Took 1 year to lose 20 lbs and 3 months to gain it back

jessica22222

What the heck!
I busted my butt and obsessively counted calories and exercised to lose 20 lbs for 1 year before wedding. I noticed a difference, but nothing drastic. Clothes fit better kinda thing. After the wedding I just wanted to stop obsessively counting calories and stressing over my weight. Well that added the weight back. It's so frustrating how it's so time consuming to lose and so easy to gain.

I see reverting back to my old ways did this,
Any words of encouragement for starting again! I feel weight loss is just always a battle, Even to maintain and I just gave up which is what I don't want to do this time. I actually liked where my body was going and I gave up to easily.

Just needed a bit of a rant and need some encouragement to start up again. Feel like I gave it and then some

usmcmp

Instead of obsessively counting calories, which you found you couldn't sustain, try building habits that you can sustain.

NaturalNancy

It takes effort, planning and work... but if you did it once, YOU CAN DO IT AGAIN!

Might feel frustrating at first, but don't waste your time and energy beating yourself up for gaining weight...

Start again and focus on all of the positive things you will experience by trying again.

seska422

Adapt your normal way of eating rather than fighting against it.

I'm eating the foods I like in smaller portions and/or with satisfying substitutions. My new way of eating is essentially my old way of eating with a few tweaks. That makes it so much easier to stay with the plan long enough to lose weight and then maintenance will just be that same thing with a few more calories available in the budget.

TavistockToad

What are your stats?

Just because you count your calories doesn't mean it has to be obsessive

sargeca

This is about sacrificing, its about adjusting. There is nothing wrong with eating ice cream and chocolate. In fact, if you are like me, in no particular order, I love beer, pizza, chocolate, ice cream and any other decadent food. My adjustment has been to add exercise, e.g. walking, rowing machine that I do while watching tv, and exercise. In my case, its playing with the dog and cleaning stalls. If you give up all the things you like, I believe you are doomed to failure. Enjoy life, figure out what you could improve on in your next shot at this and just do it. You will figure it out. Good luck. By the way, I am dropping one pound per week, eating breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack and a whole bunch (10 glasses) of water per day. Plan your meals around mfp and be honest. Its like golf, you can put anything you want on the scorecard. You are only responsible to you.

Spliner1969

sargeca wrote: »

This is about sacrificing, its about adjusting. There is nothing wrong with eating ice cream and chocolate. In fact, if you are like me, in no particular order, I love beer, pizza, chocolate, ice cream and any other decadent food. My adjustment has been to add exercise, e.g. walking, rowing machine that I do while watching tv, and exercise. In my case, its playing with the dog and cleaning stalls. If you give up all the things you like, I believe you are doomed to failure. Enjoy life, figure out what you could improve on in your next shot at this and just do it. You will figure it out. Good luck. By the way, I am dropping one pound per week, eating breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack and a whole bunch (10 glasses) of water per day. Plan your meals around mfp and be honest. Its like golf, you can put anything you want on the scorecard. You are only responsible to you.

Agreed. The one thing you can, and probably should do long term, is adopt an exercise program you can live with. Adjust your calories to it for weight loss, but after the weight is gone, adjust your calories slowly up to that same exercise program for maintenance. Then keep it up for a while so you can get used to the amount you can eat and not gain. Then you can stop counting again, but do your best to stay within what you know is the right amount to eat. If you feel you ate too much the previous day, do some extra exercise. The point is don't stop the exercise. If you do, and don't adjust your eating habits, then you'll be back here again.