What was the breaking point on your last failed attempt at weight-loss?

ReCre8tingMe

Most of us have tried multiple times to lose weight or stay healthy. I was on a great track at one point. I let peer pressure from a friend break me. It was downhill ever since. How do you say no and keep the will-power to keep going?

RaquelFit2

I'm not sure exactly what broke me. Loss of motivation. Life stressors getting in the way. Not taking it seriously.

I've been on track since the beginning of the year. Noticed a slight decline in motivation lately even though I recently lost weight. Trying to pick up the pace.

JAC581

Last time I was losing weight was fall 2020-spring 2021. We were still in full pandemic mode so I was working from home and barely ever going out. This actually really helped me lose weight because I didn't have that temptation to go out and eat and drink and socialize. I had to eat the groceries I bought and that allowed me to really have control over what I ate. Once the weather got nicer in 2021 and we all started going out more, that's when I started losing control over what I ate and drank. Additionally, my boyfriend will eat whatever so it was difficult going out with him for food and drinks while still tracking my calorie intake. I guess that is what broke me. I wanted to go out and enjoy going to restaurants and getting the occasional drink, and once I started slipping I eventually just dropped it all.

I started again several months ago and it's been way harder for me this time around. We eat out a lot more than before. Espeically the last several seeks, I have been very stressed with moving and health issues, and that has made it very difficult to stay on track. I'm also on a medication now that is notorious for rapid weight gain. It's really hard some days. I guess what is keeping me going is just knowing how miserable and unhealthy I've felt at my highest weight, and knowing I don't want to be back there. I enjoying walking/hiking with my bf, but it really makes it hard when you get winded going up a single flight of stairs! More than anything, I want to feel healthy and able to do things and not get tired out after a couple of minutes.

snowflake954

Relying on motivation and willpower is not a good idea. Sooner or later it ends. Why not just build new habits?

ReCre8tingMe

To build new habits also requires motivation and willpower.

Xellercin

ReCre8tingMe wrote: »

To build new habits also requires motivation and willpower.

I think their point was to slowly and easily build new habits.

I have never had a diet breaking point because I have never "been on a diet."

I lost from obese to very lean, steadily, slowly, with absolutely no regain along the way because I was never on a specific diet.

I just made small, easy, incremental changes over time that took little to no will power. Most of my healthy eating changes were actually ways to make eating easier and less of hassle.

Eventually, my healthy eating pattern was by far the easiest, most sustainable option, so it just self perpetuates with no will power whatsoever.

What kind of lifestyle do you want to be living? What is holding you back from living that way?

It took me a long time to permanently change my entire lifestyle, but it made losing and maintaining my weight loss incredibly easy.

The key is to understand what's getting in your way.

cw106

Seperating a tendon in my shoulder was a hard stop for me.
12 months of rehab has reduced weight from 110kg to 97,so about 30 pounds/2 stones.
Will be an ongoing process now that im in my 60's.

Lietchi

ReCre8tingMe wrote: »

To build new habits also requires motivation and willpower.

A different kind though, IMHO.

An inherent motivation in the sense of actually wanting to lose weight and improve your health, not motivation in the sense of always feeling hyped like 'yes, let's go, let's do this!'. No one always feels that second kind of motivation. As for the first kind, it might help if you think about why you want to lose weight. Find the reasons that really 'push your buttons'. For me it was, amongst other things, being able to go hiking again with my boyfriend and to not become like my mom who is out of breath after one flight of stairs or a leisurely walk. Other people want to live long enough to see their grandkids grow up, for example.

Same with willpower: yes, in the sense of being overall consistent in doing what needs to be done, but not in the sense of 'this is so hard, I need all of my willpower to keep going'. Willpower is a finite resource, there will be days when we don't have any.

That's the importance of building new habits gradually, by making easy incremental choices, not choices that require 'rah rah' motivation and 'gritting your teeth' willpower.
I had (and have) days where I felt drained, and yet I continued on, because of my habits. And even with the occasional bad day, being overall consistent is what matters, too many people give up after one bad day because they think 'oh well, I've ruined it'.

Machka9

I've been slender and fit most of my life but when I got into my 40s, I started to gain weight slowly. When I turned 48 (2015), I decided it was time to lose it, and I did. I dropped to the weight I had been in my early 30s and also late teens/early twenties (just about my lowest adult weight).

I kept the weight off and increased my fitness through 2016, 2017 and into 2018.

Then my husband (who was partner in cycling, our fitness activity), had a very serious workplace accident which resulted in a severe traumatic brain injury. I put weight on after that.

ReCre8tingMe

Xellercin wrote: »

ReCre8tingMe wrote: »

To build new habits also requires motivation and willpower.

I think their point was to slowly and easily build new habits.

I have never had a diet breaking point because I have never "been on a diet."

I lost from obese to very lean, steadily, slowly, with absolutely no regain along the way because I was never on a specific diet.

