Overwhelmed?

Starla_C

Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by starting something new? I am trying to eat healthier and start some new habits, but find it all overwhelming.

Lietchi

No need to tackle everything at once!

Start by changing one thing. And when you're used to that, change another thing.
Rome wasn't built in a day 🙂

If you're aiming to lose weight, I would start by focusing on your calorie intake before overhauling what you eat.

crazyhorse8

Lietchi wrote: »

No need to tackle everything at once!

Start by changing one thing. And when you're used to that, change another thing.
Rome wasn't built in a day 🙂

If you're aiming to lose weight, I would start by focusing on your calorie intake before overhauling what you eat.

I agree totally with that comment! I knew that I needed to ditch the sugared coffee creamer and use just plain half and half as sugar is my kryptonite and I abuse it! It took a while to do it but I know it is better for me this way. All the little things you eventually do will add up in the long run as pounds lost!

dontlikepeople

Being uncomfortable is how we ultimately change, if it was easy, everyone would do it!

cwolfman13

Starla_C wrote: »

Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by starting something new? I am trying to eat healthier and start some new habits, but find it all overwhelming.

You don't need to do everything all at once and do a complete 180 with your life. Take it in chunks. Nobody just flips a switch and completely changes their lifestyle over night. Be reasonable with yourself.

If you're trying to lose weight, focus on calories. As you go along and are viewing your diary, look for places that you can improve your nutrition and make small changes that are attenable. If you don't exercise, you don't need to go from nothing to all the exercises everyday. Start small...build up.

In my experience, trying to do everything at once pretty much leads to nothing in the long run. Think tortoise and the hare...don't be the hare.

Xerogs

Starla_C wrote: »

Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by starting something new? I am trying to eat healthier and start some new habits, but find it all overwhelming.

It can always be overwhelming when starting new things. I know when I've felt overwhelmed it usually stems from looking at all the "what ifs" of the situation. I always think of the movie "What about Bob?" and remember to take "baby steps" in any new venture. It's a humorous way to deflate the situation and make me look at what I can take on at the present moment and then adapt moving forward. I usually tell myself today I am going to take one small portion of my goal while not letting the entirety of the goal derail my progress. There are so many resources available to me these days I really let my curiosity run loose when I am taking on something new and try to learn as much about it as I can. I don't take on all the information and try to gleam helpful tidbits in notes or things I would like to try.

Meditation helps me organize my thoughts as well. It resets my mind to the present moment.

Change is hard but so fulfilling when you achieve your goals and even if you fail at times it's all a learning experience on the journey of your life.

BrightEyedAgain

You've gotten some good advice about making small changes instead of trying to manage everything at once. So I'll just add this idea: start by not changing anything initially. Instead, gather infromation about what you're already doing by logging every bite that goes in your mouth without trying to be perfect and super healthy. Just get a baseline of what you normally do now. Then use that information to look for WHICH small changes you make easily, and do those. Like, maybe you find out the bread you eat is super high calorie, and there's another brand you like just as well that's lower. Easy peasy. Maybe you decide you could cut your nightly chocolate snack in half. Whatever.

The thing is to stay realistic and not try to remake your whole life all at once. By training yourself to log properly, you'll be moving forward with the info you need to start shifting your habits in ways that can work for you long term. Getting healthy is a process not an event. Over time you'll find yourself making lots of easy little adjustments that will eventually look very different from the way you live now, but because you took the time to evolve the new habits, they'll be more sustainable AND you'll feel less overwhelmed.

elisa123gal

Eating less and thinking about the food you eat is disruptive and will never be easy. It is a change and it takes adjustment and work. So.. that may feel like overwhelm. That challenging phase is part of any kind of self improvement.

Xellercin

I tackle large changes with small, incremental, doable, easy, sustainable steps.

That's the most predictable way to overhaul your entire life, one little sustainable habit at a time.

No one is putting a gun to your head forcing you to massively change your life in one go, so why do that to yourself.

When I graduated and decided to overhaul my life, I just started with breakfast and worked my way from there. It took me about 2 years to completely change the way I live, but 2 years is nothing compared to the rest of my life being optimally healthy.

metaphysicalstudio

I am an all-or-nothing person who has been working on addressing and exploring this dynamic for a very long time (decades). I always try to get to a place of moderation. It isn't easy, and I am assume that you are also this kind of person just based on your question. So, keep in mind your natural ways of thinking and acting, and give yourself some compassion as you move toward something else. Know that it takes awareness and time for most of us! But you can achieve something sustainable. You can keep working toward something when results are not immediate!

kckh

It can be overwhelming when looked at all together. I've had success with breaking into smaller goals. I've also had to learn to be realistic with goal setting and to be more patient with myself. I know you can do this!

fatfish420

As everyone has pretty much said on here baby steps are the key to getting started. It took me a long time to get away from that feeling myself and it is a feeling that creeps back every time I fall off. What I have to realize is I am further along then when I started and that I can do this. one piece of advice that has stuck with me the longest is forgive yourself if you make a mistake, we all do, so forgive yourself the mistake and keep going you got this!

natajane

I get overwhelmed too.
Treat this like a factual work exercise and break the problem down into chunks.
So log your food honestly for a week or two - weigh everything by the gram where you can.
Then look back at the data objectively - and figure out where you're eating the most calories and if you can make any easy changes or swaps to reduce the calories you're eating.

So for example, say you end up snacking each day between lunch and dinner and you're eating 300 cals in snacks - that means you're hungy at that time of day, so swap the snack for something less impactful, berries, cucumber etc and up your protein at the meal before so that you stay fuller longer.

Or say you drink a load of coffee with cream and sugar through the day and its adding sneaky calories - cut the sugar back, swap the cream for skimmed milk.

Or say you barely eat all day, and then for dinner you're eating 1000+ calories because you're starving marvin. In that case, add in a breakfast or a lunch and see if that helps you to reduce dinner.

Collate the data, then work on 1 habit at a time for a few weeks. Then go back and work on another habit. Slowly slowly you'll address the main issues.

For me, I have to make sure I have a decent lunch so I replace bread with beans/pulses to keep me fuller, and i have to weigh my dinner out (i.e not throw cheese on everything) and i can hit my calories/fibre/protien by in the main eating "normally" for me but with those little tweaks.