Hi, awesome successful people!! I gotta question..

BobcatGirl110

I have lost 54 lbs (for the first and what I hope is the ONLY time) since February 18th, 2013. I log everything I eat and drink (except water) and I run. Well, I started walking 54 lbs ago but after a couple months I decided I wanted to run and I've run ever since. It's hard to be successful if you see this whole thing as something temporary...like as a diet...and you hit a goal and you go back to eating the way you used to and/or not exercising. This is something you CHANGE about yourself and hopefully you change it permanently. I don't want to go back to mindless eating and sitting on the couch....do I want to not count EVERY calorie? maybe, but I want to know I will always watch what I eat and not feel a need for 4 pieces of pizza when 1 will meet my craving, ya know?

jonnythan

Recognizing that motivation had absolutely nothing to do with it. The solution is discipline. Motivation comes and goes. If you're motivated, you don't need any help... but when you're not motivated, no amount of witty sayings and encouragement will motivate you.

You have to have the discipline to do what needs to be done even when you don't want to do it. All the time.

_noob_

I'm an obsessive person, and am good at anything I put effort into, so it came easy for me once I was committed (not THAT committed)

silvergurl518

my main motivation comes from within....but that said, it's constantly being fed and built up from/by my awesome FL....i love MFP and it's changed my life. stick around

UsedToBeHusky

The best thing that helped me was getting a FitBit and walking.

As far as your recent scale activity, weight loss is not linear. You want to watch for trends over a period of time and not focus on the daily changes. Especially, being a woman, your body will retain water with your cycle and you will not have an accurate measurement of your weight.

skullshank

eating real food and never trying to replace delicious ingredients with cauliflower or mashed old bananas.

escloflowneCHANGED

eating real food and never trying to replace delicious ingredients with cauliflower or mashed old bananas.

This and when my friends went out or it was a holiday or birthday, I ate without logging and I didn't bother choosing "the healthy" food at the restaurants. Just went back to it again the next day and didn't worry about it because it's irrelevant In the long run.

highervibes

eating real food and never trying to replace delicious ingredients with cauliflower or mashed old bananas.

ftw

Iron_Lotus

What is one thing that really helped you to get where you are now? Consistency

How many calories did you consume per day? Everybody has a different caloric intake

What exercises helped you the most? Heavy lifting!


Whenever you start a new workout program your muscles retain water. Ditch the scale and start measuring and taking pics. The scale number is not as important as you think

I highly recommend you start and stick with strength training. It will help you maintain your lean body mass while losing body fat.

MB_Positif

You want total honesty? Keep it freaking simple. Give up things if you think you need to but don't be overly restrictive. Work out but don't start with something you think you can't keep it. Believe it or not it is TOTALLY ok to work up to harder workouts. You don't have to start out intensely to expect results. Do things you can be consistent with. Good luck.

Duck_Puddle

I set goals based on the things I need to do to achieve the results rather than the results themselves. My goals are based on meeting eating & exercise goals. Assuming I do those things, the weight loss will happen. And the behaviors are what I can control, and what I need to do long term to maintain my loss. So that's what I focus on, that's how I set my goals and that change in mindset to "my goal is to eat x and do y exercise this day/week/month" vs "I'm going to lose 5lbs in september" completely changed how I view this process.

I also do nothing that I don't see myself doing forever (or as long as I am able). I refuse to do crazy things to "jump start" weight loss or whatever. If I can't see myself doing something for the rest of my life (eg going low carb, cutting sugar/fast food/etc, juicing, etc) then I don't do it.

Sarge516

It takes consistent non-exercise and consistent unhealthy/over eating to get fat.

It takes consistent exercise (resistance training and cardio) and consistent healthy eating with a calorie deficit to lose weight.

Key word is consistent. Stick with it, it's a long term solution, not a quick fix.

SkinnyFatAlbert

Anything Dr. Oz says. Just kidding. I felt like my eating was out of control so I got back to basics (meat and veggies) then eventually expanded out. Exercise wise I'd say lifting a few times a week and a couple days of cardio to get my endurance up helped the most. I didn't really do anything fancy, just a basic full body of the big groups. I do circuits now to try to combine cardio and strength training.

Zelinna

Recognizing that motivation had absolutely nothing to do with it. The solution is discipline. Motivation comes and goes. If you're motivated, you don't need any help... but when you're not motivated, no amount of witty sayings and encouragement will motivate you.

You have to have the discipline to do what needs to be done even when you don't want to do it. All the time.

This!

I log absolutely everything, currently eating around 2000 cal/ day and have been for awhile. I look at my weekly calorie goal instead of my daily, so one bad day does not throw me.

I started to notice the biggest changes to how my body looked when I started included strength training and not just cardio.

cici1028

1) Logging everything eaten, even the late night snacks. They add up and they matter.
2) 1200 - 1400 a day
3) Circuit training/yoga

I took baby steps.
1) Portion control - count your calories, weigh and measure your food. Know what a serving is and stick to it. If you don't, count it.
2) Moving - start exercise. You don't have to jump to P90X immediately. Start with walking or something you enjoy like dancing.
3) Eating right. Started reducing processed food intake and cooking more... eating more vegetables, good grains, and healthy fats.

The scale is a great tool, use it in whatever way works for you. I used to weigh every day but I don't anymore because it started messing with my mind. Now when I weigh I focus on body fat% and muscle mass%.

Sarge516

Also, I just started getting serious about losing weight and noticed that the first day I started, I exercised and ate my calories, and then instead of eating a healthy dinner, I ate like 10 oatmeal cookies that I made....SNIP

You're not serious yet based on this ^^

SkinnyFatAlbert

eating real food and never trying to replace delicious ingredients with cauliflower or mashed old bananas.

I see your point but on the same token as people ask what makes a food "dirty" I'll ask you, what makes a food "real?" Isn't cauliflower as "real" as a candy bar?

silmarilliane

the one thing that helped was my mind set, which annoyingly you can't choose to change. one day i just wanted to eat better and lose weight. my mind set tends to leave me when i get down to a decent size though (especially when people start mentioning it) so i end up on a binge until i'm heavy enough to get in the mind set again... the only good thing is that my yoyos are getting smaller (4 stone off, 3 stone on, 2 stone off, 1 stone on, half stone off so far and still in the mind set)

1200 cals plus as many exercise cals as i fancy.
to start with i did zumba, tai bo and davina dvds around 4 times a week. now i do 30 day shred 4 times a week followed by some dumbbell reps and a zumba class once a week.

generally when i 'start again' i drop a load of weight quickly (water weight) and then it plateaus or increases, particularly when doing strength training. biggest advise is to take measurements and record them on mfp (and add other body areas), as it's depressing to see the scales stay the same, but nice if the tape measure says you're still getting smaller.

skullshank

eating real food and never trying to replace delicious ingredients with cauliflower or mashed old bananas.

I see your point but on the same token as people ask what makes a food "dirty" I'll ask you, what makes a food "real?" Isn't cauliflower as "real" as a candy bar?

fair enough, if you'd like to argue semantics.

what i should have said was...i eat food prepared in the traditional, more well-known ways.

for pizza crust, its some rendition of flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and olive oil...NOT mashed up cauliflower and water.

you get it.....the people get it....that's what matters, but i appreciate your pointing this out to me.

JoelleAnn78

Please read my profile. It will outline what I did and what I was thinking right or wrong. PM if you have questions.

Says it is only open to friends. I would love to read your Profile!