I just made small, easy, incremental changes over time that took little to no will power. Most of my healthy eating changes were actually ways to make eating easier and less of hassle.

Eventually, my healthy eating pattern was by far the easiest, most sustainable option, so it just self perpetuates with no will power whatsoever.

What kind of lifestyle do you want to be living? What is holding you back from living that way?

It took me a long time to permanently change my entire lifestyle, but it made losing and maintaining my weight loss incredibly easy.

The key is to understand what's getting in your way.

Thank you for explaining your story. I feel like this is the most helpful comment I've received. My whole goal is to live a healthy lifestyle not necessarily just to lose weight although that's just the beginning. I found this to be very helpful for my journey! ❤

Xellercin

ReCre8tingMe wrote: »

Xellercin wrote: »

ReCre8tingMe wrote: »

To build new habits also requires motivation and willpower.

I think their point was to slowly and easily build new habits.

I have never had a diet breaking point because I have never "been on a diet."

I lost from obese to very lean, steadily, slowly, with absolutely no regain along the way because I was never on a specific diet.

I just made small, easy, incremental changes over time that took little to no will power. Most of my healthy eating changes were actually ways to make eating easier and less of hassle.

Eventually, my healthy eating pattern was by far the easiest, most sustainable option, so it just self perpetuates with no will power whatsoever.

What kind of lifestyle do you want to be living? What is holding you back from living that way?

It took me a long time to permanently change my entire lifestyle, but it made losing and maintaining my weight loss incredibly easy.

The key is to understand what's getting in your way.

Thank you for explaining your story. I feel like this is the most helpful comment I've received. My whole goal is to live a healthy lifestyle not necessarily just to lose weight although that's just the beginning. I found this to be very helpful for my journey! ❤

I'm glad you found it encouraging.

I get how overwhelming it can be, especially when you don't *know* if something is going to work.

Just focus on little, achievable goals for improving your health. Try to figure out what barriers are holding you back and what you need in order to eliminate them.

For me, cooking in the evenings was a major barrier for me. I have a serious chronic illness and by the end of the day, I can't comfortably stand long enough to cook.

So I got into batch cooking. But I didn't do it all at once, that would be overwhelming.

I started just trying one recipe a week. So I would make one large batch of healthy soup, stew, Chile, curry, whatever, and portion that out so that there were easy meals in the fridge whenever I was too tired to cook at all. Reheating a hearty bean stew is actually easier and faster than ordering a pizza.

After a year of doing that, I had a collection of over 50 relatively easy, delicious, healthy meals that I could spend a few hours making food for the entire week.

A few years later and the list is over 150 recipes long. Somewhere along the line someone gave me an instant pot and that made everything even easier.

I also changed my behaviour around snacking. If I wanted to snack, I first ate a large bowl of raw vegetables, which I kept cut up and in water in the fridge. If I was still legitimately hungry after all of that fiber and chewing, I would then have a hard boiled egg or two, which is very filling and high in protein and fat. If neither veggies nor eggs sounded appetizing, then I couldn't possibly actually be hungry, right?

All of this took time, and each new recipe became easier the more I made them. Making hard boiled eggs and chopping veggies became automatic tasks every few days. I now have an instant pot soup that takes me less than 8
minutes of prep work, and makes 12 servings.

I didn't overhaul my entire diet one day and knuckle-down out of sheer determination. No, I did simple, doable things until they were easy and automatic.

Now I only crave healthy food, and I feel weird if I go too many days without eating raw vegetables. That's the thing, if you were to offer me a week of living on pizza, donuts, burgers, and cake vs a week of living on rae veggies, lentils, and eggs, I would absolutely, 100% choose the latter because it's what I'm used to. I'm not used to junk food anymore, so it's only appetizing in small amounts on rare occasions.

I had pancakes, ice cream, and potato chips today and I'm not feeling great. I would murder for some sliced red peppers and cucumbers right now.

That's not because I naturally love vegetables. I remember when I first started wishing I could be "one of those people" who like vegetables.

Now I am because it's what my palate is used to. And that's the big secret, your body and your palate will adjust to basically whatever it gets accustomed to.

That's why slow changes are soooooo much easier. It gives your body and brain time to adjust to incremental little changes that allow your system to adapt to a new normal.

If you change everything all at once, your brain will SCREAM to go back to "normal" instead of accepting each new thing as part of normal.

This is why so many people.regain weight after losing it, because they go straight back to their "normal" diet, which caused them to gain in the first place.

I won't gain because raw veggies, eggs, hummus, bean soup, and chick pea and spinach curry *are* my normal now. It's been so long, going back to pizza and fried food is what would feel weird and make my body scream to go back to normal.

My spouse and I were living off of cheap restaurant food while renovating a house where we couldn't use the kitchen and after 2 weeks, once I started cooking again we were both SO HAPPY to get back to eating healthy, nutrient dense food.

