Finding it impossible to get back on track!! Depressed and no motivation

candacebattle2012

I have had my fitness pal app for a couple years now and I have lost weight (21 lbs) before. But gained it all back and a little more. I have been trying to count calories again(for the 50th time) but it's been almost impossible. I'll do good for like 2 or 3 days and then cheat and this happens all the time.I'm basically on a yoyo diet now. I love food way too much! I really want to stay on track and motivated but it seems like nothing is helping. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips??

darlamiller

Just keep trying and it will finally stick that's what I've had to do if I cheat I get right back up the next day and start over!! I will not let it beat me!! You can do it!!!

Asturiah

Have you maybe tried something different ?
If you love food, maybe give a try to Intermittent fasting ? Start with 16:8, if you skip a meal, you can spend more calories on the other two and maybe enjoy them a little more ?
Or maybe lower your calorie intake slowly ? How much are you at right now ? If you're at 1200cal, that might be a little too low, try 1500 for a while or higher then the next week go down ?
Enter challenges, maybe they can keep you motivated? Or find some buddies here so they can also keep you on track ?
Whatever you do I'm sure you can manage !

KeepRunningFatboy

I don't believe motivation is sustainable. I do however believe in determination and commitment. This isn't word play either. I also believe in long term behavior change through repetitive habit building.

First determine what you really want. What do you deeply yearn? Do you want to be healthy, fit, athletic, sexy, a marathon runner, or whatever. Then commit to yourself. Commitment is long term. Its heart, soul, strength, it's absolute and final. Burn the bridge to the old ways, and forging ahead. And recognize that you have the awesome power to create yourself and your future. Your thoughts become beliefs which influence attitudes which drives action.

Last thing - habits! Establish healthy habits and focus on just a few at a time. My habits include eating 4 meals a day, and the middle 2 meals are always veggies or salads and possibly a fruit. My habits include exercise every day. Think of the habits which will need to be established to become the person you are now committing to become.

candacebattle2012

I am eating around 1400 calories a day. But i like to stay under and leave between 10-40 calories. I weigh 163 lbs right now. My goal weight is 140. I actually sometimes skip breakfast just so i can have more food towards the evening time when I am the most hungry..but even then I'm finding myself still hungry. I normally eat my last meal around 5:30 pm. I know it's early but by that time I'm literally starving.

descene

I hate to be the one to bring it up, but not all foods are equally satisfying so I'd be curious to see your diary. Since I lightened up on the packaged and processed stuff, I feel stuffed after a 300 cal meal. I would also try not skipping breakfast. I do the same thing myself to save my calories for later on, but if I can tell I won't be able to make it to my eating window, I most definitely will eat breakfast because I'd rather have some eggs on whole grain toast than eat the whole house later in the evening (happens time and time again otherwise when I wait too long to have dinner). So I'd try a high-protein breakfast and see if that helps.

Sashslay

Try logging for a week at your current maintenance levels, simply to get used to logging and seeing the calories in your food. Then move your goal to losing .2 pounds a week and so on. For some people it's easier to start small and work their way back up to 2 pounds a week.

TilKingdomCome

I have been the same for the past 12 months. I moved interstate, completely different lifestyle and just couldn’t find the motivation to keep going, I still counted, but constantly going over and the weight started creeping back on. Just reading the boards wasn’t holding my interest anymore (ie same old posts and I wasn’t learning anything).

So I tried something different and interesting. I like to research and be challenged. So I looked into 5:2 and have been doing that for about a month. It suits my newer lifestyle much better because it’s flexible.

My diet has never changed and I’ve never restricted myself in terms of the type of food I eat. I still eat chocolate, prepackaged foods, curries, minimal veggies, drink ‘too much’ alcohol, etc. it just all fits into my calories and I try to eat as much as I can calorie wise, therefore I have elected to lose weight very slowly. I only lower my calories when Ive lost the weight and I’m forced to. I love my food and I’m a very picky eater so trying to ‘eat clean’, ‘more protein’ and ‘heaps of veggies’ just was not ever going to work for me. I look at my calories over a week, not daily and I don’t consider anything as cheating.

To help keep me accountable and not overindulge too much on higher calorie days I joined a weigh daily challenge group. I never thought I’d be this type of person (I used to weigh monthly - but that was when I was super strict with my calories and was guaranteed a loss), but now the daily weigh ins force me to accept where I’ve stuffed up the day before and have an appreciation for natural fluctuations.

I had to tone down the exercise as I found I was doing far too much just to eat more. I had found a love for running and walking but even these became a chore for me when I pushed things too far. So I now restricted that to a certain amount to force my focus on my eating habits instead.

Doing something ‘different’ this time has helped me so far get back on track. The two days of low calories are hard but not impossible and when I see the scale afterwards or go out for dinner twice a week, it makes those hard two days all worthwhile.

