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I start to see progress and I go back to eating

ferferrario435
ferferrario435 Posts: 1 Member
in Motivation and Support

I was doing great for two weeks, and for the past 3 days I have lost control of it. I don’t know why, just have to start over tomorrow hoping all my effort was not lost..

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Replies

  • csplatt
    csplatt Posts: 1,278 Member

    When you really want an off day, try to eat at maintenance that day. Then you are getting more food without going backwards.

  • chaphi
    chaphi Posts: 7 Member

    It's normal for us to revert to old habits within two weeks (that's why new year's resolutions only last two weeks on average). Don't beat yourself up about it but instead, figure out your needs. What part of you is unsatisfied that you can't control your eating? Is it what you eat, the portion, your environment?

  • TracyL963
    TracyL963 Posts: 132 Member

    Don't start over. A couple of bad days did not negate 2 weeks of hard work. Instead, shrug it off and continue forward.

    Losing weight and keeping it off is a life-long endeavor. 2-3 days is just a small blip. Popular saying here - strive for progress, not perfection.

  • totameafox
    totameafox Posts: 1,157 Member

    You haven't lost control. You made choices. The first thing you need to do is take responsibly. After that, analyze why you did what you did and come up with ways to keep yourself from doing it again.

    And remember you are ALWAYS in control. Don't be so hard on yourself. Learn and improve.

  • elisa123gal
    elisa123gal Posts: 4,376 Member

    The trick, is to always jump right back on your plan. You can also analyze ..see if it was too strict for you to stay on and make adjustments. Like more lean protein and add vegetables to fill up your stomach. ..and other strategies to help you curb cravings. It will all be fine.. stick with it. :)

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,159 Member
    edited March 30

    are you trying to lose too much, too fast? It’s so easy to be wildly enthusiastic, and dive into the deep end, cutting calories really hard and even piling exercise (and possibly more exercise) on top of that.

    I bet you’ve set a goal of 1.5-2 lbs a week. Lower your goal to .5 or 1 per week, give yourself more food.

    Yeah, it’ll take a little longer to lose, but people who choose the slower route are statistically more successful at staying the course and later maintaining as well.

    Would you rather look back in a year and have steadily lost 26-50 pounds, or have jackrabbited, lost quickly, binged, started over again (probably cutting even harder the second time), binged and finally thrown in the towel and be the same place you are today a year from now?

    your job is to create habits today you’ll still be happy with and be able to continue in 52 weeks, versus cutting hard, drinking shakes, exercising til you collapse. Few people can maintain that lifestyle, but buy into it because of social media (or in my era, checkout stand tabloids, lol.)

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,792 Member

    Your effort was not lost. What we do the majority of our days matters more than what we do on rare days.

    That doesn't mean it's impossible to wipe out progress, but it means that long term success can happen if we learn from any oopsies, improve our plan, and get back on that improved plan right away . . . working our way as time goes on toward increasingly many positive days, decreasingly many oopsies.

    Don't catastrophize about it. Don't beat yourself up. That helps nothing. Think about why it happened, and improve your plan.

    "Improve the plan" doesn't mean "make a faster plan, to get it over with". It means "make an easier plan to stick with long enough to lose a meaningful total amount of weight". Suffering is optional, can be minimized. The real golden prize here, if you ask me, isn't simply reaching a healthy weight . . . it's staying at that healthy weight long term, ideally forever.

    Most people find that last part, staying at a healthy weight, harder than losing in the first place. How to do it? Find habits we can stick with relatively happily forever: Simple, easy, practical, affordable. What those habits will be differ from one person to the next, because we're all individuals with our own unique strengths, preferences, challenges and lifestyles.

    Hmmm, "make an easier plan to lose" sounds a lot like "find easy positive new long-term habits", doesn't it? Ding-ding-ding: Yup, that's how to get the prize. The weight loss is the start of maintenance, not inherently a different thing.

    You are your own science fair experiment, and that can be both fun and productive. If something momentarily derails, learn from it, improve your plan, and keep going.

    Even in the long run, that one day when we eat too much cake, or on the flip side work out for 5 hours - those are a drop in the ocean. The routine daily habits are the ocean. Focus on finding those new habits.

    . . . And keep going. Success is out there. Gradually better adds up to good outcomes in the long run. Only giving up the effort results in failure.

    I'm cheering for you to succeed: The results are worth the effort IME, and then some!

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