Anxiety about starting and feeling again

Joy5434

So a year go I lost 30 lb in about 3 months by doing boxing and Barre classes. Then life happened and I got lazy and complacent. I ended up gaining the 30 back plus the extra 17. Now I'm starting over I'm so worried about failing again I can't get it out of my head. Has anybody experienced this and how do you overcome it?

Also I need to lose 70 to 100 lb I'm 28 I don't really have a lot of flabby skin I'm actually pretty tone for my weight. But I'm worried that I might have extra skin saggy with that much weight loss. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks everyone!

TavistockToad

Well if you don't try, you have already failed.

rainbowbow

First and foremost, bodyfat overshooting is common in individuals who crash diet, lose weight too quickly, try to overhaul their lifestyle too fast, dont learn good coping mechanisms/skills to deal with "life" as you put it, etc.

My best advice would be....

1.) Set SMART goals. This will help you develop short and long term goals so that you can more easily stay on track. I often find this helps people in staying motivated as they know they're right on track (instead of thinking about the looming huge main goal they haven't yet accomplished).

Here's a video that goes over that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38KYpXLP2NU

2.) Start again SLOWLY incorporating a new thing each month. Maybe this month you just start tracking again to see how many calories you're eating and you get a good idea of your maintenance and favorite foods. Maybe next month you start lowering your calories by 250 or 500 calories each day by eating your favorite foods but making some small substitutions. Maybe you can set a goal to walk for 30 minutes a day during the week. Then maybe the month after that you lower your calories another 250-500 and start attending a class once a week. etc.

Essentially the point is... do this slowly and surely so that you can learn habits and how to include these "healthy lifestyle" activities even when the going is tough, stress is high, etc.

No one can tell you how much is reasonable for you, you've got to determine this in your SMART goals.

3.) Put in place rewards (non-food preferably) or other positive reinforcement for staying on track and hitting your mini goals (every 10 pounds for example you go get a massage/pedicure, etc). Instead of focusing on how you messed up, fell off, screwed up one day, etc. focus on reaching these small incremental goals and how much you've progressed.

4.) Try incorporating journaling, meditation, or some other mindfulness practice to help you stay clear on your underlying motivations for losing weight. This usually (in my opinion anyway) is because you love yourself, want to look and feel better, want to have a better quality of life, etc. This will help keep your mindset positive and eyes on the prize instead of focusing on damaging thoughts (i'm not good enough, i'm ugly, i'm fat, i'm unworthy, etc. etc. etc.) which people often use to "punish" themselves into adherance.

hope this helps!

rainbowbow

Oh, and in regards to excess skin this is really impossible for anyone to know. In general it depends on age, genetics, how long you were overweight, how fast you lost the weight, etc.

The best thing you can do is lose low and slow and maintain your fat loss for a long period of time (indefinitely if possible). Some people find their loose skin bounces back to some degree within 2 years of maintaining a lower weight while others find that they will ALWAYS have loose skin unless they opt for surgery. Regardless of loose skin... maintaining a healthy body weight is absolutely vital for long term health and longevity so it's STILL worth it.

middlehaitch

Great advice above from @rainbowbow.

I would just add, because you seemed to be focused on the exercise you were doing, think about how much exercise you want to do long term, and account for and eat back your exercise calories.

Many people drop the intensity of exercise once they have lost the weight, and then can't figure out why they start gaining.

Just like building a strategy, while losing, for eating once you hit maintenance, build one for exercise too.

This to me is the plus of using MFP correctly. If you decide to exercise 3 times a week in maintenance, when you did 5 times a week when losing, if you are logging and eating those calories it is easy to adjust up and down.

Cheees, h.

leggup

It sounds like you identified what made your diet-lifestyle unsustainable: it required a high amount of fitness to maintain. Once you stopped working out, since the intake/food didn't change enough. This time use fitness for health and your intake for weigh tloss.