Living The Lifestyle Tuesday, August 10, 2021

88olds

We meet here to explore, share, celebrate and (sometimes) agonize over how we do (or don't) incorporate weight loss guidelines into our daily lives. "It's a lifestyle, not a diet" is easily and often said, but sometimes not so simply put into practice.

This is a thread for everyone. If you're new to GoaD, or to weight loss, your questions and comments are always welcome. If you're maintaining, or a long-term loser, your thoughts on the topic may be just what someone else needs to hear. If you're reading this, join in the discussion!

Each weekday, a new topic is offered up for discussion.

Monday - Al_Howard (Al)
Tuesday – 88olds (George)
Wednesday - crewahl (Charlie)
Thursday - misterhub (Greg)
Friday - whathapnd (Emmie)

Today's Topic: Good habits.

What good habits have you developed to help you lose weight and/or maintain? Did you have to work hard to get them in place? How do they help you?

88olds

My best habit that’s stuck with me since starting WW in 2006 is regular use of a food scale. Even when I’m not doing full on tracking, I use that scale every day I’m home. From past tracking efforts on MFP, I have an idea of what I want for a calorie target for my meals at home and how big the portions should be.

Although my biggest challenge is fighting various creeping attacks on my plan, I generally don’t have an issue with portion creep thanks to continued use of the scale.

I actually found learning to count WW points interesting. The number crunching didn’t bother me. It held quite a few surprises. The scale just stuck around right out on the counter. Easy enough to keep using it.

steve0mania

Like you, @88olds, portion-control has been a good habit! I do use a food scale at home, not for everything, but mostly for meat and my (near-daily) potato. I also use a measuring cup for cereal and milk in the morning. I like to think that it keeps me honest! I didn't find this a hard habit to put in place, and it's stuck with me for a long time.

Getting in regular exercise is another good habit I've developed. At the beginning it was really part of the "burn-more than you eat" strategy, but over time I no longer think of exercise as "running for cookies." Now it's really a habit, or simply "something I do." Over the years I've had ups-and-downs, with various injuries and things, but I've been pretty consistent over the past couple of years at least. I think that has something to do with the idea that I don't push myself too hard (like I did when I first started running), and I'm happy getting in just 3-4 short runs in per week (3 miles each). I haven't tried to ramp up my distance in a few years.

The last habit is that I weigh myself daily and I write down the result in a notebook (where I also track my running), and plug the info into MFP. While I don't review the data very often, it does help me have a sense of where I'm at. Again, I think it keeps me honest!

crewahl

I think my weight loss is like my first house.

The house was 110 years old when we bought it. We did some fixes and improvements the first year, and some more the next year. By the third year, we wanted to make improvements but things we’d fixed in year one needed fixing again. It became a viscous circle where we were trying to catch up to things that were breaking rather than getting ahead of the issues.

So it is with my weight loss. I think it’s not so much good habits but rather a series of rear-guard actions to counteract an attack in an area I’d done well in before. I have all the tools, but it seems as if I’m using them in reaction to problems more than as defenses against erosion.

Hope that makes sense.

Al_Howard

I'm with @88olds . I keep the sale out on the counter, and use it! I even weigh all the veggies going on the plates.
Although TOL complains I'm "starving" her, the portions keep me on my losing trek, and her below goal.

misterhub

I am another portion control person. Although, I get off target sometimes and "forget" to do it. But, for me weighing and measuring are the most important things.