Sabotage

Sabine_Stroehm

Step 1: Read these links http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants
http://www.nhs.uk/LiveWell/Loseweight/Pages/Loseweighthome.aspx

Step 2: Get a pair of trainers, a T Shirt and some shorts / jogging bottoms, and find a type of cardio excercise that is cheap and easy and you like. I downloaded these podcasts to go running http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/c25k/Pages/couch-to-5k.aspx

Step 3: Start logging your calories, but eating normally, just to get a feel of how much you normally eat and whether there are any deficiencies in your diet (in my case I wasn't getting enough calcium).

Step 4: Begin making small changes to your diet to reduce your calorie intake and move towards a healthier balance. A good guideline I have read is that you should aim for the balanced diet with the correct proportions of fat, protein, carbs, and veggies to keep you healthy, but allow yourself 10-20% of your daily calorific intake as "discretionary calories" e.g. cake, chocolate, crisps etc. This way, you can have chocolate without "cheating" and you are more likely to stick to the diet. Don't try to make too many changes at once as you will feel like you are taking on too much and are more likely to fall off the wagon.

Ultimately, remember that you are doing this for yourself and not other people.

Good luck!

+10, very sensible. Solid advice!

Yep. +1
I'd also add: don't fool yourself by thinking you can't "afford" healthy foods. You can do this and eat healthIER without spending more money. And really, can you afford NOT to?

akaMrsmojo

I would like to also add, make small obtainable goals. Don't fall off the wagon because she did not lose 2 pounds the first week.

I have friends who freak because they lost one pound in two weeks. Sometimes setting your goal at a half a pound a week is easier to do, a lot more realistic and makes your goals easier to obtain. It is a decline and it is long term.

As for exercise, start small. Ten minute walks. I play Just Dance when I started and moved into harder things. I hated running, one day I just felt like it.

AND don't quit. Do it for you.

Good luck, add me if you need support.

SashleyA

You don't need "healthy" foods to lose weight. And honestly, it is not that expensive if you know how/learn to cook for yourself. Vegetables are cheap. Rice and pasta and beans are cheap. You can get great deals on different kinds of "healthy" meat if you know how to shop for it. I've become good buddies with the meat guys at my grocery store (because I eat a crap ton of meat, and we're on a first name basis at this point), and they always tell me when certain things are going on sale. And then I buy as much as will fit in my freezer.

Truth. Some of the cheapest meals I make are the lowest in calories because I use beans or lentils and vegetables as a base and bulk it up with rice and spices. They're also pretty healthy in terms of macros.

skinnyinnotime

Well, it's all entirely upto you.

I would love to occasionally work out with someone, especially when I see all the guys in the weights area working out together. I don't even have anyone to spot me or tell me if my form is off but hey I keep going because I want to.

You can make excuses or you can make changes, your choice

callyart

I have tried many times to lose weight and I will be successful for a while. Then I will start to cheat, eat when no one is looking, and not good food!! I will eat chocolate and sweets like they are going out of style. I really want to lose the weight, but I feel as if I sabotage myself. I will refuse to work out, and tell myself if I eat better then the weight will come off. I have no motivation. NO one to eat healthy with me, no one to work out with me. Not enough money for a gym membership, or even to buy the healthier foods. And to top it off I work the midnight shift, and I feel like I sleep all the time. Eat, sleep , work has become my life. I don't know how to change this. Any advice?

Vegetables and fruit are so cheap if you go to the local stalls and not to supermarkets. Today I got 2 lettuces, 2 cucumbers, 250g of strawberries, 7 large bananas and a bowl of tangerines for £5! This will last me a week or more.
Whenever I am feeling hungry I don't let myself think about it, I have a piece of fruit or cut up some tomato or cucumber to munch on. I swear it works! Then I busy myself with other things (I am getting A LOT of housework done!)

I can't afford gym membership either, as I am a student, so I just went out and got a really cheap second hand wii fit and the game for £10, and I am going to be using this along with the walking I have been doing. I have to start off light with my exercise due to medical conditions.

I know it is hard but you *have* to motivate yourself! I have started this mission on my own - my partner is still eating junk food, I am still cooking him bacon and burgers and chips while I am having salad and soup and healthier options. I am not letting it get to me because I am thinking not only about my weight, but about my general health and happiness.

I used to use the excuse of not having money to buy myself healthy food but the last two shops I have done have been £10-15 less than what I normally spend. This is because I have cut down portions, cut out my junk food (but my partner hasn't) and started drinking lots more water instead of expensive beverages like coke.

There is nothing stopping you from doing this. There's so many supportive people on this website - that alone can be a motivation!

