Starting Over (Over and Over and Over Again)

zillah73

It’s August, 2010 and lights of Harrah’s New Orleans are glowing fuchsia and purple in the dusk hours of Canal Street. I can see them over my right shoulder as sweat drips from the tip of my nose and speckles the treadmill belt speeding beneath my feet, “Tambourine” by Eve reverberating in my headphones. It’s Friday night and I’ve been here every weeknight after work this week. And last week. And the week before. In fact, I haven’t missed the gym since I joined five months ago. These were the days I was the most dedicated, the days when I never made excuses, when the weight fell off me like shackles. These were my halcyon days.

I started this weight loss journey in March 2010 – despite countless failed attempts in the past, starting when I was a pre-teen pressured to lose weight by family – when I experienced the perfect storm of opportunity, convenience, motivation and support. I was meal planning and prepping, gradually stepping down my calorie intake with my progress. I was working out, doing cardio and strength training five days a week. It was the first successful attempt at losing weight I’d ever made. I had lost 100 pounds. People were noticing and complimenting my weight lost, validating (in my mind at that time) all my hard work. I was unstoppable. At least until I wasn’t. When I lost my job – which meant losing my discounted gym access and support system – I spiraled. I never regained the momentum I had then.

Fast forward to today and I am still struggling. I have never reached my goal weight. I have gotten within 20 pounds of my goal then started self-sabotaging and regaining. I topped 200 over these past holidays for the first time in a few years. It’s a frustrating process on many levels, not the least of which is the emotional aspect of feeling like a failure, an imposter, a fraud. But I haven’t given up, not totally. I just keep starting over, just keep getting back on the weight loss carousel. I find myself constantly trying to recapture the lightening I managed to bottle in 2010, despite my life being nothing like it was then. I manage to string together a few weeks to a few months of meal prep and gym sessions, lose some weight then start the cycle all over again.

I know this is normal. I know sustained weight loss is very difficult. My weight-related health issues and disappointment with my body and habits propels me to start again over, and over, and over again. I guess I am sharing all this with you to find out if I am alone in this. If anyone here has overcome this cycle. I guess I am looking for comradery, for a glimmer of hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.

JBanx256

We - meaning all the other users of MFP - can't necessarily generate all the elements of your perfect storm:

*Opportunity is 100% on you.
*Convenience - I mean you literally carry it (MFP) in your pocket and can log food either once/day (or heck once/week if you're meal prepping and know in advance what you're going to be eating each day), or by-the-minute as it comes to you. It's far from perfect but it works (most of the time) and, when it's not being buggy, is definitely convenient.
*Motivation...well, there are reams of literature about internal vs external motivation and loci of control etc. We can give you words of encouragement, but motivation largely needs to come from within, not from a bunch of random strangers. And, personally, I'm a huge believer in habit or discipline is FAR more valuable than motivation, because motivation comes and goes like the weather, but once you are locked in and it's just part of who you are and how your day is laid out, end of story...it's for the long haul.
*SUPPORT THO? Oh yeah, we gotcha covered there.

Do you lose interest in the gym/meal prepping or does it just seem like too much of a hassle? Is it a "ehhhh I don't feel like it today" thing that then snowballs and you never go back? Did you find meal prepping too time-consuming or did you just get bored making/eating the same things over and over? Did you actually ENJOY your workouts - whether treadmill or weights or underwater basket weaving or whatever you were doing at the gym - or did you find them tedious and felt like a chore, something that you had to force yourself to do? Since you lost your discounted gym access, have you gotten into a new gym? Like it, hate it, totally neutral? Do they have equipment you like and feel comfortable using? Do they have classes that may interest you? Offer personal training sessions?

AnnPT77

There's a lot of ground in between doing nothing (even backsliding) and getting everything going with meal prep, gym, etc.

You write:

I know this is normal. I know sustained weight loss is very difficult. My weight-related health issues and disappointment with my body and habits propels me to start again over, and over, and over again. I guess I am sharing all this with you to find out if I am alone in this. If anyone here has overcome this cycle. I guess I am looking for comradery, for a glimmer of hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.

To the bolded: It's common, yes. No, you're not alone.

Sometimes, I think it's difficult because people have the misimpression that it must be difficult, that it's better if it's difficult: Revolutionary changes in foods eaten, strict rules about what's allowed, punitively intense exercise, and a general pursuit of perceived perfection, as if weight management were some kind of magic spell that required all actions to be correct, or it wouldn't work . . . as if the weight loss process needed to be some kind of expiation for the sin of being fat.

It becomes hard(er) because sometimes we make it harder than it needs to be, I think.

It's not essential to go to full bore meal prep and intense gymming.

A series of smaller changes can work. Log your food, whatever you're eating now. Review your diary, decide on things that aren't worth the calories to you, in current amounts, in light of their tastiness, nutrition, satiation or other factors important to you. Reduce or eliminate those foods that don't seem worth it to you.

When calories get to where you need them for moderate and sustainable weight loss, keep going with "is it worth it" reviews, and use freed-up calories to increase nutrition by adding other foods you actually enjoy eating (and that are practical/affordable), but that fill out your nutrition more effectively.

On the exercise front, when you're ready, just start by doing some extra movement, something that's fun and achievable. It can be gym if you like gym, but it can be taking a walk, playing with kids, playing games, or anything - just move more. Keep going. Fitness will move along, with a little challenge.

Yes, that will take a longer time, weeks, maybe even months, to get new habits established on near-autopilot, with this kind of gradual tweaking. That's not necessarily a bad thing: It doesn't seem like your past strategies have worked out over longer calendar time, so maybe start using that time in a different way?

If a big part of the problem is self image and personal psychology, then consider working on that explicitly, not just expecting it to be somehow different if you change some other habits. If you need help with that aspect, get help: There should be no more stigma in seeking help with the psychology of this stuff than there is with engaging a registered dietitian to help with nutrition, or a personal trainer to help with workouts.

I was overweight to obese for around 30 years. Now I'm not, and I haven't been overweight for around 6 years. (I'm not the only one around here who can say that.)

I eat the same foods I did when I was overweight, just different portion sizes, proportions, frequencies of those foods. I do the same kinds of exercise I found fun when I was still overweight, but they're easier and even more fun now, so I can go harder at them and enjoy that. While I didn't use professional help with the psychological side of weight management, I've done so for other issues in the past, and found it helpful.

If what you've been doing hasn't been working, maybe consider trying a different approach?