Perspective and my ability to mind *kitten* myself

JuliBiGoolee

I'm back to MFP yet again. This time I have a better mindset. I'm not gonna give up over one bad meal, or day, or bad number on the scale. I'm gonna keep on keeping on regardless. I'm gonna be proud of myself for sticking with it.

HOWEVER, my mind lies to me. It tells me: I feel like I should be losing more since I've been doing this now forever Everyone I see on MFP seems to be losing more than me.

Reality: it's been 14 days and I've lost 4 pounds. That's 2 lbs a week. That's precisely my goal. MFP is filled with people at all stages in their transformation. Amazing how my mind wants to sabotage me. It wants me to fail. It's happy when I'm fat and sick.
This time my heart and soul will win the war instead of my self-deprecating mind winning the battle.
Just something on my mind tonight. Stay lovely MFP peeps!

fuegobrillante

That's what makes this whole thing so hard for me - I want to see big changes on the outside because I am making big changes in my life, but it takes more than a day or a week or a month to see big changes lol! Sounds like you're doing great though, that's awesome!!!

JuliBiGoolee

fuegobrillante wrote: »

That's what makes this whole thing so hard for me - I want to see big changes on the outside because I am making big changes in my life, but it takes more than a day or a week or a month to see big changes lol! Sounds like you're doing great though, that's awesome!!!

Thanks!

88olds

Yes. Your brain will do you in if you let it. I attribute my weight loss to this- I figured out how to argue with myself and win.

You have a good example in your post. You’ve lost 4 lbs in 2 weeks. Right on the nose. But your brain wants to say “not good enough.” But then you caught your brain trying to mess with you- the hard fact is your plan is working.

I found my brain had lots of ways to twist things into “not good enough.” But if I stuck to the facts, I could push back.

Just remember to stick to facts: weight loss isn’t linear. We all make mistakes. Slow and steady wins the race. Any loss is a step in the right direction. What others do has nothing to do with you.

Last- make your food diary the center of your effort and you will never be derailed by a bad day or a bad meal. No matter what, log in everything, good, bad or ugly. Anyone can log their good days. You log them all. Some day you will likely go over your number but the process is more important than the numbers. A food diary is a thing to do, only way not to do it is quit. Don’t.

If you forget to log something in, go back and make a good faith effort to fill it in. Don’t know how many calories was in that dish, make your best estimate, put down a number and keep going. You’re in for the long haul. If your plan doesn’t work out at some point, make a better plan. Good luck.

JuliBiGoolee

Yes @88olds I've added midnight shame snacks to the next mornings AM snacks, I even created a 3000 calorie meal labeled "Bad Day" for those days or events where I've totally gone off the rails. I try to remember that I didn't get this heavy from one bad meal or day. I got this heavy from a PATTERN of bad decisions. MFP stops the pattern.

mulecanter

You might find it helpful to plan and log your meals up front. There seems to be something about having put yourself on record and that helping you resist deviating from your log. Maybe as simple as being too lazy to update your log and being uncomfortable with a bogus entry. Self-delusion that works?