How to deal with failure

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unfinishedpuppet
unfinishedpuppet Posts: 5
in Health and Weight Loss
This is my greatest setback everytime I lose weight. Once I start messing up I just want to climb into a little hole and forget that I even tried in the first place. My goal is 1200 calories a day, but yesterday I shot up to 1650. I'm really disappointed in myself... I drank more than half of my calories (cause I was more thirsty than hungry), and I know I probably should replace water for soda.

But water is so boring to me...any ideas in a good low calorie drink?
And how do you deal with mess ups in your weight loss?

Replies

  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,959 Member
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    OK

    A) 1200 is not enough. It is the absolute minimum a woman should eat daily according to medical science. Just because you can eat that little, doesn't mean you should or that you have to
    B) 1650 is almost guaranteed to be under your TDEE, if not under your BMR. You can most likely eat 1650 every day and still lose weight.
    C) Going over a (very) restrictive calorie goal by 450 calories on one day is not "Failure"
    D) If you beat yourself up for going over on one day, and consider it a failure, you WILL fail, because you will give up, decide you can't do it and stop trying.

    Read this: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1175494-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

    You don't need to be starving to lose weight.

    As for the drink, I drink soda water with a squirt of lemon or lime juice. It's fizzy, refreshing and has enough taste to not be boring.
  • jenniferpark01
    jenniferpark01 Posts: 34 Member
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    How would you learn if you never mess up? I try to learn from my mishaps and find out how to prevent them from happening again so I don't keep repeating.

    As for water consumption.... I like adding 1/2 a packet of Crystal Light to a gallon of water. It adds a little flavor but it is not over powering.
  • FitnessInstructorKhalil
    FitnessInstructorKhalil Posts: 43 Member
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    Try and cut out the fizzy drinks and use squash instead, lemon squash mainly itll help a lot
  • VelveteenArabian
    VelveteenArabian Posts: 758 Member
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    There are a lot of low and zero calorie mixes for drinks - Crystal Light would be one example. Go to the store and look on the shelf.

    Swapping to diet soda will free up a lot of calories.
  • MissJay75
    MissJay75 Posts: 768 Member
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    As stated, 1200 is VERY low, and tough for many to be consistent with. Personally, I'd rather the weight come off slower, but in a way that makes me feel successful. Try to move more if you can, burn some calories! This means you can eat more. I am 39, 5'7, I am sedentary for my daily activity, but burn about 500 calories per day on average in exercise so I can eat more. Most days I eat between 1700 - 2000 calories, but still lose around a pound a week.
  • jessinicole1808
    jessinicole1808 Posts: 28
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    We have the same problem! I love cokes can't get enough of them I'm tryin to switch to diet Pepsi instead of coke! But I kno water is the best. And ur not a failure just keep trying don't let a slip up Bring u down keep workin at it u will lose the pounds:)
  • ChristineRoze
    ChristineRoze Posts: 212 Member
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    I drink coffee, tea and I have about 1 or 2 cans of pepsi max or diet lemonades etc a day :)
  • spamantha57
    spamantha57 Posts: 674 Member
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    Ooh! Ooh! I like this question because I've turned those previous weak points into pretty good strengths now. Drinking enough water has always been a challenge for me but I have a few good tricks now that I do daily, and failures I believe can be used to make us stronger.


    Crystal Light & diet soda are crap. Screw putting crappy chemicals into your body like that.

    Do you like the carbonation that's in soda? I do. (I don't like soda thank god, but I love the refreshing carbonation.)
    Crystal Geyser, Trader Joe's, and Arrowhead make awesome flavored carbonated water with no junky crap in it. My favorites are lemon, berry, or orange flavored. They come in 1-2 liters & they're only 99 cents. I get a few to keep at home & a mini 4 pack (usually $2) once a week to bring to work. Fvck yeah.

    Something I started doing a few months ago that has really helped too:
    Bought a 32oz water bottle. The night before I go to work I fill 1/3rd of it up with water, pour some lemon juice (or whatever flavor you want, I like lemon) and a bit of stevia in it (a natural sweetener w 0 cals & doesn't alter blood sugar) and stick it in the freezer on its side. The next morning I take it out & fill the rest of it up with the same stuff. It's like having delicious cold lemonade all day long at work with zero calories or guilt & if you finish you're already 1/2 way to your water goal for the day. Someday soon I hope to be bad *kitten* enough that I can do that with two 32oz bottles a day.

    The 3rd/ last thing I do is drink tea - something caffeinated in the morning (I'm a fan of chocolate yerba mate or vanilla chai (which have less than 5 cals) and at night I drink Sleepytime tea (my favs are vanilla & Sleepytime extra) with a little bit of honey sometimes.