Basically you need to find something sustainable and interesting to YOU.
If you love food, eat more and be content with losing slowly. Don’t force foods on yourself that you wouldn’t normally eat.

Good luck!

TilKingdomCome

I’ve sent you a friend request so you can view my diary and see my roller coaster weight loss! I had initially lost 23kg, was 8kg from goal, put on 8kg instead and now 4kg of that 8 has gone since doing 5:2 and daily weigh in challenge.

I weigh about the same as you and on similar calories. I aim to lose anything at all but have my calories set to 0.5kg/week.

Forgot to add that I also pre log and all my exercise is at night time so I can see what the damage will be if I have that bag of popcorn etc when I get home from work. For the sake of keeping under my calories I might forgo a snack knowing a run will give me 260 or so. All my cardio exercise is measured using Apple Watch and synced with mfp.

Most of my dinners are homemade, measured/weighed and logged through the recipe builder. I have a dinner plan repeated fortnightly, so I know what I’m eating the day before, and allowing two nights out a week at most. I can’t skip meals. I’d be a mess and would eat everything in sight.

kommodevaran

You don't have to sit around waiting for motivation, in fact the longer you do that, the less motivated you'll be. Everybody wants to lose weight, that is not motivation. Be motivated to do the things that makes your body use up excess fat instead.

Set a realistic weightloss goal (1% of your body weight per week) and make a plan you want to follow (easy and practical in your real life, not something you're doing to "be good"), make up your mind to follow it (not just try), stop the cheating, and then just do it, and keep doing it. Don't expect to be able to follow your plan perfectly, that isn't possible, not even necessary, your assignment is to produce a neverending row of nudges, some in the wrong direction, but many more in the right direction, that over time moves you towards your goal.

If you are overweight, you don't love food, you abuse food. Love of food is eating enough, but not too much. You can eat anything you want, and you will enjoy food a lot more when you eat in moderation.

If you are depressed, and not just frustrated because of your weight loss efforts, do seek professional help.

Niki_Fitz

KeepRunningFatboy wrote: »

I don't believe motivation is sustainable. I do however believe in determination and commitment. This isn't word play either. I also believe in long term behavior change through repetitive habit building.

First determine what you really want. What do you deeply yearn? Do you want to be healthy, fit, athletic, sexy, a marathon runner, or whatever. Then commit to yourself. Commitment is long term. Its heart, soul, strength, it's absolute and final. Burn the bridge to the old ways, and forging ahead. And recognize that you have the awesome power to create yourself and your future. Your thoughts become beliefs which influence attitudes which drives action.

Last thing - habits! Establish healthy habits and focus on just a few at a time. My habits include eating 4 meals a day, and the middle 2 meals are always veggies or salads and possibly a fruit. My habits include exercise every day. Think of the habits which will need to be established to become the person you are now committing to become.

I'm nervous to be finding myself in the same place as you, OP. I feel stagnant and unmotivated.

So this ^^ was really helpful. I've got to reconnect with my "why's" and stick with the new behaviors I've built up that helped me lose weight. I'm going to avoid at all costs slipping back into the destructive ones.

I'll take the suggestions to change things up, too. I just don't know how...

option3girl

This entire thread has been helpful for me. I was on track for SO long and now am off track more and more often and am losing ground (gained 10 lbs since May). I'm working on getting my mind back in the right place of "commitment and dedication"! Question for all of you...what groups are you in that you find the most helpful? All of the groups I joined last year seem to be inactive now.

candacebattle2012

Im a lil embarrassed to admit that I eat 90% fast food and pre packaged dinners. I always find it much easier to count calories on them. Like if I pick McDonald's all I have to do is go to their website and choose whatever I want and it says the calories... I feel like it's very difficult to count when you cook food yourself because it takes too much time to figure out every ingredient and weigh food. I'm not doing all that. I know it's not healthy but as long as I lose weight that's all I care about.

option3girl

I hear you on the time it takes to track. When I got serious last year I started cooking all my own meals because I wanted to know exactly what I was eating (and it took a lot of time to enter the recipes!), but I found some favorites and kept making those! Then it became SUPER easy to track because I could copy entire meals over to a new day. Honestly, it was even easier than looking up McDonalds or Sonic or whatever. I need to get back to that! Thanks for your original post! Some great words of wisdom from the responding posters and just what I needed to hear right now!

amtyrell

Don't start both decreasing or restricting caloriesand logging. Log whatever you eat no limits as long as you log it for a few weeks thus getting yourself in the 100 percent honest log habit. Then in 2 or 3 weeks plug stats in and set for 1 lb a week loss. Continue to log before you eat and aim for that number. If too hard try half a lb.