Successful Diet Plan

swimfit

Hello! My name is Maria and I am new to this. I like being able to track my calories and everything else on this site. However, I always seem to do fine for about two weeks and then I fall off the band wagon. It always seems to happen to me when there are holidays, special occasions or other disruptions in my life. I want to lose a hundred pounds. That is the most weight I have ever had to lose.

What I like to know from someone who has been successful in losing this much weight or greater what type of diet plan did they use? How do you avoid the pitfalls of life as I mentioned earlier?

Any good suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated

Thanks A Million!

swimfit

Hello! My name is Maria and I am new to this. I like being able to track my calories and everything else on this site. However, I always seem to do fine for about two weeks and then I fall off the band wagon. It always seems to happen to me when there are holidays, special occasions or other disruptions in my life. I want to lose a hundred pounds. That is the most weight I have ever had to lose.

What I like to know from someone who has been successful in losing this much weight or greater what type of diet plan did they use? How do you avoid the pitfalls of life as I mentioned earlier?

Any good suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated

Thanks A Million!

alf1163

There are some members here who have lost over a hundred pounds, TamTastic comes to mind. I hope they can give you some words of wisdom. It is possible. We all go through the struggles when it comes to Holidays, etc. I think the main thing is to not lose focus of you goal. And if you fall pick yourself up again and keep going...what really work is consistency. You say you tend to fail after 2 wks or so. Try to not to exercise really hard in the beginning and do crash dieting because that will not last. If you take it slow and just change things one at a time you will be more successful in the long run. I hope this helps. Good luck to you. You can do it!!!! :flowerforyou:

angievan26

I ALSO NEED TO LOSE ABOUT 100 POUNDS AND I KNOW I MAY NOT BE THE BEST AT THIS BUT I HAVE FOUND THAT IF I USE ONE DAY A WEEK TO GIVE ME A CHEAT DAY I AM OK. NOW I DO NOT GO WAY OVER MY CALORIES BUT I WILL GO OVER BY ABOUT 200 CAL. THIS HELPS MY BODY NOT GET USE TO THE SAME SCHEDULE ALL THE TIME.

barbiecat

Hi Maria,
Welcome to MFP. I haven't lost huge amounts of weight (yet) but I've been successful for about ten weeks and have lost enough weight to have to buy some smaller clothes. I've stayed with my plan through restaurant meals, potlucks, and my birthday.

Here are the things that have worked for me:

*I take it one day at a time
*I take baby steps learning new things and making changes to how I eat
*I found a support group on MFP and we post to each other almost every day----we celebrate each others' successes and encourage each other through the rough spots.
*I remember that losing weight is more important than anything in my life.
*I took "eating" off my list of fun things to do
*I continue to search for ways to exercise that I like enough to do regularly


Take the time to look at the posts that are encouraging and ones that have good information about nutrition----"clean eating" is my favorite .

Good luck---you can do this.:bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