    Also, once in awhile (say, once every couple weeks) I go over my caloric intake by a good 500 cals AT LEAST. It helps me stay on track the rest of the time. :) One meal is fine, one day is fine. If you forgive yourself (or even better - PLAN to do that!) it will help a bunch. Cheat days are popular for more than one reason you know haha

    Hope those ideas help! They've worked really well for me! :)
  • stephanieharms1290
    stephanieharms1290 Posts: 48 Member
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    One bad day of going over your calories is certainly not failure. Try not to be so hard on yourself. It takes a lot of adjusting to figure out what can and cannot work for you in a diet regime. The more you beat yourself up, the more you will want to give up. There is ALWAYS room for improvements. You can make changes tomorrow, and get yourself back on track.

    1200 is extremely low whether you exercise or not. I think you may want to adjust your settings, because that is certainly not enough calorie to consume daily!

    As for drinking your calories....

    Have you tried adding cut up fruits to your water? (Ex: strawberries, lemon, cucumber, lime, etc?) Flavored waters may make it a little bit easier? Soda is a really tough habit to break. Maybe you can try unsweetened or green tea in the beginning to kick your habit?

    Please feel free to message me if you have any questions :) Or check out my blog!

    http://stephanieharms.wordpress.com/
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
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    low calorie drinks:

    teas, coffee (be careful with added stuff like milk and sugar though, because the calories add up quickly)
    diet soft drinks
    some people liven up water by adding a little lemon juice or whatever, personally I'd rather drink plain water but if you like it then why not

    one thing I do is I quench my thirst with water then drink calorie drinks slowly for the taste.... if you're really thirsty when you have drinks that contain calories then there's a higher likelihood that you'll drink a lot more of them and use up more of your calories.... also, water tastes crap after drinking sweet drinks... if water's the first thing you drink when thirsty then it tastes a lot better. And plus you're drinking it to quench your thirst. Then, when not thirsty, you can just relax and enjoy the taste of whatever other drink and it's a lot easier to stick to your planned amount of it.
  • kirili3
    kirili3 Posts: 244 Member
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    You didn't fail, you still ate at a deficit.

    More importantly, as someone who has in the past (... yesterday) gone about 1200 over my 1200 goal, I can say that the worst thing to do is wallow. Just move on. Find filling foods. Focus on something other than calories, to see if that's messing you up - for example, too little protein.
  • Brinray
    Brinray Posts: 20
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    Ugh, i hear you on the water. What is it about it that you don't like? I always thought I hated water, but it turns out that I just hate room-temp tap water. I have a water bottle with a filter in it and I keep it in my fridge. Voilà, suddenly the water isn't so bad.

    Also, you didn't fail, you just learned a new way of not doing what you want to do. You know better now, next time you won't do the same thing.
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
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    re how to deal with failure

    1. don't call it failure. Failure suggests something permanent, instead call it a "slip-up" or something. That implies you get back up again and carry on right after

    2. if a baby's learning to walk and stumbles and falls, what do people say...... "awwww" (then help the baby get up again, or watch affectionately as the baby picks himself up again) or "looks like this baby's never going to walk, he should just give up and accept crawling as a way of getting around"

    3. don't beat yourself up........ I used to play ice hockey. Do you know how many times I fell over learning how to do learning to skate? and learning to do everything that goes with it, e.g. turning, stopping on each foot, etc? I don't. I got a crap ton of ice burn on my arms learning though.... no-one learns to do anything difficult without failing many times first

    4. Thomas Edison made thousands of lightbulbs that didn't work before he finally found a way to make one that worked. Just think, if he'd given up we might still all be sitting around with only candle light..... (yes i know some other guy was working on the same thing and they ultimately pooled their ideas... but suppose he'd given up too...?)

    5. it's not so much about how hard you can hit, it's how hard you can get hit and get right back up again into the game - something my ice hockey coach always said. Everyone gets knocked down. Important thing is getting up again and carrying on.
  • LoupGarouTFTs
    LoupGarouTFTs Posts: 916 Member
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    When you say your "goal" is 1200 calories, do you mean that the baseline goal that MFP has set for you is 1200 calories? If you are getting any kind of exercise and are still trying to hit that baseline, then you are eating far too little. I am trying to lose 1.5 pounds/week and MFP has got my baseline set as 1250 calories. However, I generally get enough exercise to eat around 1500 calories/day and still lose. There are times I feel very full eating that number of calories, especially now that I'm eating more protein and fewer carbs (I have diabetes, so I needed to reduce my carbs, but I don't have a "low carb" diet). However, I do drink diet soda and water, so I can eat most of my calories. I do drink one glass of milk a day, with my nightly medication, but those are the only calories I drink.

    Anyway, if you're not recording your exercise calories, make certain that you do so and eat back at least a portion of them. You'll feel better for it, especially if you cut out at least one sugary drink and replace it with food and get enough protein during the day.
  • itsbasschick
    itsbasschick Posts: 1,584 Member
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    lemon zinger iced tea sweetened with pure stevia has no calories and tastes great. ditto a lot of other herb teas, but that one tastes like a very nice lemonade without quite the sourness, and is just yum.

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