Mindful Thinking About Weight Loss

CGraceEat

ARG. I have been on My Fitness Pal for about six weeks now and just yo-yo between losing and gaining 3 pounds. :grumble: I feel like I don't have the right motivation to lose weight and maybe I should just accept my squishy self.

When I really concentrate on the detriments of being overweight (for me, risk of Diabetes II, addressing some health conditions that would improve if I lost weight, vanity), I get bummed out and feel unmotivated.

I did go to a nutritionist, but she had an eating disorder (anorexia I think) and looked at me like an alien when I talked about what I liked to eat. I mean, it's not like I got overweight just from sitting on my bum and just shoveling junk food in my mouth. But the combination of drinking too much in college, and poor exercise/poor diet/high stress and anxiety in grad school really did a number on me.

I have been trying to be more mindful of what I am eating and why, but when I feel stressed out or tired, I'm just like, ugh, why not eat over my calorie count, it is better for me than smoking cigarettes.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated? Advice for getting in the right mind set?

vorgas

I got tired of constant heartburn, not being able to skateboard, and buying bigger and bigger clothes. Couldn't play with my nephew and niece the way I wanted. That got me going.

Then I just focused on gradually improving what I could do. If I walked a mile a day this week, then next week it was a mile and a half. Week after that it was 2 miles. Following week was 3 miles. That sort of thing.

For motivation, I found things that inspired me. I enjoy new things and objective progress. So I would change my routine pretty regularly. Start at some baseline and increase it constantly.

Best break I made was when I decided I didn't care about losing weight, but would rather get healthy. Weight isn't something I could control. It was a result of things I did. If I cut my arm off, I would weigh less, but I wouldn't be as healthy. If weight was all I cared about, why not just cut my arm off? Once I realized that, it got a lot easier.

CGraceEat

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I like your example with cutting off an arm!!! Very helpful. I am also a person who likes variety and small goals, so maybe I should start with smaller goals ("I'm going to lose 5 pounds this month") rather than goals that seem insurmountable right now (like "I'm going to lose 60 pounds by Christmas").