Making nothing but excuses, need a little encouragement...

amandy0707

Hi there..

So I am sort of new to the forums and I need to vent.. I'm looking for a little motivation and encouragement. Maybe some assurance that I am not the only one who has gone through this..

I'm 5'8 and weigh 180. I would desperately love to get to 160. I'm at the point where you see pictures of yourself and think, GROSS. Hate my weight and really want something to change. But I will be completely honest, I keep making excuses as to why I can't diet or lose weight or exercise.

Excuses:

-I have a limited pallet. Probably one of a toddler. I am not a creative cook because I don't like most things. I have trouble sticking to diets because I can't seem to find food that is actually good, and it gets old VERY fast.

-I try finding meal plans but they are tons of different items for the week in small portions, and I don't have the money to buy all that variety. I thought of picking one or 2 things that seem appealing and repeating those items but again the repetitiveness is hard for me to handle. Not to mention these meals don't keep me very full and I get anxious when I'm hungry and don't feel satisfied. This is usually when I binge.

-I have a family of 3 and I work odd hours. I have trouble making one meal for myself and then trying to shop for other meals for my family.

-Exercise is something I know nothing about. I feel like I've spent countless hours online trying to find exercises but am not sure I am doing things correctly. This is not my biggest concern, I am more concerned with food.

-Another issue I have is if I make a meal for my family I find it very difficult to add up calories and portions.

I know these are all stupid excuses that if I put the time and effort into them, they could be fixed but I am having trouble getting there. I'm at the point where I want to do something but keep making excuses, and in turn am feeling more and more down on myself. How did other members finally just say **** IT (excuse me) and finally take the plunge?

I feel my biggest problem is I feel uninformed or unacknowledged about food and diet. Add the fact that I am an extremely picky eater and I feel like I am a lost cause.

Thank you for letting me vent, and excuse the excuses, just had to lay it all out there and be honest with everyone and myself. Hoping that reading all my petty excuses out loud might help me see how pathetic I'm being.

melsinct

Hi! We have similar stats. I started MFP at 175 pounds and I am 5’7”. Also, similarly I started MFP after seeing a photo of myself and I truly didn’t realize I looked that big. Talk about a reality check.

1. You are a picky eater. Fine. So what do you like to eat? I bet I can think of things you can cook/eat if you describe what your typical meal looks like.

2. Meal plans are overpriced. Go back to number 1 above, tell us what you do like to eat, and I am sure our suggestions will not include prepackaged Jenny Craig food.

3. There is no need to make multiple meals for your family. You can all eat the same thing, you reduce your portion size. Like magic, you are already cutting calories.

4. Losing weight is more about diet than exercise, you are right. However, walking is exercise and I am sure you know how to do that correctly. Your exercise goal can be as simple as “I am going to move more today than I did yesterday”. Park farther away in the parking lot at the grocery store. Go for a walk around the block. No one is telling you to run a 5K or do a 100 push ups.

5. My Fitness Pal has a tool to add up calories. Under the “Food” tab go to “recipes.” Enter the recipe, state the number of portions you usually get out of it, it will tell you the calories in each portion. At first it is a pain but the more you use this site, the easier it becomes since all of your standard go-to recipes will already be in your database.

The good news is, you know you are making a ton of excuses. We’ve all been there. Honestly, I got SO SICK of feeling fat and hating the way I looked and I hated buying size 14 pants. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I guess I just reached my breaking point.

Start with small changes that are totally manageable, like reducing your portion size without changing what you are eating. Adding in a short walk every day. No one says you have to make a bunch of changes all at once. Once I started making changes, I started losing weight. That was my great motivator, to see the scale actually move downwards!

amandy0707

Thank you for the reply! I will gladly talk about my food likes for a few minutes, and welcome any input at all. Again, will be completely honest.

I just moved to FL from CA. In CA I had a desk job where I sat for 9 hours a day. Since moving to FL I am a server at a restaurant and am on my feet anywhere from 6-13 hours a day constantly walking, and sometimes walking at a very fast pace if I am busy. I thought this alone would have helped me lose a few pounds but NOTHING. I haven't changed my eating habits though. I will admit I was a little upset as I thought the drastic increase in movement with the new job would have done SOMETHING. Again, it comes down to food.

For breakfast I love a good egg and sausage sandwich. Problem is I am only FULL after 2 sandwiches. The other day I made an egg white and avocado sandwich which clocked in at 276 calories. But it only kept me full for an hour. I could have used 2 sandwiches to stay full longer. I also only like a few fruits. Canned peaches, canteloupe, watermelon, and sometimes pineapple. I can eat apples, I just don't like them very much.

Lunch, I usually eat out and have a burger, or some BBQ food. Before when I tried to diet I would eat some baked chicken breast, steamed broccoli and brown rice. Even with seasoning it was SO bland I hated it.

