Frustrated and want to cry

Lifetimestruggle wrote: »

I have dropped 5 inches off my waist and I am down 23 pounds. I am very happy about that but what is sooo frustrating is I am busting my butt and the other two people are not putting in any effort at all and have dropped 40 for one and 34 for the other. I just needed to vent because I feel like crying. I know I should not compare myself to other people but I have just really felt really down and is all this effort doing any good.

This might sound a bit harsh, but I have the best intentions for you and your success. So prepare yourself for a kick in the pants. This involves taking a long hard look at yourself and the situation you have presented here. I'll go bad cop. Others, oh well. Somebody was bound to try the approach. Today it was me.

Hmmmm...so you've lost 23 pounds in 3 months and are happy, but aren't sure all of the effort is doing good. Which one is it? Or is "happy" and "doing good" two very different things in terms of your success and goals? What is "doing good" to you? These are goal related questions that only you can answer to yourself. If you decide the effort isn't worth it, stop. Only you can decide that. But remember that without these efforts you found yourself at a point where you decided to make a change. Why did you make the changes you did? That is for you to answer, to yourself. Then decide if all of your effort is "doing good" compared to the reason you started eating well and exercising. If it isn't, it may be time to re-evaluate your goals or perhaps make them more realistic, and adjust accordingly. You may benefit from seeing a registered dietician. That will me by suggestion on the calories and closed food log along with your activity and frustration with your progress and considering dropping exercise.

I will also point out the EXTREMELY OBVIOUS: losing 8 pounds each week and only eating 1000 calories a day is not realistic for long term. That is my opinion, and I own it. If it works as well as you claim, great. If that is your reality, okay....but you won't lose 8 pounds every week. Try it, but you won't. I PROMISE, in the long run, you won't. But you are in your reality, and you can see how it is working for you. By all means, if exercising and eating like this is working for you, AWESOME. If you want to keep it up, SUPER. If not logging is your thing, OWN IT. I believe if it was "working for you" you wouldn't be frustrated and crying. That doesn't sound like working. But what works for you obviously has nothing to do with me.

What works for me also doesn't involve two other people and whatever their goals are. What works for me only involves me. Again, it is your choice. I prefer to have friends for motivation and support. Support works for me. I understand others can be competitive. If that is more your thing, ok by me. If you choose to compete with these other 2 people, GREAT. You can also choose not to compete. Gosh aren't choice wonderful? If that competition is what you need to get up and go each day, TRUCK ON! Just understand that in every competition there is a winner and a loser (at least for cutthroat competitive types). In this case, you have negated your loss of 23 pounds and focused on their success in a negative way, and accused them of not putting in any effort at all. I am not sure if that makes you a poor loser to them, or a poor winner to yourself. Possible both. Either way, yuck. If you can't be proud of yourself, you could try to be proud of them.

You are crying because other people lost weight? That they lost MORE weight than you? Or that you think you are working harder than them? I believe that is really the issue here, but I could be wrong. Other people gain and lose weight, and it has nothing to do with you. How hard you work has to do with you, and only you. Nobody can make you, and at the end of the day it is your responsibility. How hard THEY are working has to do with them, the work THEY put in, and only them. I also would hazard a guess if they really have lost 40 pounds and 34 pounds each in 3 months they ARE putting in an effort and have changed something. If they really weren't putting in any effort at all to lose weight or be more active or make changes in their lives they would not have lost so much weight. I am not saying what you did or what they did was healthy, as there are many ways to lose extreme weight quickly and I disagree with most of them.

So maybe you are working harder than them. So maybe they really are working harding than you. SO WHAT???? Hard work is just that: hard work. Do it, don't do it, do it and complain about it, don't do it but don't complain, heck complain about others not doing it when they said they would, but to complain about the success of others??? Seems pretty low to me. I think it may be time to get over yourself and take a reality check. You have been successful. You are making healthier eating choices. You are exercising regularly. Seriously did you expect it to be easy? Results like yours take hard work. I am guessing their results also took a great deal of work. Busting your butt is your choice. Whether or not they bust their butts is their choice. If it is too hard, or making you unhappy, back off. If you just need more encouragement and support, find it here! Meeting your goals and making healthy lifestyle changes should make you feel good. If it doesn't, it is time to look inside yourself and see what gives.


Should you not exercise...hmmm...yep you guessed it. Should you not exercise? Answer it. Should you work on being kind to yourself: absolutely, I'd say you should have started this yesterday, but get to it today. See the big picture here: you are well on your way in an exciting journey to succeed at your goals. Give yourself the chance to be successful! Set yourself up for successs! Support others as they struggle along. Work on being happy, today, right now, with who you are. You may be happy with the 23 pound loss, but clearly you are not happy overall since you say you feel really really down. Do not tie your happiness to your weight. Do something to cheer yourself up! Find people that support you. Surround yourself with the people that you love. Fix things in your life that need fixing. You already know what you are doing wrong, and have built in a defense right at the beginning of your post. See if you can see it. See if you feel like making changes to your approach. I'm getting off of my soapbox because my workout is calling. I wish you luck on your journey

I didn't thoroughly read through every single response, but I don't think anyone has brought this up yet...
One of the reasons your weight loss may be slowing now is because you're going to the gym more and building muscle. Muscle is much more dense and heavier than fat.

The scale can be deceiving and as a few have said, I would recommend focusing on body composition. One of the easiest ways to do this by yourself is to log your waist measurement on a regular basis - maybe weekly or biweekly depending on how much you have to lose.

I know for myself sometimes I find the scale discouraging, especially when I got to the point that you seem to be at right now when you're working the hardest but getting the least pay off on the scale. When I get frustrated I just remember that I'm gaining muscle and I like what I'm doing so if I lose some more fat then that's just a nice side-effect of my active lifestyle.

Which brings me to my next point...
One other thing I would like you to think about is that not all the work you are doing is for nothing. What you are doing now is maintaining all the weight loss progress you made. So it's a good thing.

What might be a bad thing is if you are not enjoying it.

To make it a life-long change, you gotta love what you're doing. I don't know you but I don't think you just want to lose weight, I think you want to feel good in your body and feel happy on a daily basis and be pleased with your reflection in the mirror. If exercising and eating right is becoming solely a means to an end (to lose weight), then even if you do make it last a lifetime you will always be frustrated and want to cry for the rest of your life.



Do not stop exercising. But maybe if you don't really enjoy the gym that much then try to find something you'll love to do just for the hell of it. Instead of "working out" maybe you can learn to kick box or swim or cross country ski.

I say this out of love: I think it would be good for you to loosen up a little. It's kinda like when you're watching the clock at the end of the work day...time goes by soooo slow! Instead, take your eyes off the scale and try to enjoy the ride for a bit. Don't worry about weight loss for a while and try to focus on developing a healthy lifestyle that you LOVE.

Those are just my two cents, I hope you could take something from it!
Cheers.