How do you actually STICK to it?!

Sounds a bit OCD. I suggest taking a less strict stance, it's not a race.

It helps if you eat actual food and stuff....like more than just veggies and what not...you know stuff that you're going to eat for the rest of your life. Healthy, nutritious food doesn't have to suck and proper nutrition requires a **** load more than just veg and fruit. I'd recommend investing some time in learning proper nutrition and what you body needs and I'd also recommend probably not such a paltry calorie goal...adherence is much better when you actually have realistic goals.

When you actually start feeding your body correctly and make fitness as much a part of your life as getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth you will STICK to it...because it'll just be the way you roll.

If you aren't overweight and your weight is steady, and you hate counting calories- not much point in counting calories.

Extreme periods of working out and barely eating are unsustainable, which is why its a roller coaster when you try. I rode that coaster for a decade. Didn't work. A sustainable plan and everything in moderation is key.

Also- at 18- don't turn down those meals out with friends! Socialise and live life to the fullest, before the responsibilities of adulthood hit.

How do you stick with it?

1) Set a quality goal. Most goals are terrible, x amount lost, all veggies, no junk, whatever bull people come up with.

Real goals are specific, measurable, achievable, and have a time limit. A good goal, might look something like: I will eat a diet of carbs, fats and protein, totaling a 5% reduction from my maintenance calorie levels for 90 days.

The trick is you need to know what you are really capable of, and what you really aren't. I for example know that if I were to try and watch my calories on Thanksgiving, I'd probably wind up killing a dude for some pumpkin pie. So, I am allowing myself a cheat meal a week for the next three months. This helps me change my daily habits, while acknowledging my limitations, and upping my chances of success.

2) Realizing that success is not a line, a weight, a promotion. Success is engaging in the process of doing your best today. Tomorrow is planning, and yesterday is history. We learn from our history to build better plans, but we make changes today. You won't stick with anything that you aren't ready to be.

3) Iron 'effing willpower. This is something you develop by making difficult choices, based on a solid understanding of who you want to be for the people that love you. I had to grow up a lot to develop the character to do the right thing. I still mess up sometimes, which is where willpower comes in. One moment of decision making where you are weak is not a failure, quitting trying to do the right thing is a failure. Willpower is what it takes to admit you screwed up, set a bad goal, over estimated your capabilities, and reset, with your better information and try again.

4) An additive thought process rather than a subtractive: The more you think about what you aren't having, the more likely you are to feel that what you are doing is hard. If you can find a way to look forward to the process, you become energized about the choices you are making and the life you are leading. Put another way, sitting at home thinking about the bottle of bourbon I am not drinking will not help me change the way I am trying to change, planning my next fun physical activity is much more likely to.

5) Surround yourself with people who are committed to doing the best work they can. There is a lot of stuff out there that can help you focus on doing good work, instead of when you might get a chance for the next promotion, cupcake, pair of pants, etc. Thinking about what you don't have is so rarely the way to get it.

5a) Watch people that are bad at things, and identify what you would do differently When you are beginning, it is often easier to see where a terrible example went wrong than it is to see how someone with mastery is doing right.

6) Learn to enjoy process. There are big lessons that you learn simply by enduring. Stick around long enough, have your heart bent by a stunning red head, watch a friend or two die, see something you worked very hard on succeed, and something else you tried very hard on fail, and you begin to realize that you learned more in the doing, than in the conclusion.

7) Start investing in the idea that you have to earn things that are worth having. No one ever loves the car they were bought like the crap-heap they earned. Ferocious pride is not born of simple achievement, it is born of surviving adversity.

8) Embrace failure. Failing means you tried, you cared, and you did something. failing means you are better prepared to try again, try differently, try with more brilliance, try with more risk. Failure is how we learn. Failure is the earning of our stripes. Failure is how you learn to succeed.

9) Be suspicious of easy. Easy is almost always a shortcut. Easy rarely makes anything awesome.

Be excellent. Everything else is wasting time.

Now, where's that bottle of bourbon?

I get you. Even though I let MFP set the calorie goal for me, I freak out if I eat more than 1300 calories or so a day. It's not hard for me to not eat unhealthy things... it's just a difficult process in general. But yeah, very low, non-caloric things I don't usually log, like veggies. Some veggies (and fruits) have more calories than others, but I think you can do research as to what those are and record those ones. But the little ones, nah, they're worth eating but it's not dire if you don't log them.

