Tired of "starting over"

I'm going through the same thing. Sometimes I go to the fitness section of Pinterest and look at some of the before and after pictures. They have a lot of motivational quotes that help as well. My favorite to use that I tell myself all the time is, "If you're tired of starting over, stop quitting." :-)

When you search the threads, you find this question asked a lot: how do I stay consistent? how do I keep the weight off? how do I stay motivated? People will give you a lot of different answers but it boils down to this: you have to make a decision to permanently change how you eat and what you eat. Your portions have to get smaller. You can't eat out as much. You have to stop eating fast food. You have to drink less. Some people here will tell you - and it is true - that you don't have to make any of these changes if you accurately track your calories and macros by weighing and logging. But most people don't do well if they don't make fundamental changes to what they eat. It is just friggin' hard to split a plate of restaurant food in half and only eat part of it, to have one fig newton or ten french fries or one four ounce glass of wine.

What you eat means eating nutritional, unprocessed food rather calorie dense, nutritionally poor stuff most people eat day in and out. Again, there are folks here - and they are right - who will tell you that you can maintain your weight without ever eating a carrot or that eating Big Macs and Oreos is okay as long as you hit your macro and calorie goals every single day. I won't step into the middle of this particular discussion - though there is a lot of evidence that a high fat, high sugar, processed food diet (like most Americans eat) contributes to heart disease, diabetes, and lots of other ugly, avoidable illness - but the truth is easier to hit your macros and calories eating whole vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes than it is eating big macs.

Here's the good news: if you stop "dieting", make these basic changes to how much, where and what you eat, and stick to them - even after you have a day or two or three when you don't or can't stick to them - in six months they will have replaced your current eating habits and just be something you do, like brushing your teeth or paying your bills. Good luck!