What has been your biggest obstacle to losing weight?

persistentsoul

Bipolar disorder. During hypomania I have no interest in food beyond eating moderately when due a meal. I imagine what i experience around food when i am hypomanic is what someone without any food weight issues experiences as normal around food.

When I crash in to the bipolar lows, i am exhausted and ravenously hungry all of the time. I am so miserable and hopeless that I just want anything that will make any of the pain stop even just for a little bit even if it is just to silence the ravenous hunger while i gorge on junk. Then it sort of numbs things a bit for a while as during bingeing i go in to a dissociative state and disconnect a bit from myself.

When full blown manic I feel invincible and high as a kite on my own crazy brain chemistry. I am totally dis-inhibited so if i fancy something i eat it without a care.

I spend about 95% of my time in some degree of depressive state. That is how i got to 322lb. I spend a few weeks out of a year in hypomanic state (mostly a week or two at most at a time, often just few days) where while super charged with energy, motivation and the belief all will be well, I undo as much of the damage as i can until the inevitable crash back into hell. Every 5 years or so i go in to a predominately full mania state for about a year and destroy my life. I come out of that with memory blanks and horror at what i have done with my life, then crash in to major depression.

No medications have helped, Therapy has helped to deal with past but does not stop the rapid cycling bipolar that i now have. I get angry, scared and very upset about the powerlessness over my own brain chemistry and the disruption it causes me.
Dealing with that along with many other issues has made being consistent with my eating impossible.
However in a new twist I am now treating my bipolar with a Ketogenic diet to get multiple birds with one stone and it seems to be going well so far.

Snip8241

Me....brownies....cheese....and wine....in that order

castadiva

Boredom. I can do very well for a while - even up to a couple of years at a stretch - then I just get bored of logging everything and having to think about/plan food and exercise all the time, and gradually stop. There are so many other things that are so, SO much more interesting to think about and do.

BerryH

Food (and wine) is just too damn tasty.

Deipneus

jdhcm2006 wrote:

Being too enthusiastic. I did T25 Gamma and Insanity at the same time. At the time it was fine and great, but after I was finished, I had almost no motivation to workout. I stayed in my calorie goal, so I didn't gain any weight, but it took me a few weeks to get myself back into a fitness routine (now P90X3).

I don't mind working out 2x a day, in fact I'm doing that now still, but I think it was doing 2 extreme cardio based workouts at the same time that burned me out.

I know better now.

Good observation. I too found that firm and steady resolve beats wild enthusiasm which is unsustainable.

fwhittaker

Meal planning. Often if I get off track planning somewhat ahead and making sure there are healthy ingredients in the fridge then I end up having to just go with whatever's there.

I've realised I'm much more likely to feel satisfied and not bored with the food I'm eating if I just plan a little bit and try new recipes now and again.

BTW loving Jamie's 15 minute meals right now. So yummy and calorie count on all of them. Just a thought :-)

fwhittaker

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Snip8241

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Snip8241

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jrline

You just gotta stick with it tracking and exercising even if you are not feeling like it some days.

ddkphotos

Me! My love for food... Yummy fattening sweet and delicious food... That addictive stuff that is in all that is yummy and fattening... But then again no one but me has lost the 52 lbs... So mind over matter wins!!!!

LessHeavyVeggie

I always used to go in too hard on the food front. So I would 'ban' myself from eating bread, pasta, cheese, pizza and other stuff I like and buy all this 'healthy' stuff that I wasn't used to. Then when I would cave in and have a sandwich or something I would give up the whole plan! I actually found a piece of paper with lots of capital letters that I'd written out a plan on and it's ridiculous - I listed all this stuff I wasn't going to eat, but not what I was.

Now since I've been using MFP nothing is 'bad' or 'banned' and I eat what I want in amounts that fit into my goal and it's perfect! I don't feel deprived or like I'm 'dieting' at all. Gradually my eating habits have changed and some new things have been introduced, but I'm not forcing it on myself, it's just evolved on it's own. I always liked and ate a lot of fruits/veg/nuts etc so I guess I started out with a fairly balanced diet anyway, I just needed to get the proportions right.

Also when I go out with friends I eat a bit less throughout the day and try to choose a lower calorie option (which is not really low cals, just lower than some of the other choices), and I'll track as best as poss, but know I will be going over my goal that day and I just accept that one day won't really affect my progress - I think mentally it's a good progression for me that I can go a bit off course for a day and then get back on the right track the next - in the past one slip has meant I've 'failed' and I've jacked in the whole thing!

MrsSWW

Inconsistency, and complete disregard for portion control.

malibu927

Laziness, especially on what's supposed to be my lifting days

scthomas100

Time. I work full-time and go to school full-time. It's my last semester of grad school, so I'm trying to balance cooking and exercising with writing a full strategic plan for a company in 12 weeks for my first graduate degree and finishing my thesis for my second graduate degree.

RHachicho

My love for computer games. It will never be gone and it can never be much but sedentary. As I don't like stuff like the Wii. I like rpg's. Though I have had some success with playing console rpg's on my exercise bike.

kmsnyg

Mine is boredom. If I'm bored, I want to eat, even if I'm not hungry. So I make sure to keep myself busy, by going out or to the gym.

Marilyn0924

My biggest obstacle? Me, myself & I.
Staff meeting was called and we have all agreed to work together.

Skinny_minny_mo

lack of willpower and consistency

CallMeCupcakeDammit

For almost 40 years it was my need to finish everything, on top of stress/emotional eating. Now I'm happy to say it's just my lack of time management skills.