Serial Dieters - Do you know why you quit before?

maryritt529

Cockiness led me here this time.
I lost weight and was weight training and exercising and following a lifestyle that made me feel awesome!
I finally reached my goal weight looked and felt better then I had EVER felt...and then it began.
The excuses:
"I ate so well today I don't need to hit the gym"
"I have done great...eating 4 pieces of pizza and downing it with a few margaritas ...won't hurt "
and these excuse DO fool you.
Because yes, skipping the gym here and ther when you are on Maitenance won't hurt and eating a bad meal NOw and THEN won't hurt either...but then maybe you stop to weigh yourself and it slowly creeps up and then it is a downward spiral.
Maintenance is why I have failed...because I NEVER thought I had to do it! This time I feel I have a different attitude. I KNOW maintenance is an integral part of keeping the weight off..and I will never put the scale back in the closet again!!

jellybaby84

I usually gave up because I crash dieted myself into a crisis and was forced to stop

myofibril

Well, I'm not a serial dieter but I think the predominant reason people fall into this trap is because they have an all or nothing approach. Anything less than perfection whilst on their diet is seen as abject failure causing them to fall off the wagon.

"Oh no, I've eaten a piece of chocolate, I've messed up my diet completely" "I am a failure as I gave in to dougnut" "I've had a beer, it's just no good, I am destined to be fat."

If people could strip away the emotional reactions to these events and look at it logically they would find confidence that these events will have pretty negligible difference to their success. If you have done well 80 - 90% of the time then remaining 10 - 20% isn't a problem unless you choose to make it so.

seadog1

I have lost ten thousand pounds over the years and gained it back, I think it was because I would reach a plateau and not have the self discipline to keep track of what I was eating. I have a tendancy to graze, just eat about all the time, I would quit exercising and have more stress and the weight would come back on. Some times it was because I was away from home traveling and its harder to keep track of the food that way. I expect my fitness pal is going to be a way of life from now on, so is exercise. I have been on a plateau for a month or more now, so I increased my calories and now I seem to be losing weight again, down below 220 for one of the few times in my life since highschool.

dwellsouth

When I put my mind to something and take control of my life, things happen. But I NEVER actually prescribed to a diet of any sort and learned about food. Obviously I knew that to lose weight I'd have to eat less and/or burn more but I never broke it down to manageable levels. When I hit my highest ever weight I had to accept that I let myself become totally out of control - and if I don't control myself, who the hell will? Advertisers? Neighbors sending over cheesecake? Who the hell is driving this car?
Finding MFP is the best thing I have ever done for my health because I can easily see exactly what I am consuming and what it contributes to my survival. For the first time I can truly take responsibility for what I eat and how I exercise and get real about it. This journey is just beginning for me and today I feel like regardless of losing weight or not, I have taken control of my health through MFP.
Now I'm trying to teach my children the same things without controlling them, so they can be responsible for their food and exercise choices themselves too!

katberz

It's quite simple, really - I'd go on a crash diet and after losing 5, 10, sometimes even 15 lbs, I just couldn't keep starving every day. I rarely set realistic goals, usually because of some pivotal event in the near future, and I'd end up killing myself to try to meet the goal. I'm older and a bit more relaxed about it now so I'm happy to get there when I get there. I still eat the food I love, have things in moderation and ensure I exercise daily so it stays a habit.

CrimsonWife

I've struggled with emotional eating since I was a teenager. 9/11, death in the family, unemployment, etc. causes me to turn to "comfort food".

Janet39

1 ) I find it hard to stick to prescribed diets, I end up bored with the food choices I make, and loose interest.

2 ) I hit a plateau, and then drift off message. ( I have done this for 2 days this week, and have hauled myself back on track).

I think I managed to get back on track as issue 1, does not seem to be happening using MFP in the way it has in previous diets.

ohnuts14

You're 100% correct. It's not the exercise or the dieting that makes weight loss difficult. It's us. If we can't find the motivation or get past our own mental blocks, weight loss is impossible. I've been trying to lose weight since I was 12, and never succeeded, and I think that's because I was never in the right state of mind. I wanted to lose weight but apparently wasn't motivated enough to do the things I knew I needed to do in order to lose it. I kept giving up because I felt like I would never succeed. I'd get into this "whatever" mind frame and just give up on myself, much like I did throughout most of my school career. I needed to learn to care about myself and my future before I was able to start taking weight loss seriously. I think above all else, that was my biggest problem. I didn't think I was worth it enough to try, and I think a lot of people feel that way on some level. Everyone has something in their life that they have to overcome. It's all about state of mind, and I think once we figure out what it is that's stopping us, only then can we truly begin to succeed.

slapshotgolf

Thanks for your posts everyone - it looks like its most commonly 1 of 3 reasons.

Crisis - something occurs in your life and the response is to deal with it with food. Somewhere along the line we equated food with feeling better, though we know through experience the food often makes things worse. To avoid this downfall we have to learn new behaviour when confronted with a crisis. A lot of healthy people relieve stress though exercise, "going for a jog to clear their heads", taking up a sports as a distraction from their everyday problems. Stress management for some of us is a learned behaviour. We need to learn better ways to cope.

Frustration - hitting a plateau and giving up. The whole plateau thing interests me. My longest plateau over the last 5 months has been 5 days without dropping to a new low - so I may not qualify as having had one. That said, I haven't deviated much from my fitness plan since I started. I know someone who is currently going through a 2 week plateau, but by her own admission, she is not doing what she originally did when she started. Not logging everyday, not exercising as often as she did, snacking one extra time per day...she hasn't gained weight, but appears to be in maintenance mode. But that's ok. This isn't a race. If you need to take a mental break from the weight loss, go ahead, consider it a "sabbatical". You'll return. Until then, keep an eye on the scale so that you don't slip back the other way, and when you return, do so with the passion you had when you started. But don't quit!

Lack of maintenance - reaching your goal but failing to keep up the necessary changes to maintain your weight. A lot of this is attributed to one's mindset when they started, I think. If you started with the short term goal of "losing x pounds, in x weeks", the goal signals the end of the journey. For others that have successfully maintained, this journey was more about taking a different fork in the road...a different path. Will we alway be reliant on MFP? Maybe. Or maybe we'll just give ourselves a 5-10 lb buffer once we hit our target weight, and use MFP intermittently to manage ourselves back into the range. Or maybe we will have learned what we needed, and successfully manage our health without the daily tracking routine. We'll know once we arrive there I guess - but we have to depart with the understanding that this journey doesn't end the day we reach our goal.

Thanks again for everyone's honest feedback. I'm going to save this entry in blog - just in case I need it.