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MyFitnessPal Community

Accountability

ashbee03

Hey there,

I always hype myself up and do great for a week or so and then a minor inconvenience or break in routine totally messes things up for me.

What are some good ideas for accountability? I’ve tried weight watchers, I’ve tried journaling, I’ve created my own trackers and journals. I’m not sure how to keep myself motivated. I want to be healthier, and more confident, but at the same time I don’t care either.

I have friends but they don’t take things as seriously as I need them to be.

Any suggestions?

Replies

wunderkindking

Let go of accountability as your 'fix' and start looking toward flexibility. A bad meal, day, or week isn't going to sink you. If, however, you decide you messed up and it's over -- you're sunk.

Those times are always going to happen. Figure out better options for those as you can (cottage cheese and greek yogurt + fruit, frozen stir fry veg, frozen individually packaged chicken breasts are my new convenience foods), but also accept at times you're going to go over calories on a given day (or even few) and that's okay. Plan to get back to 'normal' eating (new normal, for loss or to maintain your lower weight) and let it go.

musicfan68

You don't need motivation. You need habits that you develop and stick with, then it becomes a part of your life and you just do it. At the end of the day, the only person that can hold you accountable is yourself. Start by using MFP to track what you eat, don't concentrate on macros, or anything, just get used to using the app until it is second nature and part of your routine, then start weighing foods and tracking correctly for calories. Just keep adding little things as you go.

nsk1951

All roads start with just one step ... and have you taken that first step in acknowledging that you must lose weight because .... (name 1 thing that means a lot to you about why you want to be thinner) ... and then build on that one thing as a start ...

Ask yourself, what can I do right now to help me make this happen? And when you find that one small thing that you can, and are willing to do ... do it. And then do that again. Eventually you will want to do yet another thing to help you get to where you want to be ...
....
And that's the crutch of it all ... you have to WANT IT. If you don't care, then you are just not ready to do it and need to resign yourself to being as fat as you currently are. ... and that may be just a bit overweight to morbidly obese, it doesn't matter how much weight you carry that is extra ... you need to want it gone before you can stick to anything at all.

AnnPT77

I vote for working to make the process easy (instead of trying to make it fast, or make it perfect). Any day you eat a few calories under your actual maintenance calories is contributing to weight loss.

Motivation and will power are fleeting. I think it makes sense to use it, when I had/have it, to experiment, find some relatively easy-to-sustain but slightly healthier habit(s), and groove those in as a behavior that can continue almost on autopilot when life gets complicated.

Examples: Find ways of intentionally moving more that are fun (whether other people call them "exercise" or not). Do things in daily life that create a "bias toward movement": All those little things like parking at the far end of the parking lot, taking the stairs.** Find slightly lower-calorie foods that you personally find tasty and practical to eat, and put them in regular rotation. And so forth.

Small changes in habits add up. "Motivation" or "willpower" can be used to figure out the new habits and start them, but cleverly finding the easy ones is what makes them able to stick.

If weight loss or fitness required "motivation" or "will power" or "accountability" or other hard adult-y things long term, I wouldn't be a healthy weight (after decades of obesity) and reasonably fit 66-year-old, after finally getting active in my 40s (staying fat!) and losing weight at 59-60. Those things are not my strong suit, to say the least. Habits, though? Everyone's got some. Me, too. Now they're better, usually.

Easy(ish) habits, for the win.

** More ideas on "bias toward movement" here:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

Kiwi2mfp

I have fought lack of motivation over and over again. But there have been three times in my life where I started a weightloss journey and the motivation was strong and I knew it was solid. The first time I was motivated by being able to join the Navy if I dropped 16 pounds. The second time, I am not sure where the motivation came from...I think I was just fed up. This time, I had a health scare about a month ago. I'm down 15 pounds in 29 days. The meaning of all this talk is, the motivation has to be something that motivates you! There really isn't anything I can think of to suggest beyond finding something that makes you want weight loss more than missing this, or losing out on that or maybe an event coming up? Maybe you want more energy to play with kids or grandkids (sorry , I don't know your age). I had given up trying because I didn't think I would ever find something strong enough to motivate me through a weight loss journey again...until the health scare. That health scare scared me straight. This journey is sticking and I have no fear that it won't. I do hope you find that thing that drives you forward. Do you have a picture of you at the weight you are aiming for? Sometimes that helps.