No Motivation No Time No Support

JuniperBreeze_xo

Nuke_64 wrote: »

The easiest way I think to start is to just track what you eat. No goals at first, just track and try to do so by using a scale. You will start to learn and appreciate the impact of the food choices you make.

I agree. I don't over eat, I just don't make the right decisions sometimes. I think I need to train myself to be conscious with what I decided to eat at that moment. Thanks for your help!

madhatter2013

Will....power

jaga13

JuniperBreeze_xo wrote: »

Nuke_64 wrote: »

The easiest way I think to start is to just track what you eat. No goals at first, just track and try to do so by using a scale. You will start to learn and appreciate the impact of the food choices you make.

I agree. I don't over eat, I just don't make the right decisions sometimes. I think I need to train myself to be conscious with what I decided to eat at that moment. Thanks for your help!

If you are over weight, you do over eat. Once you start tracking your food, it will become obvious. Also, you need to calculate how much food is appropriate for your stats/activity level. For years I read magazines and assumed that when they said "eat 1600 calories, do these workouts, lose weight!" that it applied to me. Nope. At my height, it turns out I need to eat less than that. Take time to calculate the numbers...MFP will do it for you. Then stick to the number consistently. I'm not saying to eat junk all the time, but first and foremost, you simply need to eat less. Eating highly nutritious food will help you stay full on less calories, but don't be afraid to indulge a little. I pre-log all of my snacks and meals for the day (and edit if necessary). So today I pre-logged and ate a nutritious breakfast, lunch, and snack...and I have my healthy dinner pre-logged. But I also pre-logged some chocolate for a dessert. It is an appropriate amount and will still let me lose weight. Trust in this process.

Another note, regarding your husband/support: this is all on you. You have to decide what and how much to eat, regardless of what he is doing. My husband is a foot taller than me and very lean and eats way more than me. I make it work. If he wants to order pizza, no problem. I pre-log 1 or 2 slices (depending on how many calories I can afford to use) and maybe some side salad.

dubird

While outside support is nice, you can't count on it. You have to find your OWN reasons for doing so. My example: I knew I needed to lose weight. My doctor told me to lose weight. I even tried a time or two, but just couldn't muster the energy to do so. And then we got our wedding pictures back and I realized that I looked fat in them. About that time, I found MFP and decided I NEEDED to do this. That was my motivation, and it worked for me. When I felt like pigging out on food, I just reminded myself how I looked in my wedding picture. I know one girl that wanted to lose weight to have better sex. You have to find what keeps YOU going, not parrot what others have said. I'm also not someone that responds to the "You can do it!" speechs. I find them annoying and depressing. I mean, if I'm not feeling good and someone says that to me, I feel even worse about myself, so that doesn't work on me. If it works on you, by all means tape motivational pictures everywhere. But your reason and motivation still has to come from within.

Anyways, what I did was start slow. I logged for a week or two without changes to see where my baseline was. Then, I changed one thing: instead of soda, I would drink unsweet tea with Equal. That alone cut out 200-300 calories a day for me. Once I got used to that, I changed something else. Every time I did, I gave myself time to get used to it before moving on. Eventually I was able to build myself a little momentum and could change more at a time, but if I had just jumped in, I never would have been able to keep going. I also didn't start with exercise. I learned that all I needed was a calorie deficit, which is totally possible without exercise. Now, I have started walking, and that does help other things, like my asthma, but your weight loss will happen in the kitchen, not at the gym. If the thought of starting an exercise program is daunting, then don't right away. Start with watching your intake, and slowly add exercise when you're able to. Thing is, you're not dieting, you're retraining yourself how to eat in a sense. You have to retrain your brain and body to accept smaller portions of things and shift a few things around so your diet is healthier. You want this to continue for the rest of your life, yeah? That means changing your eating habits so if you decide to stop calorie counting once you hit your goal, you won't gain it all back.

You also can't expect your husband to join you. Lower your intake on your own, making sure to keep small portions of stuff you like so you don't feel like you're depriving yourself, but don't try to get him to join. If he asks why you're eating less, just say you're trying to watch your intake and leave it at that. If he wants to join in, he will. After all, you're doing this for yourself, not anyone else. You don't even have to tell people you're doing this if you don't want to. Just do your thing and let others do theirs.