Good luck!

StephYoung1

Sometimes when people say they have no "motivation", they really mean they just don't feel like making themselves do what they know is the right thing. "Motivation" is about WHY you want to do something or other - not really about how you feel about doing it at some particular moment in time. If I waited until I FELT like working out, I'd do it like once a week, maybe, when I got around to it.

From my perspective, your motivation exists regardless of how you feel at any particular moment. You hate how you look, you hate how you feel, your doc tells you you're dying, whatever - those reasons are still true whether you feel like working out or dieting or whatever.

So, evaluate your "motivation" - your "why" - and write it down.

Now, determine a course of action, and write it down. Make it a course of action you KNOW you can do. You can make it tougher later, so start with what you know you can do right now, and live with right now. Small, simple, achievable. It might be "add one serving of vegetables a day in place of higher calorie options" and "take a 30 minute walk 4 times a week". You absolutely know you can do that much, so you know you're going to succeed.

See... you don't need to FEEL like doing it to do those small things. Eating an extra serving of peas doesn't require motivation, it just requires that you planned far enough ahead to have frozen peas in the house. You can walk 30 minutes easy - even if the weather is crappy you can go to the mall, or walk the steps in your apartment building - or heck, you can walk in place during TV commercials. You can eat peas and walk 30 minutes even if you've got a cold. So you don't NEED "motivation" - you don't need to feel like it - it's so easy that all you have to do is just do it.

When that's a habit, say in a couple of weeks, add another serving of vegetables or another 5 minutes of walking or both - but the key is only add stuff you KNOW you can do. Don't give yourself an excuse to fail. It doesn't matter in the least if you're doing "enough", what matters is that you're doing something and revisiting your plan periodically and upping the ante a little at a time.

As to clean eating, forget it. Not because it's not important, but because you're using it as an excuse. Go to the store, buy bags of frozen vegetables, and eat them. Eat them when you want a cookie, BEFORE you eat a cookie. It doesn't matter how you "feel", you know you can eat a cup of peas before you eat a cookie, so just do it. Make it a rule, and don't break the rule whether you feel like eating peas or not.

As to not wanting to exercise, forget it. Not because it's not important, but because you're using it as an excuse. Forget "exercise". Just move your butt. Pick a simple, easy goal that you know you can do, make a rule, and then do it whether you "feel" like it or not.

Stop giving yourself reasons to not hit your goals by picking goals you already know you won't hit. Do what you CAN do, and don't take no for an answer from yourself. You've picked things you know you CAN do, so do it.

We do things every single day that we don't want to do, and don't feel like doing. We go to work. Pay bills. Pick up the kids. Call our mom. Do laundry. Whatever - we don't wait to feel like it or to be motivated to do it, we do it because we have to - and we know that we CAN, so we just do it. Don't BS yourself over what you feel like doing or feeling motivated about doing it - just change one thing at a time, do it until you're in the habit, then change another thing. Small, incremental changes WILL get you there.

Brandolin11

I realize I'm gonna catch some flack from the "naysayers" on these boards for saying the following, but I'm willing to risk it........

I am/was exactly like you, always trying to lose weight but ultimately failing as I cheated, ate in secret when no one was looking, etc. etc. etc. I was trapped in a lifestyle of "compulsive overeating", for the folks who haven't heard of that term before. Compulsive overeaters tend to WANT to do the right thing and WANT to lose weight, but just CAN'T seem to do it like other people can. We always sabotage ourselves. It's a little bit like folks who struggle with gambling, drinking, and shopping addictions, among other things. Very similar actually.

"Sneaking food" is classic compulsive behavior. Part of our 'problem' as compulsive overeaters is that our actions often do not line up with our deepest desires and values. In this way, we live in a bit of a "fantasy land" in which we convince ourselves we're "doing good", "doing the right thing", "honestly logging", etc.... and yet, we're not actually doing the right thing at all. We're actually deceiving ourselves because it's too painful to face that we can't control ourselves. It's also too painful to face having to give up our habits, rituals, behaviors, and foods that most comfort us. But...we want to lose the weight very, very badly. So, we do *some* of the things necessary to lose weight, but we "hang on" to our habits and foods in "secret" - we keep it secret from friends and family, but worst of all, we keep it secret from our own brains. Which is the most dangerous thing of all. Once you deceive *yourself*... it is very difficult to fix the problem.

The fact that you're questioning this about yourself now, is your wake up call. This is your wake up call to start learning how to bring your truest inner desires (to be healthy and thin) in line with your actions (behaving in a healthy way around food and exercise).

