Former yo-yo dieters, what changed for you to finally make it 'stick'?
gle8442
Posts: 126 Member
What was different about the diet/maintenance plan that ultimately worked for you?
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In for answers. I'm a yo-yoer too.
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Realizing that I could hide (or try to hide) my binges to myself, I could hide them from other people, but I couldn't hide them from my thighs.
No matter what my "reasoning" for overeating, my body doesn't care. If I have a fight with my husband and pound back the calories, my body won't give me a pass and say "Well, there was a good reason for you to do that, so we're just going to pass all that through you without storing it." Eating at a different time of day, eating different food combinations, etc., won't make my body decide not to utilize and store excess calories. Being on vacation won't make my body decide not to utilize and store excess calories.
Only sticking to plan will make me lose weight.
Only that, and nothing else. Well, barring some terrible illness, but God forbid and I daresay if I were battling such an illness, hot-looking thighs probably wouldn't be on my priorities list anyway.0 -
Realising I'm 'changing my lifestyle' and not 'dieting'.0
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Realising I'm 'changing my lifestyle' and not 'dieting'.
The thing is that every time I have lost weight, I believed that that was what I was doing, changing my lifestyle. And yet it can't be true because later on the weight came back. So this time around, even though I want to believe I've made a true change, I'm doubting myself a lot.
On the other hand, I guess with every round of weight loss I have picked up one or two good habits that really did stick, even if it was not enough to turn the tide.0 -
My first step was reasonable goals. Setting my account up to lose 2 pounds per week was too aggressive even if I did have almost 70 pounds to lose. One pound per week may not seem like much, but it gave me enough food that I stuck to it long term.
My second step was to find out the damage that yo-yo dieting does to the body and reverse it. Through dieting we lose lean mass as well as fat mass. One way to prevent that and to regain some of what is lost is through strength training. The second key is to eat adequate protein.
The last step was to make everything sustainable. I added exercise that I enjoyed, I made sure to include foods I like (even chocolate and ice cream), I filled up on nutrient dense foods through the day, and I remembered when I had a bad day that even 20 days of falling off the wagon in a year is only 5% of the year.0 -
What was different about the diet/maintenance plan that ultimately worked for you?
Hey, yur talkin' ta me!
Seriously, I stopped categorizing food as good or bad, and I started eating all the foods I love in moderation. I also changed my relationship with food.
The food scale is my friend. I'm not afraid to eat anymore either.0 -
I had bad eating habits so changing them was hard. Um I think I just thought to myself, "Is this food going to bring me to my goal? I can have it another day, its not going away. It'll be there when you hit your goal weight." Weird but its worked for 10 pounds.0
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I told myself that no food is off limits. In the past, I would tell myself that I couldn't have chocolate/donuts/pizza, etc. so of course, that was all I could think about until I couldn't stand it any more. I'd binge, feel guilty, and usually just give up. This time, I either work those foods into my daily calorie allowance (ice cream is a go-to dessert but I weigh out a serving instead of eating out of the carton) or I eat them on my weekly treat day (but I still try to exercise portion control because bingeing and stuffing myself with anything is a habit I needed to break).
I also tried to find ways to incorporate my favorite flavors/foods into lower calorie versions that are still delicious and satisfying. When I'm craving Mexican food, I make a Mexican-style casserole with corn tortillas, refried beans, salsa, and cheese. If I want potato chips (I still can't stop at one serving of those!), I eat a serving of pretzels to get that salty crunch. I'll make mini pizzas for dinner for an entire week using Fiber One sandwich thins as crust, homemade sauce, fresh mozzarella and veggies. Is it the same as takeout pizza? No, but it's very tasty and I've never finished one and still wished I had a slice from the local pizza place. 0 -
My first step was reasonable goals. Setting my account up to lose 2 pounds per week was too aggressive even if I did have almost 70 pounds to lose. One pound per week may not seem like much, but it gave me enough food that I stuck to it long term.
My second step was to find out the damage that yo-yo dieting does to the body and reverse it. Through dieting we lose lean mass as well as fat mass. One way to prevent that and to regain some of what is lost is through strength training. The second key is to eat adequate protein.
The last step was to make everything sustainable. I added exercise that I enjoyed, I made sure to include foods I like (even chocolate and ice cream), I filled up on nutrient dense foods through the day, and I remembered when I had a bad day that even 20 days of falling off the wagon in a year is only 5% of the year.
all of this. I couldn't have said it better.
