Battle Strategies

Mitch_Mazaher

Let’s face it friends, losing weight is a struggle….no, it’s a WAR. A seemingly endless war. And each minute of each hour of each day we’re fighting the battles that get us one step closer to victory. Honestly, that’s the way I look at it and while I know it takes an emotional toll on us all, we just need to win more battles than we lose. Over time, we’ll succeed. We all know the saying “We may have lost the battle, but we haven’t lost the war.” This is honestly how we need to look at our commitment to ourselves. Buck up, lose one battle, win the next two, we’ll get there.

In 2014/2015 I lost 75 pounds and got down to 195 and maintained well until this year. At the beginning of 2019 I was 206, this morning I was 229.8. I’m back to nip this in the bud and I’m going to share 5 of my battle strategies. Some are daily motivators and some help me stay focused on the ultimate goal. None of these are new and they are certainly NOT my inventions. I’m sure you’ve heard all of these before. They worked for me and I expect them to work again.

1. Small goals – in 2014 when I was at 270 I wanted to get to 200. That just seemed overwhelming. So I set my first goal at 265. Focused only on 265. When I got there, I set my next goal at 260 and so on. In 2015 I made it to 200 and beyond. Setting those small goals really helped me curb the frustration and allowed me to celebrate each pound gone. Here’s the thing – DON’T WORRY ABOUT HOW LOG IT TAKES YOU TO ACHIEVE THE GOAL. Just knock off those pounds 5 at a time. Before you know it, you’re 50 pounds lighter and feeling powerful.
2. Visualize the goal – look, I know what I’m about to say seems shameful. I was 270, I hated how I looked and how I felt. So, I found a photo in a magazine of how I wanted to look and made copies. I hung one on my bathroom mirror, on the rear view mirror of my car, in a frame on my desk at work, on the refrigerator door…you get the idea. Now that I’m back, to lose 30 lbs, I’m doing this again. If you choose to employ this strategy, don’t be silly. Don’t use a twenty-something ripped hunk or bikini babe, you’ll never get there and that can be a source of frustration. Pick something modest and realistic. I nice photo of yourself from the past may work for you. My photo was actually a Target fashion photo of a middle aged man. Now, it’s a photo of me from 2015 (see my profile pic).
3. Plan meals a week in advance – This strategy is what really got me over the edge last time. I don’t mean just a thought exercise, I mean use your MFP food diary as a menu. Think about the week ahead, where you’ll be, activities you have planned and actually enter in each meal AND SNACK for the next 7 days. Get your groceries, prep your foods, and live up to the menu you have planned. Tell your family, if they aren’t on board, they can cook for themselves. Commit to yourself here. For me, investing the time, energy, and money in ADVANCE was enough of a motivation to stick to the plan. Sure there were some days when something unexpected came up and I had to adjust (one battle lost), but for the most part I could stick to my menu (two battles won).
4. Log Every Bite – now we’re all on here to use MFP to track our calories and nutrients etc., but let’s face it, we aren’t always honest are we? Every bite counts, every piece of candy, every lick of the spoon of mashed potatoes before you wash it, every chip you steal from your partner, it all adds up. You must log this stuff. Those extra nibbles can really slow down your progress. If you don’t log it, you’ll never SEE it. This strategy was another huge step forward for me in 2014/2015. You can’t stop it if you don’t know it…LOG EVERY BITE.
5. Eat light and Often – THIS IS SOOOOO HARD! And it is hard. It takes planning, commitment, self-control; all the things we didn’t do that got us here in the first place. Here’s the deal. You really don’t want to eat more calories at one sitting than your body can burn in about 2 to 3 hours. Your body takes those unburned nutrients and converts them to fat. I’m where I am now because I stopped doing this in January and low and behold, I gained 25 pounds in 10 months….ugh. Honestly, it’s uncomfortable when you first start this, because you don’t feel that ‘full’ feeling anymore that is sooooo pleasing. If you do this successfully, then you fuel your body adequately during the day and guess what – you lose weight overnight while you sleep. Because you have just equally met your body’s energy needs during the day, you go to sleep with no ‘excess’ calories to be processed. Your body doesn’t stop needing energy when it sleeps, in fact, if you exercise just a little, that’s when your body is making repairs and working and that takes energy. Energy your body gets from, you guessed it, stored fat. Of course, for this to work you have to do two things, follow strategy 4 to the letter, and don't eat within 2 hours of bedtime. Try this, it really works for me.

