back little by little every time you hit the gym, or for every pound lost, or every mile run. You can even draw up a contract![1]

4. Squash negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. This is one of the most important motivation skills, and it is important to practice it daily. It’s important to start monitoring your thoughts, and to recognize negative self-talk. Just spend a few days becoming aware of every negative thought. Then, after a few days, try squashing those negative thoughts like a bug, and then replacing them with a corresponding positive thought. Squash, “This is too hard!” and replace it with, “I can do this! If that wimp on TV can do it, so can I!” It sounds corny, but it works. Really.

5. Think about the benefits. Thinking about how hard something is is a big problem for most people. Waking early sounds so hard! Just thinking about it makes you tired. But instead of thinking about how hard something is, think about what you will get out of it. For example, instead of thinking about how hard it is to wake early, focus on how good you’ll feel when you’re done, and how your day will be so much better. The benefits of something will help energize you.

6. Get excited again! Think about why you lost your excitement, then think about why you were excited in the first place. Can you get that back? What made you want to do the goal? What made you passionate about it? Try to build that up again, refocus yourself, get energized.

7. Read about it. Just read a book or blog about your goal. It will inspire you and reinvigorates you. For some reason, reading helps motivate and focus you on whatever you’re reading about. So read about your goal every day, if you can, especially when you’re not feeling motivated.

8. Find like-minded friends. Staying motivated on your own is tough. But if you find someone with similar goals (running, dieting, finances, etc.), see if they’d like to partner with you. Or partner with your spouse, sibling or best friend on whatever goals they’re trying to achieve. You don’t have to be going after the same goals — as long as you are both pushing and encouraging each other to succeed. Other good options are groups in your area (be part of a running club, for example) or online forums where you can find people to talk to about your goals.

9. Read inspiring stories. Inspiration can come from others who have achieved what you want to achieve, or who are currently doing it. Read other blogs, books, magazines. Google your goal, and read success stories. You will soon grow to love reading success stories.

10. Build on your successes. Every little step along the way is a success — celebrate the fact that you even started! And then do it for two days! Celebrate every little milestone. Take that successful feeling and build on it, with another baby step. Add 2-3 minutes to your exercise routine, for example. With each step (and each step should last about a week), you will feel even more successful. Make each step really, really small, and you won’t fail. After a couple of months, your tiny steps will add up to a lot of progress and a lot of success.

11. Just get through the low points. Motivation is not a constant thing that is always there for you. It comes and goes, and comes and goes again, like the tide. But realize that while it may go away, it doesn’t do so permanently. It will come back. Just stick it out and wait for that motivation to come back. In the meantime, read about your goal, ask for help, and do some of the other things listed here until your motivation comes back.

12. Get help. It’s hard to accomplish something alone. Whether it's quitting smoking, running a marathon or writing a thesis, it is important to find your support network, either in the real world or online, or both.

13. Chart your progress. This can be as simple as marking an X on your calendar, or creating a simple spreadsheet, or logging your goal using online software. But it can be vastly rewarding to look back on your progress and to see how far you’ve come, and it can help you to keep going — you don’t want to have too many days without an X! Now, you will have some bad marks on your chart. That’s OK. Don’t let a few bad marks stop you from continuing. Strive instead to get the good marks next time.

14. Reward yourself often. For every little step along the way, celebrate your success, and give yourself a reward. It helps to write down appropriate rewards for each step, so that you can look forward to those rewards. By appropriate, this means 1) it’s proportionate to the size of the goal (don’t reward going on a 1-mile run with a luxury cruise in the Bahamas); and 2) it doesn’t ruin your goal — if you are trying to lose weight, don’t reward a day of healthy eating with a dessert binge. It’s self-defeating.

15. Go for mini-goals. Sometimes large or longer-term goals can be overwhelming. After a couple weeks, we may lose motivation, because we still have several months or a year or more left to accomplish the goal. It’s hard to maintain motivation for a single goal for such a long time. Solution: break it down into smaller goals along the way.