Maybe this is because you don't need to lose weight. You lool like a healthy weight in your profile. What's wrong with just maintaining the weight you have and are happy with?

1 - I decided that I wanted it badly enough.

2 - I didn't try to starve myself on 1200 calories a day.


ETA - I just read more of the follow-up and checked your profile. I sound to me like perhaps you want to concentrate on body recomposition rather that trying to lose weight. I suspect you would be happier with the results, and you may find it easier to stick with it.

Body weight strength training is a very viable option (and free) if you don't have access to weights.

By being committed to it for life. I'll never eat "perfect", I've just perfected how to stay within calorie limits.


A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

stick to it by making moderate lifestyle changes that you'll be able to stick to. you don't have to go at it gung ho, you don't have to be "good" 100% of the time. you just have to eat less than you burn off to lose weight, and do exercise and feed your body all the nutrients it needs for good health. i.e. make everything as easy as possible, so long as those three things are stuck to, i.e. a) calorie deficit, b) eating all the nutrients your body needs (protein, fat, carbs, vitamins, minerals, fibre, water (which is contained in other drinks doesn't have to be just plain water)) and c) exercise. for a) don't make the deficit too big, slow and steady fat loss is fine, what counts is maintaining your goal weight for life, not how fast you got there. for b) eat all the foods you enjoy, just moderate the portion sizes if necessary to stick within your calorie goal, and be sure to include all the nutrients you need. for c) do some kind of exercise you enjoy and will be able to stick to long term. And allow yourself days where you're allowed to go over your calorie goal, e.g. parties, special occasions. just don't do this so often that it stops you reaching your goal weight.

then set goals for long term compliance, just for these three things. have a 1 week, 3 week, 1 month, 3 month, 6 month 9 month and 1 year goals. by then, it'll all be so much your regular habits that you won't find it difficult to maintain, but reward yourself again for every extra year you stick to it, just because you achieved it.

I can feel your pain. I was in the same boat. I started attending boot camp style work out sessions back in May. It's more than just cardio, because, as I have learned, it's so much more than that. It's more like circuit training. I am finishing a challenge at camp which was 6 weeks long. It was focused on changing 1 habit per week and growing upon that one change. The main areas of focus are

1. Sleep- make sure you get at least 6 hours per night. If not your body won't burn fat.

2. Eat one fruit or one vegetable each meal.

3. Eat every 3-4 hours to keep your metabolism going all day. If you don't eat that often, your body will store fat because it thinks its starving.

4. Drink half your body weight in water each day.

5. Allow yourself 2 treats (sweets, alcohol, etc.) per week. (This was really hard for me!)

6. Eat protein at every meal. One serving is between 20-25 gms for women.

And most importantly, believe and you can accomplish your goals. Find something that inspires you and make a positive outcome statement. Mine is "I can't believe that my BMI is now 22%". It's not yet, but by talking to myself in a positive way, it frees my mind from self doubt, which will sabotage your success. Hope this helps!

I track all my calories ALL of them. I don't worry if I go over. I eat what I want and try to keep it in line. If on one day I want to eat the damn chocolate, I do! I found that by limiting myself too much got me NOWHERE. I'm much happier with a slow loss and tasty food than I am with fast loss and boring food.

Yes this ^^^^^^

So what if I only loose 2 lbs a month ) I have not once alll year weighed more than when I began and I have stuck to my plan for almost 365 day!!! Yes some days I didn't log, but I ate in my portions. Consistency is the key not restrict restrict let go, okay restrict restrict... Let go ) Good luck I use to do that too. I am so much happier now!

I personally don't think someone 18 and naturally thin (you are thin and you said your weight doesn't fluctuate much) needs to track all their intake or say no to eating out with friends due to dieting. You might want to talk to someone about your relationship with eating and your feelings about it and your body, maybe? Not loving everything about our bodies is totally normal, but restricting calories is only the answer to one thing-- being overweight. You look like you're a healthy weight.

If you're not, just aim to get back up when you fall off. Success is in how many times you get back up, not how few times you fall off.

I definitely go through spells where I'm way less motivated and in the past I would have followed that same pattern. Now I just make the effort to keep tracking through those periods so i don't gain.
Then when I'm ready to exercise again, I'm not behind the 8ball, so to speak.