What Has Been Your Biggest Issue Losing Weight?

13

Replies

  • Jkn921
    Jkn921 Posts: 309 Member
    Stress for me, when I get stressed I usually let go of all my good habits and fall into a slump. Extreme stress that is
  • FluffernutterJess
    FluffernutterJess Posts: 1 Member
    Irregular eating habits. I eat when I am hungry, and sometimes I don't get hungry for a couple of days, some days I eat every 15 minutes. And stress impacts me so much!
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    For me the problem isn't weight loss, I have that on lock and have never had issue with it when I set my mind to it...no, the problem is keeping the weight off after my mind decides to wander off to some other issue in my life. So my biggest issue with losing weight is maintenance.
  • albayin
    albayin Posts: 2,524 Member
    Body image. Having unrealistic expectations about what I can achieve given what I'm willing to do. :) I COULD have washboard abs. IF I was willing to give up sugars and carbs and eat nothing but meat and greens. (Yes, some people can have abs without doing those things but not me. I have never had them. Not going to have them now!) But I'm learning to love all the parts of me as they are and enjoy my life at the same time. :) Healthy balance. (This is in NO way hating on people who eat paleo or love that lifestyle... more power to you. Just not for me!)

    I can relate to this, totally. I have a very unhealthy body image about myself and how I "SHOULD" look. Then you hear people saying "you can do it as long as you are trying", then I start beating myself up thinking "oh yeah, I must be really lame and lazy and cant push myself hard enough"....
  • albayin
    albayin Posts: 2,524 Member
    I get frustrated when I don't see results and tend to lose focus

    I am like opposite of you. I get frustrated and become too focused on my lack of no progress...then I go into depression...
  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,834 Member
    What Has Been Your Biggest Issue Losing Weight?

    Consistency, and changing my habits to prefer the healthy choices. Like everyone in the world, I can rationalize my poor choices by telling myself it's 'ok' to eat a bit more of this because i worked out. Or I have been good all week so being off track this weekend won't hurt. But we all know it does.

    You HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT. Simple as that.
  • cudders121
    cudders121 Posts: 10
    My biggest issue was inconsistency. I would be on a kick, do well, have a relapse, then quit, then overeat, realize i need a change, then be on a kick, and the vicious cycle continued. After after going through that cycle over 200 or so times (no exaggeration there: since high school, college to now late 20s) I began to feel that I would never be successful. It disappointed me hearing testimony of other people who after making "one big decision to change" lost weight. I felt I would never rise than my vicious cylce. But after alot of prayer or positive people and mfp -- i actually broke the cycle last fall. it finally happened, I stayed on the straight and narrow and never stoppped. I've been legit for 9 months.

    Just goes to show whether it's your first attempt or your 523rd time, it only takes "ONE" time to break the chain. And your next time, could be it. :)

    I think this is the exact biggest issue that I'm suffering with right now , not only physically but mentally and emotionally it is beginning to take a toll on me .. and the more I think about it the more I want to make a change but have yet to do so. I'm struggling with the fact that I have to give up some of the things that I love. I was doing good about a month or two ago .. lost a total of 7 lbs but then I just fell off and went right back to eating whatever and drinking a lot. People are always calling me fat , I look at myself in the mirror and see fat , My friends work out and eat healthy but instead of trying to help me they just shove it in my face that I have a big belly and fat arms. Some people here on MFP that I may look to in these message boards are set on telling you that it is impossible to lose X amount of weight in X amount of time and that whatever you're doing isn't right .. so as you can see I don't have any motivation and I'm searching for my self motivation ... Hoping to find it soon.
  • tigerette12
    tigerette12 Posts: 14 Member
    It is hard for me to admit but my biggest problem is that I would self medicate with food. I had a horrid day , no problem make myself feel better with a pizza. Received bad news, awful self esteem, same thing eat food to feel better. I would then feel worse for eating the food so I would eat more since I already felt bad. I am still struggling with this especially after my recent personal loss but I am moving forward.
    It took a miscarriage for me to realize that i need to make changes not to watch the numbers on the scale drop but changes to make myself a healthier person. I just got back into it but am already making great choices, have not had a meal out in 3 days(this is huge for me!), and have walked at least 5 miles every day. I plan to do mostly walking because that is what I enjoy for weight loss. I did it before an dropped 20 pounds, then I put on 40 but this time I want to be healthy so I pray I get one more shot at having a baby before that window is closed forever.
    I wish you all great success and remember each and every one of you is an amazing human being!
  • dixiewhiskey
    dixiewhiskey Posts: 3,333 Member
    Biggest issue so far has been eating around/with people. Everyone except my kids eat incredibly gross .. 3 burgers at McDonalds plus fries, ice cream. Lots of booze.