16. Get a coach or take a class. These will motivate you to at least show up, and to take action. It can be applied to any goal. This might be one of the more expensive ways of motivating yourself, but it works. And if you do some research, you might find some cheap classes in your area, or you might know a friend who will provide coaching or counselling for free.

17. Never skip two days in a row. This rule takes into account our natural tendency to miss days now and then. We are not perfect. So, you missed one day… now the second day is upon you and you are feeling lazy; tell yourself "No! You will not miss two days in a row!".

18. Use visualization. Visualize your successful outcome in great detail. Close your eyes, and think about exactly how your successful outcome will look, will feel, will smell and taste and sound like. Where are you when you become successful? How do you look? What are you wearing? Form as clear a mental picture as possible. Now here’s the next key: do it every day. For at least a few minutes each day. This is the only way to keep that motivation going over a long period of time.

19. Be aware of your urges to quit, and overcome them. We all have urges to stop, but they are mostly unconscious. One of the most powerful things you can do is to start being more conscious of those urges. A good exercise is to go through the day with a little piece of paper and put a tally mark for each time you get an urge. It simply makes you aware of the urges. Then have a plan for when those urges hit, and plan for it beforehand, and write down your plan, because once those urges hit, you will not feel like coming up with a plan.

20. Find pleasure again. No one can stick to something for long if they find it unpleasant, and are only rewarded after months of toil. There has to be fun, pleasure, joy in it, every day, or you won’t want to do it. Find those pleasurable things — the beauty of a morning run, for example, or the satisfaction in reporting to people that you finished another step along the way, or the deliciousness of a healthy meal. Live in the moment. Then think about the steps to your future and how you can smooth your dreams in each moment ahead...

jrobinson1633

I feel you!!! I fell off the wagon for the past 3 weeks, and have a 3 pound gain as a result. Today I'm working on getting my head back into the game, logging my calories, tracking my exercise, and in general just making an effort to stick with this. I have a tendency to get very close to my weight goal and then I back slide and go on a binge that can sometime last not only weeks but MONTHS. Not gonna allow that to happen this time.

RodaRose

You did great for one month. Do great for another month. If one month at a time works for you, do that.

999tigger

Ive surprised myself tbh at how powerful my motivation has been. Good preparation and a lo of thought into getting me into the right mindset. I review all possibilities and have a plan ready for all of them shoprt of being abducted. What you have done is recognise you have a fatal flaw, so before you start again you need the mindset and strategy to deal with the 1 month blues becayse at some stage it will happen to you. Without that plan you will just repeat yourself, so sort it out before you start.

If you cnat form a habit then you have to keep your focus, that means 1 day at a time and methodically follow a structured program so you are always close to doing most of whats needed and can cling to your plan. The only thing ive found about dieting is its dull, just the results arent.

When you get progress it becomes easier to be motivated and stay that way. Planning and mindset really help.

SkinnyCJK

WaterBunnie wrote: »

If the month thing is TOM hormones just switch to maintenance or lower your deficit for the worst of it (first 3 days I need more) so that you can eat the things that help you through it and then cut back and get back on track towards the end.

This is what I was thinking about doing! Thanks for the (inadvertent) validation.

WaterBunnie

LOL I gave up fighting it and it prevents me going off the rails entirely without doing any real damage to weight loss.

Ninkyou

Sustainability, enjoyment and fun. It has to be these or I don't do it.

Sustainability - I don't cut any foods out... everything in moderation.
Enjoyment - I'm going to eat all the foods I enjoy. Pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, cake, etc. Again, moderation. I eat less of it but still enjoy it.
Fun - Exercise has to be fun and keep my attention. If my mind wanders, I ain't gonna do it.

jjmorse1985

You are doing great. True I miss cheese burgers but staying on track is what's important no matter what! Good luck sweetie

arditarose

I found lifting. It was the first time in my life I've had another hobby besides music. And, I lost weight in that first month...so there was no reason not to be motivated.