Advice from people who fell off the weight-loss train and go

Hey there mammokatspokane!

I'm one of those and just now crawling back on the wagon - for the zillionth time.

I'm an academic, so for me, I have to sit and pick everything apart in my head about myself, my motivations, my desires, what I need to know, what information am I missing and so on and then I have to make the conscious CHOICE to move forward and then just do it. If I think to much about the action part, I won't engage in it. If I sit around too long (which I'm verging on as I type!), I won't do it. So, that's the time when I have to turn off the brain and turn on the body and just get off my tushy and DO IT. This goes both for eating and working out. I'd rather "fill up" on coffee than eat and I'd rather respond to a long email from my best friend than work out.

But we know where that gets us - and before I know it, the day is gone and I've done - guess what? Nothing. I have to NOT think and just DO.. once I've decided what it is I need to do.

I don't know if that's helpful, but it's how I operate. :-)

Been in your shoes for years, and then it affected my health. I knew, if I didnt lose the weight, it was going to kill me.........that is now what "clicked in my brain"

High blood pressure , and shortness of breath convinced me to stay focused, and dont let failure become an option.........

I think, knowing that obesity kills is what clicked for me.. You are fortunate in the respect of a less weight loss than most. I iknow you need to lose 10 lbs, and its important to you and your health. Maybe , just knowing that you dont have to lose 100, or 150 lbs could be insentive to keep it off......its easier to lose 10 lbs than 100, so maybe that could be a goal.......Good luck, Lloyd

When I have fallen off the train it helps for me to do something new and exciting. Like a new video or workout routine. When I fell off the wagon back in January I joined a gym and lost 45lbs in the first 3 months!!!

I do think that regular participation on the boards helps. I read once that people who spend at least 10 minutes a day reading about health and nutrition are more likely to stay on top of things.

Bump for ya'!

So... my story in a nutshell: hit 235 lbs as a 25 year old (I'm only 5' 3.5") and decided enough was enough. From Sept of last year to January of this year I lost about 30 lbs... then I let life get in the way, started making excuses and regained a little over half of that. I had a couple false re-starts and went up and down between 210 and 220 for a month or two. Since then, I've been "reborn" and am now down to about 193 (34 lbs down from starting MFP weight, 42 lbs down from heaviest weight).

I think every person has to go through his or her own process, and no one's process is going to be the same. I can tell you what worked for me - I took a good, hard, serious look at my life - all areas - and realized I wasn't living up to my potential. I journaled, I talked to myself, I talked with a therapist, I talked with my mom who is also striving to live a much healthier life. I've made a lot of changes over the last year, and eating healthy and exercising is only part of it. I realized I was cheating myself out of a healthy adulthood. I didn't WANT to be fat... and I don't have to be. I was allowing procrastination and laziness to infiltrate many part of my life. I wasn't the adult I wanted to be. I had to admit all of this to myself and take FULL responsibility for who I was and why I wasn't who I wanted to be, and I had to realize that there were no excuses for why I couldn't be who I wanted to be.

It really was a largely internal process, but in doing all of that (which took quite a while), something clicked, and I know with absolute certainty that I'll never go back to who I was before. I'm not perfect - I have my bad days, but overall my life is a complete change from where it was a year and a half ago.

A easy exercise I would recommend to anyone struggling with motivation/falling off the wagon is to make an honest list of all the reasons you want to lose weight. They can be selfish, silly, odd, serious - whatever the real reason are that you want to become healthier. Write it down and read it out loud. Keep it handy - anytime you feel your motivation slipping, read the list and decide if it's really worth giving up on all of those reasons. If you ignore that list, you are disrespecting yourself.

I would also recommend the book called "The Beck Diet Solution" - despite the name, it's not about diets, it's about how to change your thinking so that you can more successfully change your habits. It really helped me a lot!

I did Weight Loss Clinic in the 1980s, and it cost about $15 per pound. I was as expensive as steak!

It was really good, with food and exercise journals, nutrition and psychological counselling. I hit a maintenance weight and then.... because it was a pay service, I obviously couldn't stay on it, and they turned me loose upon the world. Maintenance was not what they were in business for. I didn't have a support system and honestly "normal people" don't have a clue what losing 50 lbs. means, or in my case, 65.

I had all sorts of unwanted attention that I had never in my life had before, mainly from men I had to reject after a lifetime of being rejected in various ways (it felt so bad to disappoint them, knowing how it feels) and although I didn't want to be fat then, it was way safer. There were also ancillary problems with self-image because although other people thought me attractive (apparently) after losing 65 lbs., I didn't see anything different in the mirror. I've been working on that one.

After a long period of reflection and various yoyo diets of differing kinds, and *ahem* turning 50, I realized that my problems with self-confidence had more or less evaporated (not entirely, but I can now tell people nicely where to go if they need to go). I also determined that the WLC diet was the best one I had ever been on, sensibility wise, and then I found MFP, which is the same thing, free PLUS has a support community which I desperately need.

For me, I have reached one inescapable conclusion, that being that I have no idea about portion control (not to mention a bad memory for it) and that I have to weigh and log everything, including food and exercise. It is a life-long endeavour and no temporary fix. I do not intend to wave farewell to this site at any time and I will keep that commitment to myself to the best of my ability. Because otherwise, I will fall off the wagon just like I did before, not deliberately, but because some other thing or issue got in the way somehow.

AND when I'm down, I have you to give me a lift and that's the best of all :flowerforyou:

This is such a good topic. Yes, I am now at maintenance or within 3 pounds of my goal -- 135 pounds (5'8"). My heaviest weight was about 210 I think. I was a size 18w for a long time. Now I am a 8 - 10.

How did I do it exactly? Not really sure. Like everyone, life "got in the way,". Concerning myself with my family, step children, my companies, my husband's illness, paying bills ... LIFE. We all have problems. I forgot to make myself a priority. The weight just crept on and I was too distracted to worry about it.

Most of us know what to do in order to lose the pounds. With MFP I am forced to focus and concentrate on me. For the first time I feel fully aware of what I am doing. This program makes tracking everything so easy. Looking well and staying at a good weight takes work. Finally, I am concentrating on me. Finally, I believe I am worth it.

Hope this helps some. Add me as a friend if you'd like. I love encouraging others to reach their weight loss goals.

As you can see, I've been a member of MFP since 2008 and as of today, I've lost ONE pound. (Endless Halloween candy doesn't help the weight loss effort - Imagine that!)

I've got no answers, so reading this thread has been helpful...my most recent success is that I found a coworker that lives in the same part of the city as me that might be my new workout buddy. We'd aim for 2 - 3 days/week to start, but hopefully increase from there...first time in a while I've been excited