I've hit a rut - advice?

arielangel1991

Lately, I've been struggling with my diet. I'm never in the mood to work out and am constantly craving "bad" foods. Luckily, I haven't completely given in to my cravings. I've only eaten a bite here and there, not enough to completely derail my diet. I'm about 5 lbs away from my current goal weight, but I'm really struggling!

With about 45 lbs lost so far, I am much happier with the way I look and have thought about taking a short break from dieting and focus on maintaining, but I'm sooo close to that goal weight! I don't want to feel like I'm giving up!

Anyone ever gone through something similar? How do I get myself motivated again? Or is taking a break a good idea? Advice? Thoughts?

jemhh

I'm a big fan of maintenance breaks. You've had great progress so far. A break of a week or more will help you recharge. I'd keep logging my food but set my calorie goal to maintenance for awhile.

middlehaitch

What @jemhh said.
Nothing wrong with taking a break.

An alternate is to find your goal weight maintenance calories and start eating them now. It will probably slow your loss a little, but you will continue losing.

Cheers, h.

StealthHealth

+1 for taking a break and eating to maintenance for a couple of weeks.

cjdecz

Going through a long calorie deficit can be tough. It's a good idea to once a week have one day where you bring your calories back up to a maintenance level with clean eating. This will help you with the cravings. Now understand, I said bring your calories up to maintenance with CLEAN eating. Don't go crazy on the junk food!

emdeesea

Meh. I took last summer off and I'm pretty much doing the same thing this summer. Too many things going on!

And to heck with "clean" eating. I do maintenance with ice cream and burgers lol

Raptor2763

A couple points. (1) the last 5-10 pounds are the most difficult to come off; hang in there, though (2) have you tried either intermittent fasting or a Modified Apple Day (3) how intense are your workouts? My last question - how much water are you drinking? Lemon with water is really effective at helping to rid water weight.

cee134

Clean eating is good. Taking breaks with binges on junk food, means you will do that when you stop trying to lose weight, and the weight will be ninja sneaky and sneak back on. By keeping it clean you have a better chance at staying a healthy weight. I know because I lost 100 lbs but gained it back because I did said binges. Now I'm back where I started. That is a sucky place to be but I happy because I'm eating right again.

Laura80111

Taking a break can help you recharge but don't lose sight of your goal. The last few are the hardest and maybe it's time to reflect how far you have come. Set smaller goals for the final few and remember it's only a small break. I speak from experience I hit my goal and then took a 3 yr break that totally set me back to square one.

jemhh

OP, you don't need to only "eat clean" during a maintenance break. I don't even know why it was brought up. Eating at maintenance for a week just means you increase your calories to maintenance, period. Eat what you want within that goal. If you normal eat only "whole" foods, go ahead and do that if you'd like. If you normally include "junk" foods in your diet, do that if you'd like. If you normally restrict "junk" foods and want to treat yourself, do it.

enterdanger

First. Congratulations on your loss and getting within sight of your goal weight. That is awesome.

Every time I lose a bunch of weight I tend to want to rest on my laurels...of course I've never gotten within 5lbs of goal weight. This is just me, but I'd be inclined to say "To heck with that 5lbs. I look awesome." This is probably sad for most people, but it's just me being honest. I'm ok with a certain level of fatness if it means I don't have to work quite as hard at my deficit. It's not the exercise that is ever my problem. It's food and beer.

Don't be a me. lol.

On a more helpful front. Maybe you are just at too high a deficit and it's creating cravings. For the last 5lbs I'd set myself to lose no more than .5lbs a week. You want to be able to transition into maintenance (not that I know what that is like) without all the guilt posts I see about "I'm in maintenance but how can i possibly eat XXXX calories?"

And I just had to ask @Raptor2763...what is a modified apple day? sounds crazy.