New to MyFitnessPal and couldn’t use all the help and coaching along the way!”🫶🏼

fratherjohn811
fratherjohn811 Posts: 1 Member
in Introduce Yourself
Hello everyone,

I'm embarking on a journey to improve my health and fitness through food tracking, and I'd love your support and encouragement. I've tried similar approaches in the past, but my efforts were short-lived. This time feels different, though. I'm motivated by a desire to prioritize my well-being and to set a positive example for my daughter. I'm committed to making sustainable lifestyle changes, not just quick fixes. I'm eager to learn from others' experiences and share my own progress along the way. Any advice or tips for staying motivated and consistent would be greatly appreciated! I'm particularly interested in hearing about strategies for overcoming those inevitable moments of discouragement.

Replies

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 11,798 Member
    Welcome!

    There are some great threads created by our members, bookmarked to the top of each category that may be helpful. Just look for "Most Helpful Posts - whatever the category name is”.

    For example:
    You can also ask your questions in any category that interests you, read posts or questions made by other members, join a group, or add some friends.

    Here are some frequently asked questions that may also be helpful: FAQ's
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,381 Member
    Hello and welcome!

    When it comes to staying motivated and consistent - and in line with your desire to make sustainable lifestyle changes, rather than just quick fixes - I will always encourage new people not to put fast weight loss center stage, but to focus on making manageable changes in day-to-day habits that are ideally pleasant, but at least tolerable and practical.

    Positive new habits that can run almost on autopilot once established: I think that's a practical form of magic. And I think that's a slightly different mindset from the common "lose weight fast so I can go back to normal". :D

    IMO, it's not necessary to adopt extreme restrictive eating rules, and stack punitively intense daily exercise on top of that. To me, that's almost a recipe for deprivation-triggered bouts of over-eating, breaks in the action, or even giving up altogether because it's all Just. Too. Hard. That pattern often seems to result in on-again, off-again diets, followed by regain (often the original excess pounds/kilos bring friends every new round, too :( .)

    That one day when I eat a big slice of someone's birthday cake, or work out for 5 hours . . . those are a drop in the ocean. The ocean is what I do on repeat nearly every day. The majority of days creates the majority of my outcomes.

    When it comes to moments of discouragement, here are some things that helped me:

    * Focusing more on the process rather than things like the scale. I have near-total control over what I do, and that's where I can set and meet goals. If I set goals like taking an extra walk for X amount of time 3 days a week, eating at least the recommended 5 servings of veggies daily, logging my food every day, I can do those, tick them off, and feel pretty good. If I do the right things, the results will come along eventually.

    If instead my goal is to lose Y number of pounds by next Tuesday . . . well, maybe that won't happen, and for reasons that have nothing to do with fat loss. (Example: We add extra water weight that bumps the scale upward if we come down with a cold, or have sore muscles. Water isn't fat, so why worry?)

    * Even with process goals, things won't always go perfectly. Consider reframing that: If something goes haywire with my plans, that's not a personal moral failure, it's a learning opportunity. It's a chance to tweak my plans to be more realistic and achievable, to work better for me in the real world. If something goes amiss, what triggered that, and how can my plan change to avoid it happening again? To me, weight loss was like a fun, productive science fair experiment for grown-ups. (Yes, I even said that back when it was happening. :D )

    * A wise person here - definitely not me ;) - once said "there's no wagon, so you can't fall off". All of this is just life, life is made out of time, the question is how we're going to spend that time. Just keep working at it. If there's a problem, tweak the plan. If there's a break, get back on a healthy routine ASAP: Right away if possible, not next Monday. ;) Keep chipping away, sticking with it, and you'll get there. Only giving up the effort is a fail. Lose half a pound a week? One can call that too slow, and despair over it . . . or recognize that being 26 pounds lighter in a year is a better outcome than giving up because of slowness. YaKnowWhaddIMean? :smile:

    You can do this, with patient persistence. IME, the results are more than worth the effort.

    Best wishes for success!

Categories