How to stay on track

Mrsindepenant1

I’m an old member who is back for another shot at success.
Over the past two years I have been working an extremely physically and mentally demanding farm job. Last year I worked 26 weeks doing atleast 10 hours a day and had 6 days off total. Safe to say my self care went out the window. I lived on take out atleast 3 times a week. Despite my job being physically demanding the whole stress and poor self care resulted in me gaining 10kg. I already needed to loose 10kg prior to all of this.
I am moving into a new role in two months and would like to kick some KGs before then. I want to get healthier and ideally loose 20kg by December also. But I struggle with staying on track. I want this, I really do!
Can you please all give me your best tips and tricks and motivational tools you use to keep on track.
I can’t use the fitness pal app on my phone so filling my diary and keeping track is going to be super hard!

yirara

Just a question: Working 10 hours 26 weeks and only 6 days off: is that actually allowed? Sorry, can't contribute further. I'm just shocked.

cmriverside

Yeah, that's a brutal schedule and I'm sorry you found yourself in that situation.

20kg is totally doable in a safe, reasonable way.

Just start! Log food. I ate a lot of vegetables and protein, (and still had a treat now and then.) Get some exercise, step on the scale. Repeat.

I lost 22kg in just under nine months when I started and I didn't break my back doing it. Just one day at a time.

AnnPT77

Don't try to make weight loss happen fast, try to make it happen easily. Find reasonably happy new habits that reduce your calorie intake.

Logging is great for knowing what decreases total calorie intake, but if logging is one of the things that persistently falls off your radar when things get busy, start somewhere else. Most people, if honest with themselves, know which foods are lower in calories or more nutritious. Ditto for foods or eating patterns that are more filling for them, especially if they pay attention and notice hunger/appetite patterns in themselves.

Some of the things below may be what you're already doing, or don't work for you, but they're just examples. Maybe they'll help you think of things that could apply to you, and help.

To the extent you can free up even 15 minutes a week, plan ahead a little. Make a grocery list. Pick up some easy-to-prep, quick-to-fix meals to keep on hand (frozen, boxed, canned, whatever - there are calorie efficient ones out there). If you tend to snack on foods from vending machines or mini-marts, think of some things you can buy ahead, keep in your car/purse/backpack/whatever for snacks, that are more nutritious, filling, lower calorie.

For the mini-marts or fast food places, if those are part of the picture, spend one week's 15 minutes looking around the mini-mart for better choices (here, those often have Greek yogurt, hard boiled eggs, pickles, fruit, seasoned ready-to-eat tuna/chicken packets, for example). Identify stores on your route from work to home, if there are any, that will have things like rotisserie chicken or sensible deli meat (just sliced or chunk real meat, not the high fat/salt processed ones like salami and whatnot). Pick those things up, put leftovers in the fridge for the next day's quick meal.

For fast food/take-out, spend one week's 15 minutes looking at menus of the ones near you. I don't know where you are, but here there are calorie-efficient choices on those menus, they're just not featured/highlighted. Plan the junior burger, not the mega burger; plan to skip the sides, or get salad. Have an egg sandwich. Get a grilled/broiled chicken salad. Have the fresco taco, not the deep-fried one. Some of the chains let you vary the contents of an item, but that's never on the menu board: Two meat patties on one or no bun; drop the rice; etc. On salads, get the vinaigrette (reduced calorie version?) rather than the creamy full fat one. Know what your efficient order is, before you get there.

Reduce portion sizes of high-calorie things when you can. Put half the takeout meal in the fridge for tomorrow. Think about condiments: Mayo is high calorie, and many of the "special sauces" are basically mayo. Mustard is low calorie, even ketchup is much lower calorie than mayo or Ranch. Skip the sugared pop/juice/tea/coffee in favor of plain, or low-calorie.

Generally, just chip away at eating fewer calories while still feeling full and reasonably energetic. If you give it that few minutes thought here and there, make some relatively easy changes in patterns and habits, that can add up, begin to create progress, without some gigantic, revolutionary, comprehensive change.

Will it be relatively slower? Probably. But maybe more practical, achievable. Think progress, don't worry about perfect.

kshama2001

yirara wrote: »

Just a question: Working 10 hours 26 weeks and only 6 days off: is that actually allowed? Sorry, can't contribute further. I'm just shocked.

I don't know where the OP is from but farm workers in the US can legally be treated poorly and historically have been excluded from the (sometimes pitiful) protections workers in other sectors have. (Also, small farmer owners in the US can treat themselves poorly in order to eke out a living.)

https://nfwm.org/farm-workers/farm-worker-issues/labor-laws/

Farm workers in the US can also be treated abominably illegally:

https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/world/ciw-fair-food-program-freedom-project/index.html

We probably shouldn't continue this tangent here...perhaps it is a topic for Debate? And/or feel free to direct message me.