So, these are just 5 strategies I use to stay on track. Let’s hear your strategies. The things you do each day to help you win the battles.

RelCanonical

Honestly, I agree with 1-4 for tactics, but my biggest "a-ha" moment was when I stopped treating deficit eating like a battle and started treating it like brushing my teeth - as daily self-care. Everyone is different, of course, and for some, treating it like a battle can make it seem like a worthy challenge and brings excitement to something mundane.

Terytha

Eh, point 5 is hit and miss. Intermittent fasting and OMAD are extremely helpful to lots of people. And since it takes more than 2 to 3 hours (more like 6 to 8) to digest your food, your body absolutely does not, in any way, just go straight to fat with your meals.

You don't gain weight by eating big meals, you gain weight by eating too many calories.

psychod787

Just make sure you can win the "War". Nothing worse than a Pyrrhic victory....🙄

cmriverside

I am not a planner. I don't even log the entire day's food until I've eaten it let alone the whole week. Bohemian free spirit here.

The Eat Small and Often thing doesn't work for me either. If I don't have a meal that is big enough to satisfy me then all I can think about is my next meal. My strategy is to eat two large meals per day with balanced macros, and a 300ish calorie midday snack then something high-protein like cottage cheese and fruit right before bed. Or depending on my protein numbers for the day - popcorn after dinner...I know I know, that's not high protein, I just mean it's a great snack if I already have enough protein.

seltzermint555

I pretty much follow all of that except for #5. While I'm not an IF eater or anything like that, I find that a small breakfast and large lunch and dinner (RARELY snacks) is best for me.

Katmary71

Planning meals I somewhat do, but more like making a pot of beans, soups, chili, things like that to eat throughout the week. I usually make 2 servings when cooking. I don't pre log that far in advance because I don't always want to eat what I logged and it's a pain to change everything to .001 servings.

I eat three meals as well. Divide calories up however it works for you. I'm down 100lbs so it's working for me. Exercise and strength training made a big difference in my life as well. I'm glad you found what works for you!

AnnPT77

Too much drama, for me. I'm an impulsive, hedonic aging hippie data geek. Gotra game my own tendencies to accomplish my goals, y'know?

The only one of your strategies that even remotely works for me is #4. I did it religiously in 2015 while losing, and most of the time since (I skip logging days that are annoyingly complicated, which I wouldn't have done while losing, because then I wanted sound data for estimating my TDEE.)

For me, weight loss was (1) a fun grown up science fair experiment, and (2) a learning opportunity about habits that would help me stay at a healthy weight permanently (ideally), with sound nutrition.

Loss wasn't a battle, let alone a war. It was simple (though not always easy), and rewarding. The goal was the process, not some number on the scale. I eat whenever, including right up to bedtime, and usually 2-4 times a day (varies often). Five years on, still BMI 22-point-something today.

Everybody's different. Sincerely glad you've found what works for you! :flowerforyou:

sugarcakes38

Yeah that’d be a lot of stuff for me to unpack every day. I would rather not see it as a war, there are far more serious things people are dealing with that make my daily weight struggles seem very minimal, which they are in the grand scheme of things.

I started about 10 years ago and lost 150 pounds. Ultimately reached the 170’s and gave up at some point. I managed to keep off all but around 30lbs and this year decided to pick it back up again and lose what I needed to to get my health affairs back in order.

Over the course of these last 10 years, and then in the last 6 months, it’s been a matter of a lot of trial error, venturing out, getting over fears like exercising in a gym and taking walks on the street. Most of the work has been in my habits, where I still consider it a learning curve to accurately weigh, make choices and continue working to DEVELOP habits that will probably take me a long time to consider second nature. None of that is a battle, just opportunities, and there’s just as many struggles after you reach goal, only we dont typically count those because they’re not as obvious as weight, or as simple to target.

I’m really happy to see that you’ve found your groove to help you through this, because we each need our own line of strategies. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that as you get lighter, strategies may have to change, and that’s always very personal. Good luck 💕

NovusDies

If it works for you great...

None of it works for me though. Not even 4. I log accurately enough to continue to lose weight on schedule. When that stops I will tighten up.

I do not think of weight loss as a battle or something I need to force. The only small goal I have is to try to be happy and in a deficit most days. I do not visualize my goal. Actually I try not to think about weight loss at all. I just let it happen.

Good luck.