adopt4

I also am new to this - nearly 3 mos - but I've been more successful than I ever have, and I now know why I failed in previous attempts. So I will share that with you. These things do not override what anyone else has said, someone previously had a lot of great ideas.
1. Set realistic goals and expectations. In the first month, I set my exercise goal at 3x/week for 30 mins burning 300 calories. I figured, I can do that. And I did, and exceeded my goals in that. So I upped it - a little - the second month. And so on. Now my goals are set a big higher and I have to actually work to reach them, but they are attainable.
2. Have a realistic eating plan. This "1200 calories a day" crap - people who are overweight by a lot will probably not be successful at eating 1200 cals per day, for several reasons. One being you're feeling deprived, and so you will eventually fail, and secondly, your body may rebel and not lose the weight you want to anyway. MFP's settings seem to be realistic, so set your goal to lose 1 pound a week, eat the calories it says for the days you don't work out and eat the workout calories on the days you do. Eventually you can start to drop the calorie count, but you may find it pretty difficult (I did) in the beginning to stick to them. If you go over, don't beat yourself up, start again. Just because you've had one donut and "ruined" your diet anyway doesn't mean you should go ahead and have 6 more.
3. Remove temptation. If there's always bagels and donuts at your work break room, start taking your breaks somewhere else. If you have junk food at home for the rest of the family, you'll be tempted. Your family can live without chips and ice cream, except as an occassional treat.
5. Make it easier on yourself to suceed with food. Have pre-prepared snacks so when you want something now, you can have it now, whether it be a 100 calorie pack of something, a snack bag of cut up veggies, whatever. I have a problem with lunches, after feeding my kids and getting them settled, I'm starving, and I don't want to prepare something for me. So I prepare it the day before, making 2 or 3 of something and that covers my lunches for a few days. And in the beginning, so what if you buy pre-prepared stuff, yeah, it'll be high in sodium, longterm bad stuff, but in the short term - you want to succeed and that will help. Read the packages and make sure it's good for you. Whatever your worst time is, prepare for that in advance. If cutting up tons of veggies is a chore to you, buy the pre-cut up ones. Eventually you'll be doing it on your own, but the key here, is success when it's hard.
6. Drink your water. Really.
7. Nothing is "off" your list of what you can eat. Until you can make good choices, maybe you can only allow yourself 1 dark chocolate 60 cal stick a day... but you can still have chocolate. It's all about having a reasonable amount. Do your research ahead of time, though, if you are going to eat out, and even log your food for the entire day in advance so you know where you are.
8. This is probably the most important. Why do you eat? Based on your description, it's not to fuel your body. It's not because ooh that smells good let me have some. There's an emotional reason there. I'm not judging you, I say this from someone who is still working on it! If you consistently fail after 2 weeks, and always find an excuse, then there's an emotional reason. In order to be successful long term, you have to find that problem and fix it. It might require actual therapy, a weight loss support group, a self help book, or just some deep thinking. Keep a food journal (physical, not just the online one) and on one page write what you ate and on the opposite page write what you're feeling. You may find triggers that make you eat, things that make you turn to food for comfort. Either you're failing to lose weight because you don't feel you deserve to be healthy, pretty, thin, whatever, or you're failing because it meets a need in your emotional/mental life and you haven't found a different way to meet that need.
9. Be accountable to someone for what you eat and for your exercise. It can be online, in person, whatever. Just someone that you are accountable to and has the right to chew your butt if you don't go to the gym when you said you would (not in a bad way, but a get your butt in gear way).

So why am I 44 years old and still fat if I know all this? Mostly because I have learned these things in the last 3 mos! I had always set unreasonable goals for myself, working out too much, depriving myself of stuff I really enjoyed. Once I set reasonable goals, and started to suceed, I was able to make better choices. I had french fries a few weeks ago, first time since I started, didn't know the calorie count, got home, logged it, and went oh, it so wasn't worth that much time on the treadmill. Other things are worth that extra time.

Also, after being on this for 2 months, we (I'm making hubby eat what I eat) realized after eating my son's birthday cake and getting seriously sick - that we're detoxified. Those things we used to eat (yes, I used to be able to eat a whole cake) actually were making us sick and feel bad. So that one piece of cake made us sick! It was a shocker. And those things just don't appeal to me at all anymore.

I also have learned I eat out of boredom (a lot, I'm a stay at home mom) and stress. I've stopped most of the boredom eating because I don't sit in front of the tv like I used to. And when I do, I have stuff to eat that is good for me. And the stress eating, well, on bad days I go over my calories by 200 but that's still a lot better than I used to. I don't eat the bad stuff when I'm doing it either. I have a cupboard filled with junk food for my kids and I never touch it, it doesn't appeal to me anymore. My latest cravings are coffee... which is funny, I"ve never liked coffee... so my treat is a non fat light yadda yadda once in a while.

adopt4

OH sorry this is so long! But I forgot to say one thing - your body will plateau and get used to what you're doing roughly every month. That doesn't mean you've done ANYTHING wrong!! You haven't failed - in fact you've succeeded! Your body has adjusted to your new lifestyle! Then you need to change it up, whether you up your exercise, change the way you exercise, lower or up your calories, etc. there's lots of things you can do. I learned this when I first joined the gym and so at 3 mos I've never plateaued because about every month I change it up. That doesnt' mean I'm NOT going to plateau, I know I will! But that's another reason I failed in the past, I didn't know that was normal, I plateaued for 6 mos and it seemed nothing worked, and I gave up and gained half that weight back. Now I know what happened and what to do. And yeah, a plateau may last for awhile, and you may need to experiment to see how to shake up your body into losing weight again... but you can do it!