    I've become pretty anti social these days because it's so hard not to have four beers when you bump into the friend who always wants to drink
  • prettygirlstorm1
    prettygirlstorm1 Posts: 721 Member
    My biggest issue was my love for food and blaming it on PMS. I am an emotional eater so I ate when bored, tired, depressed, snowing outside, sunny outside, Monday whatever. But then I would over exercise trying to undo what I had done or do nothing and blame it on PMS. I had to learn that this is a life style change and not a diet. It helped that I was supported when I felt bad about the binge or when I rejected the binge. I learned to find something else to do when I get the urge to eat when I am not hungry. I had to tell myself often that skinny people only eat when they are hungry and I want to be skinny so are you really hungry. I know a lot of people will say its about being healthy of course I want to be healthy but I still want to be thin.
  • ToxicNudibranch
    ToxicNudibranch Posts: 4 Member
    My biggest issue was breaking our of my Family of Origin's mindset that all of life's ills can and should be "fixed" with mass quantities of junk food, and that we're all just destined to be fat, like our mothers and grandmothers before us. News flash, we were/are all fat because of our messed up pattern of emotional eating and fuzzy notions of portion control.

    I lived with that my entire life, and it took a lot of soul searching to realize that totally separate from my ballooning weight (which was compounded by an extensive course of Prednisone and nasty cases of both PCOS and Fibromyalgia -- Hooray for weird **** going on with my body!), I was disgusted with most of my food choices. Turns out I actually love eating a relatively low-carb diet with lots of leafy green vegetables and lean protein and whole grains. It's definitely not what I grew up with.

    ...now if I could figure out how to actually fall in love with exercise. That's still a major chore, especially with the amount of pain I'm in most days.
  • sbristol26
    sbristol26 Posts: 2
    Im so glad you brought this up it really makes me think. My biggest issue is really that I look for food for comfort and in all honesty I find it hard to imagine my self as skinny. I have been overweight all my life and to me I cant really understand how much weight ive gained because to me I feel as if Im the same weight I have always been - just a little chubby. But now the evidence is showing as I need to buy larger and larger clothes and the reality is becoming much more clear . Fitting in the time to excercise has also been a big issue but I find my self making excuses because I always make time to watch TV !
  • SMKing75
    SMKing75 Posts: 84 Member
    Two things: First one being that after being on WW for a while, I came to realize that I am an emotional eater. If I get stressed or depressed, I am eating to eat. Now, I am not binge eater and I won't consume thousands of calories at once or anything like that BUT when this occurs I will make poor choices and eat more than I have allotted for in my day. This adds up and over a week, I will not lose any weight (possibly even gain) which will make me upset, and the poor choices continue! I have learned in the past year to make myself very busy, so busy that I have no time for snacking because I am not home. It has helped!

    And the 2nd thing is I am a self-saboteur, my worst enemy. I lose weight, (I used to be 278) and I will reach a goal that I make for myself and then I will quit once I achieve the goal. Now in all fairness, I have learned how to maintain throughout the weight loss journey and I have never gained back my weight. I have yo-yo'd between 217-235 for years but I was pg 4 times in those years and lost and regained weight due to that. I never got back to the 270's, not even close. I want to get under 200 lbs now (which I haven't seen in over 18 yrs and I am 2 lbs away) and then I HAVE to convince myself that I HAVE to continue on otherwise I will stay at about 200lbs and be unhappy!
  • brittanysmith513
    brittanysmith513 Posts: 44 Member
    My exercise-induced asthma. I can't get my heart rate up or I will have an attack.
    Also, I work in a bakery and it's nearly impossible to not eat the good stuff!! I have to remember that I need to feed my body, not just my taste buds.
  • _Resolve_
    _Resolve_ Posts: 735 Member
    For me the hardest part has been the emotional side of extreme weight loss, figuring out who you are now that the old you is gone. It's like I am meeting this person I am for the first time..
  • Austinetc
    Austinetc Posts: 74 Member
    I simply enjoy good tasting food and my favoriate foods are mostly empty calories. Chips, popcorn, chocolate, soda, pizza, etc.