The question becomes: how do you do this? I mean hey....if you knew how to do this wouldn't you have done it ages ago? lol

I would love to introduce you to a program called "Overeaters Anonymous". OA is basically a twelve-step program which is modeled off of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. They use the AA "Big Book" and you just change the words "alcohol" and "alcoholic" to "food" and "compulsive overeater". I am not trying to say you're some kind of "addict" - you may or may not be, I don't know. But I truly believe that the Twelve Steps and tools of OA holds the key to understanding and conquering our problems with compulsive eating, which is helpful whether you're an addict or not. The first step of OA, is that "we admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable." I think this is what you're doing now. What comes next? take a look:

The Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Here is a link to a great quiz to open your eyes as to whether or not you are truly a compulsive overeater. See what your results are. Before I started learning and applying the OA principals, I got a NINETY EIGHT out of 100 on it! lol

http://www.stopcompulsiveeating.com/foodquiz.php

And here's a link to a free online version of the Big Book. I highly recommend checking out the first few chapters (they're not long) to see if anything resonates. I read it, and it changed my life. I am now 70 lbs down (my goal) and have been free and recovering from the sabotage for over two years now. I am so happy and healthy now. My relationships have improved. My job has improved. Everything is different - because I am free.

http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_tableofcnt.cfm

Sorry this was so long. If you (or anyone else) has any questions, never hesitate to ask okay? Best of luck to you!!!!

davadoto

I have tried many times to lose weight and I will be successful for a while. Then I will start to cheat, eat when no one is looking, and not good food!! I will eat chocolate and sweets like they are going out of style. I really want to lose the weight, but I FEEL AS IF I SABOTAGE MYSELF.
--No one to eat healthy with me
--No one to work out with me
--Eat, sleep , work has become my life.

--Not enough money for a gym membership
--Not enough money to buy the healthier foods.

I don't know how to change this. Any advice?

The previous advice? Agree 200%

Also, look at what you're saying again. There's a lot more going on here than your weight. Your first clue is that this is a pattern, and (in caps), you've identified it. Second set of clues is in your list, which I broke into 2 sections.

1. You sound lonely. Losing weight is not going to fix these things you're listing, and you've probably already realized that (at least subconsciously). If an online community like MFP doesn't fill that social gap (and I'm not saying it should!), reach out via Meetup or other local "in-person" resources. There are other people working night shifts. You're not alone.

2. Money makes things easier, true. Yet you can definitely make great strides without a gym membership, or even "clean eating" - just eat a little better. I'm dropping weight steadily, and if you look @ my food diary, it's not saintly. Start small!

If you *like* reading, and want even more support in how small changes can add up (the sexypants post is the PERFECT starting point, btw), another even longer article series is here - not that I'm saying you're obese, just that the article has excellent information re: slow & steady:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/training-the-obese-beginner.html

But mostly? Feed your soul. That was what leaped out most in your posting.

Wishing you all success.

Solid advice that completes the first one that was posted.

mumblemagic

I have tried many times to lose weight and I will be successful for a while. Then I will start to cheat, eat when no one is looking, and not good food!! I will eat chocolate and sweets like they are going out of style. I really want to lose the weight, but I FEEL AS IF I SABOTAGE MYSELF.
--No one to eat healthy with me
--No one to work out with me
--Eat, sleep , work has become my life.

--Not enough money for a gym membership
--Not enough money to buy the healthier foods.

I don't know how to change this. Any advice?

The previous advice? Agree 200%

Also, look at what you're saying again. There's a lot more going on here than your weight. Your first clue is that this is a pattern, and (in caps), you've identified it. Second set of clues is in your list, which I broke into 2 sections.

1. You sound lonely. Losing weight is not going to fix these things you're listing, and you've probably already realized that (at least subconsciously). If an online community like MFP doesn't fill that social gap (and I'm not saying it should!), reach out via Meetup or other local "in-person" resources. There are other people working night shifts. You're not alone.

2. Money makes things easier, true. Yet you can definitely make great strides without a gym membership, or even "clean eating" - just eat a little better. I'm dropping weight steadily, and if you look @ my food diary, it's not saintly. Start small!

If you *like* reading, and want even more support in how small changes can add up (the sexypants post is the PERFECT starting point, btw), another even longer article series is here - not that I'm saying you're obese, just that the article has excellent information re: slow & steady:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/training-the-obese-beginner.html

But mostly? Feed your soul. That was what leaped out most in your posting.

Wishing you all success.

Good point - I always eat more if I am down or feeling lonely. You could try to join a dance class or some other group exercise activity? That way you could kill two birds with one stone, finding a fun exercise activity and making some new friends.