The larger you are, the easier it will be to lose in the beginning, the closer you get to your goal, the harder it will be. That's just life and if you're prepared for it emotionally you can push thru it.

Never, ever starve yourself to lose weight. The drinks, the meals... it will work only temporarily and once you get back into "real" life your body will put all that fat back on.

lotusfromthemud

Here's a thread with lots of answers to your questions.

:flowerforyou:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/41685-how-it-s-done-tips-from-me-to-you

mammakisses

This is what works for me.

Drink water before your meal you will most likelly eat less.

Eat a salad with your meal, it will fill you up without the calories. And make sure to change it up so you don't get bored.

Replace a meal once in a while with bran cereal with nuts and fruit. That is my breakfast every morning and I often replace one of my meals with that. Fast and nutritious.

I don't eat 100 calories snacks that they sell pre packaged it would only make me want more.

If you have a party to go to work out hard before going. When the food will be offered to you, you will think twice before you eat it because it might not be worth it. Otherwise at least you already burned the cals.

Good luck and don't give up.

swimfit

Hello! I read your message yesterday and a lot of things made sense to me. What you said about emotional eating really hit home. What would you recommend to handle this?

artschoolgirl

Hi Swinfit!!

The best, guaranteed, easy, most rewarding way is to take your time! Start off by weaning yourself off your bad junk food habits. Introduce walking & work your way up! Start introducing more veggies, grains, drink lots of water, and eat all natural as much as possible. Take it slow, don't expect immediate results. I've been at this for 4 years & know that the weight is gone forever because I've worked my way in to a lifestyle that just comes naturally to me!

Best of luck! I know you can do it!!!!!

staceyw37

adopt4--wow--you gave tons of level-headed advice. thank you for sharing!

and swimfit--you will succeed!

msujdak

I just heard a great bit of advice for changing a habit, whether it's dietary, parenting, smoking etc. It's not necessarily trying to stop doing something, but to start doing something that interferes with that habit. One guy has been on a successful weight loss plan because instead of snacking, he has been playing his guitar! And when he plays, he has an image of himself as a rock star. I think alot of snack and over eat because of habit and boredom. I'm going to go workout now!

oshow

Idealy I'd like to lose 70 lbs in total but I'll settle for 55 or 60 lbs. So far I've lost 22.4. I also used to lose motivation in the past and go off. I think one of the biggest changes i made is to not focus on the big picture. Every time I do it I always focus on how much weight in total I have to lose and it just depresses me and seems soooo far off and so impossible, when I have 50 lbs to lose and I step on the scale and lose 1.3, it used to set me over the edge. Now I don't focus on the big number at all. When people ask me how much I want to lose, I try to avoid it. I look at the day/week ahead of me and that's my focus, when I work hard all week and then lose 1.3 I'm proud that my weeks work had + results. I have to honestly say that it makes a huge difference concentrating on the week and not the big picture. I also finally realized that the next year is going to pass regardless of if I lose weight or not so I migt as well spend it losing weight. We all have drawbacks, I have days that I have less motivation then others but then I concentrate on what I lost and I think about the next weigh in, not past it and it really helps you. Take one day/week at a time. I'm doing weight watchers and the weekly meetings help also

arewethereyet

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/32807-make-a-u-turn?page=2#posts-468405

I love this thread, for this sums up how I have lost 30 pound and kept it off!!

Good luck to you!!

mish3131

Well, I seem to fall off the wagon during those times. What I needed to remember is one day of eating badly does not mean I have to keep eating that way. It was one day. After that day is over get right back on the wagon. Another thing I have always had issues with is portion size. I found that watching my portion size makes a HUGE difference.

I have a good idea without measuring what is an acceptable portion for the calories I eat for a day. I have had a box of thin mints at my desk at work for at least a month. Each day I take out 4 cookies which is one serving. That is what I keep it at. This is teaching me I need to have self control. It is really working for me.

greysweatshirt

Just remember that if there is a special holiday, or you do "fall off the wagon" that you get right back on the next day! Don't "wait until Monday" or whatever.