Not new, but new again

Genevie8

I'm back at it. I just looked at last years info. I did this in January and then failed. I need to get past January and be able to have the motivation to continue. I looked at last years stats and I'm up 12 lbs. If I had continued who knows where I would have been on weight loss?

AnnPT77

Hi, @Genevie8, and welcome back!

Personally, I'm not a big believer in motivation as a tool, at least not beyond the brief getting-started phase. (This may be partly because, as pretty much a hedonistic aging hippie flake, motivation isn't my strong suit .)

I think your final sentence is really insightful: "If I had continued who knows where I would've been on weight loss?" Sometimes a gradual progress can get a person to goal weight in less calendar time than an aggressive or difficult plan that may cause deprivation-triggered bouts of over-eating, breaks in the action, or even giving up altogether.

In a sense, when things go sideways, I don't think that we have failed (as if it were a character fault). I think it simply means we haven't found the right plan for us yet.

Personally, I needed a plan that required the minimum of motivation, so was focused on finding relatively pleasant - at least tolerable and practical - new routine eating and activity habits that would gradually get me to goal weight, then help me stay there long term. I'm still paying attention, but I've been maintaining my weight in a healthy range for 8+ years now, after around 30 pre-loss years of overweight/obesity. If I'd had to be constantly "motivated", that wouldn't have happened.

You don't have to answer this here, of course, but I guess one of my questions to you would be what you learned from your attempt last January: What could you do to make the process more realistic, more sustainable, generally easier, but still get you on a gradual course to the weight loss you want?

I think that if you keep gradually but persistently chipping away at finding the right personalized plan for you, giving yourself a bit of grace when some experiment goes sideways (but learning from that), you can succeed. Only entirely giving up the attempt results in actual failure.

I'm cheering for you to succeed: The quality of life improvement is worth the effort, IME!


You

Genevie8

Thank you. I appreciate your kind words and cheering me on.

totameafox

You only fail if you quit. This is my fourth go at losing weight. I try to learn from each previous attempt. This time I want to support myself by being supportive to other people. So if you'd like feel free to join my group. You can share as much or little as you want.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/147555-speak-friend-and-enter