how do people do it?

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  • luv2ash
    luv2ash Posts: 1,903 Member
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    hi yeah my diet at work is actually pretty good its when i get home after 6hrs with no break that i can eat anything and everything in sight!!
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    Why do you have unhealthy stuff in sight? if you are committed, you will only have healthy options :) If this is a weak spot for you, then have a plan of action for when you get home. First POA, get rid of foods that tempt you. second POA: Eat healthy ASAP when you get home. Third POA: Have a hobby or something to keep you busy in the evenings to keep your mind off of food, etc.
  • sarahrbraun
    sarahrbraun Posts: 2,261 Member
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    i expected to lose about 10lbs but given my weight i didnt think that was a lot for 4 weeks x

    I started my journey at 80-90 lbs over weight, and it still took me 3 MONTHS to lose the first 7 pounds. Then for 4 months I lost great...then my weight loss screeched to a halt--less than 5 pounds in 5 months. Yup. It took me 11 months to lose 33 pounds.
  • Carolyn_79
    Carolyn_79 Posts: 935 Member
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    Eat clean, give up processed food and all sodas, get plenty of protein, drink water and lots of it, keep moving even when you are not at work. Most important for me, log everything you eat. Everything. Good luck. :drinker:

    This. Think of it as a get healthy journey instead of a lose weight journey and that'll take off some of the pressure when the scale is stubborn.
  • maryjay52
    maryjay52 Posts: 557 Member
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    im a nurse too amongst other things like owning a business and the many organizations im involved in. all that equals food on top of food. i had a bad year last year . i fell right back in to the eating bad foods and not exercising again. we nurses can be the most unhealthy eaters out there. it isnt easy when patients and their families buy things for the staff like pizza,cookies and candy galore. then on top of that , most health care staff eat out .

    make more of an effort to prepare yourself because if you dont you will wind up ordering out. make sure you have healthy hearty meals and snacks to bring to work so you dont get tempted to eat something else. with 12 hours you need the fuel anyway. good luck!!!!
  • 20shan08
    20shan08 Posts: 219 Member
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    I've always been overweight! Before I had my 4 year old daughter I was around 217 pounds for a long time. I started going to curves and got down to 180 (I'm 5'8). Then I got pregnant and my highest weight was 270. I went down to 250 after delivery and stayed there, losing 20 pounds, putting it back on, losing 10, grainig 10, etc. I tried every diet you can think of! In August 2011 I ha had enough of being overweight and unhealthy so I tried losing weigh on my own, I was down to about 236 in march 2011 when I started mfp. Now that doesn't mean I've religiously followed it. I lost motivation quite a few times and have up for a a few weeks, a month, one time it was 2 months, but I always came back.

    As for exercise, I wanted to do things that I'll always be able to keep up with. I knew I'd never be the girl that goes to the gym for 2 hours a day, I don't have time for that. I work full time, as well as I am a single mom. So all I did was buy a cheap elliptical, I honestly started out at 1 minute a day because I was so out of shape, I worked up to where I could go non stop on it but I hate exercising lol. So I only did about 15 minutes a day. I also bought Jillian michaels 30 day shred and ripped in 30. These workouts are only about 25 mins long so I forced myself to get up half an hour earlier every day to do my workouts...

    I eat between 1250-1350 calories a day, only burning about 180-250 cals a day through exercise and I'm 160 pounds now! Which is healthy range for my body, but I'm aiming to lose another 5.

    It's hard to stay motivated, especially when you're not seeing results. I quit many times because of that. Try to stay focused. And just cuz you had a bad meal, doesn't mean you have to write off the whole day (I'm famous for making a bad food choice then saying f**k it, may as well have this chocolate bar, then buy a Big Mac meal, and a bag of chips...). Don't restrict yourself completely. For me, if I cut out everything good, that's when I fall off the wagon. So I allow myself to have treats, I just fit them into my daily limit. If I'm really craving McDonald's, I'll go have a medium fries and 4 nuggets. I eat what I like, you can check out my diary if you like.

    Take pictures and measurements! Pictures have helped me so much when I'm stuck at a certain weight and I'm losing motivation.
  • Enigmatica
    Enigmatica Posts: 879 Member
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    See my pic? It took about 18 months for me to lose the 90 pounds that used to more than fill those jeans. No diet ever lasted more than a couple of weeks for me. What finally worked was to start logging everything that went down my throat - including what I drink. And I started walking before and after work. You can eat different foods and choose different exercise, but you must learn calorie control to lose weight.

    Along the way I found a great MD who is very nutrition oriented and learned to eat for health instead of just taste or convenience. That helped in many ways, including a huge reduction in food cravings. My BP now avg 110/70 and resting heart rate is usually 48-50, and my 51st birthday is coming up fast. I've gone from a woman who could barely waddle around the block to the one who runs at least 5 miles before work every day.

    It didn't happen overnight. It's been a series of persistent changes. It started with the realization that I needed to change my ways - permanently - to change my prognosis. It lasted because I found that I loved the challenge of learning what works for my body - and my personality.

    I started at around 220 and thought it would be wonderful if I could get down to 150 pounds. I'm 122 pounds in my profile pic and am maintaining between 120 - 125, not because I'm on a diet but because I've changed my approach to food and exercise.
  • LiftAllThePizzas
    LiftAllThePizzas Posts: 17,857 Member
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    Like others have said in various ways, if you want to be 145 lbs for the rest of your life, the only way to do that is to eat like someone who weighs 145 lbs for the rest of your life. If you approach this as a temporary measure to lose weight, when you're done and return to eating like someone who weighs 216 lbs, you will go back to weighing 216 lbs.

    The good news is you don't have to drastically change what you eat overnight. There's no big hurry and no big advantage to getting there a little bit sooner, so there is no need to suffer, feel hungry, or torture yourself. If you are uncomfortable with eliminating all 'bad' foods at once, then don't. You can slowly make the changes you need to make and take small (and manageable and not unpleasant) steps toward eating like the 145 lb you.

    The best first step is simply to log calories and exercise. You can even give yourself a week or two of eating exactly as you are and just logging it with no concern of trying to stay within a certain calorie count. Once you see it there, it's like a budget that lets you see where you're wasting tons of money, you can really start looking at where you are getting calories that would be easy to eliminate, and you can start working your way toward a new lifestyle that will let you live at 145 lbs and enjoy eating.

    If it takes you a year or two years to get to 145, you will have had that much experience eating the way you should by the time you get there, so you will be much more likely to just stay that way because it's "just how you're used to eating" by then.

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