    Can't eat one chip or one piece of pizza. I don't remember the tast of good food. I have to experience it, again and again.
  • fun_b
    fun_b Posts: 199 Member
    I was a big child and people never let me forget it. I grew up believing I would always be that way and never made too much of an effort to change. I would have the odd month or so when I got enthusiastic about losing weight and then I lost the motivation.
    It's a shame because I wasted my early 20's being miserable and overweight. I finally lost a couple of stones around four years ago and for the first time in my adult life, I realised I could do it. I wish I had believed in myself a lot sooner though.
  • Eleonora91
    Eleonora91 Posts: 688 Member
    My biggest issue was having to eat less when I wanted to eat more.
  • Apazman
    Apazman Posts: 494 Member
    Consistency
  • plzsiga
    plzsiga Posts: 8 Member
    You nailed it. I hit my lowest in 14 years and retracted. I've got to get that same attitude - to be not the lowest but the healthiest I have ever been.
  • Rose6300
    Rose6300 Posts: 232 Member
    For me the problem isn't weight loss, I have that on lock and have never had issue with it when I set my mind to it...no, the problem is keeping the weight off after my mind decides to wander off to some other issue in my life. So my biggest issue with losing weight is maintenance.

    This is me. But not this time. This time I'm keeping it off.
  • plzsiga
    plzsiga Posts: 8 Member
    Not a doc, but had similar issues with bronchitis. I found if I used the inhaler before the exercise, and after if needed, I was able to avoid another episode, and eventually gradually eliminate the inhaler completely.
  • spikedholly
    spikedholly Posts: 38
    Trying to figure out how many calories I'm actually supposed to be eating for "healthy" weight loss.

    I finally just decided to eat at my BMR # and then eat (if I want) any calories I burn during exercise rather than try to figure my activity level.
  • jmcdonald2011
    jmcdonald2011 Posts: 181 Member
    My biggest issue is scheduling and my location. I have a full time and a part time job as well as kids ranging from 5-16 years. I don't get a lot of me time to exercise - the eating right is ok, and actually not that difficult since I live in a small town with really no access to crap food unless I drive to get it. but that also leaves me with no access to a gym. I am pretty much left to walking and eventually jogging hopefully. but in the winter when its -30C that isn't easy.
  • heathl39
    heathl39 Posts: 46
    I kept my weight pretty even, but have always had to fight so hard! I haven't been eating enough, but killing myself to loose weight. My whole life has been resisting food. I gained 65lbs being on bed rest with my daughter and gained a bit after she was born. I thought if I just didn't eat I would go back to my slightly overweight self. NOPE! I gained a few more pounds. I started going to the gym busting my butt and didn't loose a pound. I was finally ready to listen and heard the truth. I have to eat! To me 1200 calories is so, so much and I am on day 7 and most days I am pretty close or on the button. However, I go to the gym at least 4 days a week and burn 400-600 calories a workout. So I am now told I need to be eating even more. By the way I am not loosing weight. Food is my issue! Food!!!
  • bald_navy_wife
    bald_navy_wife Posts: 81 Member
    food and impatience
  • StarChanger
    StarChanger Posts: 605 Member
    Finding the correct numbers. I think that my metabolism must be slow or something...when I use the numbers from MFP or from any TDEE calculator, I don't lose weight. I use a food scale, I use a heart rate monitor to record cardio, I know I'm logging accurately, and I keep lowering my goal, but I have yet to hit the magic number for consistent results.

    I just purchased a Bodymedia Fit Link to hopefully fix this.

    You and me both....except I've gone FROM the the BodyMedia Fit Link to a Jawbone Up24, in the last couple of weeks. So far the Jawbone is telling me I'm NOT as active as my armband said I was. I wore the armband pretty much 24/7 for the last 2.5 years...
  • heathl39
    heathl39 Posts: 46
    I get that and you have come such a long way! Amazing on so many levels! I have to agree that the thought of a new me is a bit (wicked) scary, but I know I am so much more then the person I have allowed myself to become! I can't wait to meet her!
  • weblur
    weblur Posts: 140 Member
    emtjmac:
    Being OK with not eating until I am in pain.
    ^This. To do that I had to learn to accept my emotions and not try to fight them off or stuff them down. Also, finally caring enough about myself (and in a future) to take care of the body I live in.

    and what Velum_cado said:
    I didn't care enough about myself. I had always been fat, I had it in my mind that I would always be fat. Really low self-esteem. Bullied relentlessly. I literally just accepted, by the age of 21, that I would die young. At my heaviest of 400 lbs, I was still getting around and doing things for myself - I never saw myself as becoming bed-bound or anything like that, because I assumed I'd die long before I ever got that big. I just didn't see myself as worth fighting for.

    dpearson2012:
    For me the hardest part has been the emotional side of extreme weight loss, figuring out who you are now that the old you is gone. It's like I am meeting this person I am for the first time..
    ^This is a scary scary thought for me but luckily I'm also determined to take the chance.
  • stothedonia09
    stothedonia09 Posts: 5 Member
    Wrong mindset.

Categories