Dinner varies. I will list some likes and dislikes.

Likes:
Cream of mushroom soup. I love making casseroles with this..
Salad with chicken (but I really like the buttermilk ranch from work which I know is bad. I've tried some vinaigrettes and I can handle it but I don't like it very much)
Chicken
Steak
Mexican food
Italian food
Broccoli
Asparagus grilled
baked potatoes
Certain fruits
chicken alfredo
chicken salad is one of my favorite lunches
LOVE mayonnaise and sour cream and bread (bad I know)

Dislikes:
HATE fish. Except for shrimp.
Indian food, thai food, most chinese food, grapes, strawberries, squash and other weird vegetables. Most beans but black beans are okay in moderation. Do not like oatmeal, greek yogurt or hummus.

On the spot this is what I can think of for now. Will gladly add any more information. Thank you.

melsinct

You aren’t as picky as I assumed you’d be LOL!

You will have to accept that if you are losing weight, you aren’t going to have that filled to the gills feeling that you are used to by eating multiple sandwiches. You will get used to eating less food, I promise! It sucks at first but you’ll be surprised how quickly your body adjusts. That will be the main hurdle to deal with but you can’t lose weight without consuming fewer calories than you do currently.

Breakfast: English muffins (140 calories); one egg (70 calories); turkey sausage patty OR 2 slices bacon (100 calories) = grand total of 310 calories

Lunch: If you are talking about the usual BBQ suspects- pulled pork, brisket, etc. they will cost you a lot of calories since they’re fatty cuts of meat. Eat them more like once every week or two, not once a day. As for a burger, if you can get a small single patty (not a big ½ pounder) the calorie count isn’t terrible. Even better is get a grilled chicken breast sandwich or a turkey burger and top it with the same stuff you like on your beef burger. Basically swap out the fatty beef for a meat that won’t pack so many calories.

If you are baking chicken breast plain, then yeah. That is ridiculously bland. Marinate it in anything you like- there are so many marinade choices out there, you can use Italian dressing as a marinade, teriyaki sauce…whatever flavors you like, then grill it or bake it. Slice it up and put it in salad, put it on a sandwich, however you like it.

Dinner: Casseroles w/mushroom soup are fine but use the recipe tool on this site and calculate the calories. Say you enter your casserole that usually makes 8 servings and it works out to too many calories for you, then eat a smaller portion. Recalculate the recipe as being 12 servings and see if it is a more reasonable number. It takes a little fiddling in the beginning but it is worth it.

Stir fries: cut up chicken and cook in a hot pan with veg you like (broccoli) and serve over rice or noodles.

Bread and sour cream and mayo aren’t “bad” foods but they can pack a lot of calories and you just have to be mindful of portion size- a tablespoon of mayo is fine, ¼ cup in one serving is not. For me, this whole weight loss thing was ALL about portion size. What I previously viewed as a “normal” size portion wasn’t for someone my size. Once I wrapped my head around what an adequate portion size truly looked like, the weight started coming off fast. You really don’t have to change your whole way of life but you also can’t be eating BBQ and burgers every day and expect to slim down. You’ve got to find that middle ground.

Great websites for some lower calorie food ideas/recipes:
Skinnytaste.com
Eatingwell.com

Also, look at the recipe section of this site. There is a lot of activity on that board too.


Good luck!

zoeysasha37

I'm a fussy eater as well, so I know the feeling. But I think you just have to sometimes suck it up and just do it, I'm not saying eat things that you don't like, but you'll have to make a few changes in order to lose weight. For example, have the vinegarette on your Salad Inst. though you aren't crazy about it. I weighed 202 after giving birth to my Son, finally I got to a point where I was just tired of looking bad and feeling bad, and I stopped making excuses then. I started to change little things at first, like no take out food our soda except once a month. Then after it became a routine, it got easier. After a while, it just becomes part of your day and not such a big deal anymore.I weigh 137 now, love going to the gym and couldn't imagine ever going back to eating crappy food daily like I used to.

maryann9wood

Hi. A little peak at your diary shows that you are not logging your food or exercise. I also am guessing you set your weight loss at 2 pounds per week, giving you 1200 calories. I bet that number is really scaring you off. Try this - set it for 1, or 1 1/2 pounds per week. Start logging - everything that you can - for example McDonalds foods are all in the database. Don't stress if you don't log everything, or you are over for the day. Just start getting in the logging habit. If you find that some of your entries have way too many calories, start making changes to what (or how much) you eat. Move from that to logging everything, and then work on measuring or weighing to check your true portion sizes.

Use the site for what it's good at - helping you get a clearer picture of what you are doing.

And why do I think this works? 51 pounds in 10 months, jeans from 24 to 14, shirts from 3X to XL, and my rings falling off. And I'm 50. You can do this!