JuniperBreeze_xo

dubird wrote: »

While outside support is nice, you can't count on it. You have to find your OWN reasons for doing so. My example: I knew I needed to lose weight. My doctor told me to lose weight. I even tried a time or two, but just couldn't muster the energy to do so. And then we got our wedding pictures back and I realized that I looked fat in them. About that time, I found MFP and decided I NEEDED to do this. That was my motivation, and it worked for me. When I felt like pigging out on food, I just reminded myself how I looked in my wedding picture. I know one girl that wanted to lose weight to have better sex. You have to find what keeps YOU going, not parrot what others have said. I'm also not someone that responds to the "You can do it!" speechs. I find them annoying and depressing. I mean, if I'm not feeling good and someone says that to me, I feel even worse about myself, so that doesn't work on me. If it works on you, by all means tape motivational pictures everywhere. But your reason and motivation still has to come from within.

Anyways, what I did was start slow. I logged for a week or two without changes to see where my baseline was. Then, I changed one thing: instead of soda, I would drink unsweet tea with Equal. That alone cut out 200-300 calories a day for me. Once I got used to that, I changed something else. Every time I did, I gave myself time to get used to it before moving on. Eventually I was able to build myself a little momentum and could change more at a time, but if I had just jumped in, I never would have been able to keep going. I also didn't start with exercise. I learned that all I needed was a calorie deficit, which is totally possible without exercise. Now, I have started walking, and that does help other things, like my asthma, but your weight loss will happen in the kitchen, not at the gym. If the thought of starting an exercise program is daunting, then don't right away. Start with watching your intake, and slowly add exercise when you're able to. Thing is, you're not dieting, you're retraining yourself how to eat in a sense. You have to retrain your brain and body to accept smaller portions of things and shift a few things around so your diet is healthier. You want this to continue for the rest of your life, yeah? That means changing your eating habits so if you decide to stop calorie counting once you hit your goal, you won't gain it all back.

You also can't expect your husband to join you. Lower your intake on your own, making sure to keep small portions of stuff you like so you don't feel like you're depriving yourself, but don't try to get him to join. If he asks why you're eating less, just say you're trying to watch your intake and leave it at that. If he wants to join in, he will. After all, you're doing this for yourself, not anyone else. You don't even have to tell people you're doing this if you don't want to. Just do your thing and let others do theirs.

Wow. Thank you for that. I appreciate your input. And I will definitely try and push myself to get better at eating. Thank you!!

dubird

You're welcome. ^_^ I start feeling like a parrot for saying that over and over, but I see so many posts where people have 'lost their motivation' and 'can't seem to keep going', and when you ask what their motivation is, it's something generic or what the doctor said. That's not going to be enough to keep you going, and no amount of outside support will overcome that. Took me a long time to learn that lesson, but once I did, things got a lot easier for me in terms of keeping on my path. I screw up from time to time, everyone does, but I'm able to just log the day and start over the next and it makes life so much easier for me!

corasam

I am 5'4" and started at 209lbs. I gave up for a while when I reached 199 lbs and started back up at the beginning of July. I am now 186 and still going down. I found that using MFP to count calories and carbs has done wonders to see what I am actually inhaling. I increased my water to 24-48 oz per day instead of 8-16 oz. I have also learned if I eat a little something every 3 hours, I don't get hungry and overdo it at dinner. I also don't have the cravings for the sweets late at night, as I indulge in a piece of fruit a couple hours after dinner. I walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes 3 times per week. I keep a steady pace, I don't overdo it and lose my breath while exercising. I am my own motivation because I am the one that cares enough to be in the right mindset to be successful this time.

Take it one day at a time and find some little thing each day to keep going. Good luck on your journey and as you can see, you are not alone :-)

fiddletime

A journey of a mile starts with the first step. Log what you eat. Then start preloading the log. If you know you're having chicken and rice for dinner look it up on MFP and see what portion size you can eat. Eat slowly so you don't wolf it down and feel like you should have another piece to be polite. Even log the desert. A bowl of ice cream can be a cup or a tablespoon.

Your husband can eat what he wants and you can eat what you're committed to eating. I lost 25# in 3 months last year, and gained it back in 3 months when I stopped logging. Now I'm losing more slowly, and working on changing my eating habits, both content and portion size.