So you can be "one of those people" who naturally eats moderate amounts of healthy food, but it's really, REALLY hard to become one if you push too much change too quickly and too hard.

So instead of focusing on will power, focus instead on asking yourself "what would make healthier options the easier options?"

mlrtri

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." - Henry Ford

I have dropped the ball on many attempts over the past 5 years. I then got myself thinking it wasn’t possible for me. But I want to be healthy so I decided to try again. But this time more intelligently. I looked back to try to see why I failed in the last. I realized I was expecting too much of myself. I wanted to lose a lot of weight and fast. I had hard rules I could not sustain. I couldn’t keep it up. My plan was flawed, not me.

This round I am making smaller adjustments to my lifestyle. These are ones I can keep long term. I believe I have a more sustainable plan. And I not setting goals for the scale. I am working toward making my weight trend downward and getting to my goal weight when I get there. When I get discouraged I remind myself that this is so that I not only lose the weight but also keep it off.

nanastaci2020

My last big fall off the wagon was a cross country road trip in January to help my daughter (and her family) move back home to GA. I fully intended to get back to it once I got back home, and almost 5 months later I was up 25 pounds. I think it also 'hurt' me to not have events on the calendar. I have never been super fit or athletic, but I love having 5k/10k/half marathons on the horizon. That helps to keep me moving. And with Covid - they either went away or it did not seem right to get back to them. And virtual events don't give me the same push.

I just signed up for my next half marathon, March 4 2023. I walked 36 minutes @ 3.7 mph yesterday. July goal is to get back to walking 2-3 miles a few times a week. Then start couch to 5k. And then build up to 10k. From there, run 3-6 miles twice a week and have a 'long run' day leading up to the half.

sargemarcori

Xellercin wrote: »

ReCre8tingMe wrote: »

To build new habits also requires motivation and willpower.

I think their point was to slowly and easily build new habits.

I have never had a diet breaking point because I have never "been on a diet."

I lost from obese to very lean, steadily, slowly, with absolutely no regain along the way because I was never on a specific diet.

I just made small, easy, incremental changes over time that took little to no will power. Most of my healthy eating changes were actually ways to make eating easier and less of hassle.

Eventually, my healthy eating pattern was by far the easiest, most sustainable option, so it just self perpetuates with no will power whatsoever.

What kind of lifestyle do you want to be living? What is holding you back from living that way?

It took me a long time to permanently change my entire lifestyle, but it made losing and maintaining my weight loss incredibly easy.

The key is to understand what's getting in your way.

I did this--changed my habits, learned portions, cooked my own food, went for long walks for fun, enjoyed going to the gym...and then a horrible thing happened in the world AND my kid went into a psychiatric hospital AND I hurt myself (still don't know how! who has money for a doctor visit??) in an exercise class AND I had to move out of my apartment while it hurt to walk or raise my arms and sometimes to breathe.

Somehow, so mysteriously, all my good new habits slipped when I couldn't exercise or cook.

That was about six years ago now. Right before all that happened, I'd dipped my toe into Onederland for the first time since my teens. At the time, I really believed I would never go back to weighing more than twice what I should for my height, but I did.

Now I'm trying to recapture those habits. Where last time I lost 80+ in a year, now I'm hovering around 40 pounds down, more than a year in. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get back to losing like I did then, about two pounds a week. now I'm lucky if I do a pound a month.

But here I am. Because when life knocks me down, I might mope for a bit, but then I get mad.

YMMV and all that.

cwolfman13

I lost 40 Lbs 10 years ago and maintained that for 8 years. That was the first time in my life that I actively was trying to lose weight as I have been lean, healthy, and fit for most of my life. I put on about 20 Lbs during 2020 and 2021 with COVID lockdowns and whatnot and I'm working on that right now.

When I was losing my 40 Lbs I made small, incremental changes to be healthier, I didn't just try to flip a switch and do a complete 180. I made small, incremental goals. One of the first things I noticed was that my diet was pretty lacking in fruits and veg...so that was one of my first goals...just eat more fruits and veg and ultimately that became just a normal thing to include in most of my meals. I slowly made regular exercise a part of my day starting with a few days per week of going for a walk and over time added more days...then I started jogging...then I joined a gym about 4 months later. Being active is now just a normal, daily thing though I don't do much in the way of what I would consider a "workout"...most of my exercise is active recreation like riding my bike or mountain biking or hiking or kayaking or walking my dog, etc...I do something active most days and because those things are recreation and I enjoy them, they don't really require much motivation

Observationally it seems to me that many people have an all or nothing mentality and a notion that everything has to be 100% on point all of the time which is completely unrealistic and they lose site of the big picture and that where health and fitness are concerned, what you're doing most of the time is what matters. There are always going to be holidays and birthdays and other OCCASIONS...these shouldn't be something that derails anything as they are immaterial to the whole. For the 4th I ate several hotdogs, ice creams, and a few too many margaritas...but that's not remotely normal and doesn't somehow negate the whole of my diet and health.