It got me off a 20 year yo yo
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I learned that most of the "advice" out there isn't being spread around because it works, it is being spread around because it is what people want to hear and it sells, lets face it the world is all about money.
I have always been a math/sciencey kinda of person, but for some reason it took me a long time to think of applying that to weight loss. Throw a little common sense, biology, and physiology behind weight loss theories and you can start to pick out the ones that actually work and ones that don't.
Realizing that weight loss is mostly mental. For those of us without medical conditions interveening in our progress it really is about figuring out what drives you to over eat and either over coming that or redirecting it.0 -
I think it's just being persistent for the rest of your life. You'll have bad days, but it's doing the next right thing that matters. Not letting that day or meal start a week-long or longer backslide. Good luck to you. We're all fighting the same uphill battle.0
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The first time I ever had to try to lose weight was in my 30s. I ate 1200-1500 calories a day and mostly ran, working up from zero to 8-mile long runs on weekends before hurting my knee. I lost 15 pounds in six months, which felt like a lot for me. I was very lean, but "normal" for me. However, with the lack of running and worse dietary habits, those pounds came back and then some over the next few years.
The second time I dieted, I did a VLCD with appetite suppressants bc I didn't want to work so hard and wait so long for results. Then the yoyoing really began. I didn't work out and decimated my muscle mass. Then came an increase in stress topped off with fertility meds. The weight came back on and even more. Then came pregnancy (yay) with bed rest and a 40+ pound increase.
After naturally dropping those 40 pounds, I did the VLCD again. Dropped back down to the original high from the very first time around. Then quit and regained all the way up to my stressed out, hormone filled pregnancy weight.
What's different this time? Extreme patience. Going for 1/2 pound a week. Lifting heavy. Focusing on my health first. Doing yoga. Working on my flexibility. Paying attentions to my macros. But most of all, determining to take it slow.0 -
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Learning that everything is fine in moderation, diet pills don't work forever, and healthy eating is the best. Diets are temporary lifestyle changes can be forever, the ONE thing I can control in my life is what I chose to put into my body, everything else not so much.0
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overlook237 wrote: »I told myself that no food is off limits. In the past, I would tell myself that I couldn't have chocolate/donuts/pizza, etc. so of course, that was all I could think about until I couldn't stand it any more. I'd binge, feel guilty, and usually just give up. This time, I either work those foods into my daily calorie allowance (ice cream is a go-to dessert but I weigh out a serving instead of eating out of the carton) or I eat them on my weekly treat day (but I still try to exercise portion control because bingeing and stuffing myself with anything is a habit I needed to break).
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This was the big difference for me. I can eat whatever I want, just not as often and not as much of it as I used to. Telling myself I can't have pizza or cookies or ice cream made me want those things even more. Now if I have a cookie once in a while, it doesn't do that much damage and I don't eat an entire batch when I give in.0 -
I'm not a "former" yet, but I think I've finally realized that I can't relax. I can't eat whatever I want in whatever quantity. I can't NOT exercise regularly. I will likely need to weigh my food and track for a long time after reaching goal so that I don't have calorie creep.
If I yo-yo back, it will be my own dang fault.0 -
Before, I was dieting until I lost the weight. I would go too low in my calories and not eat back exercise calories. I would last 2 months at the most and would stop because I was burned out. But the intention was always that this was something temporary that I would lose the weight and then I would stop and life would be magical. But I never believed that I could actually do it and blamed myself and thought I was just a failure.
Now, this is something I'm going to do forever. It doesn't matter how fast I lose the weight because I'm never going to stop. I'm eating more and losing at a slower rate so that I can "live life" while I'm in weight loss mode. I have no intention of stopping tracking my food when I hit maintenance.
It really came down to three things:
1. Recognizing that this was a permanent change in my life
2. Not making it a race to lose in the fastest time possible
3. Believing that I can actually do this and having a plan to achieve my goals0 -
I'm not a former yet either, but one message I read on the maintenance board has stuck with me. The poster still had a significant amount of weight to lose, but talked about figuring out her maintenance calories for her goal weight and just starting to eat at that amount now. And forever. I haven't yet moved to that model, but think it has some real benefits, as there is no transition to maintenance, you just keep eating like you have been while losing. Of course, you might have to tweak the calorie goal as you get closer to your goal weight.0
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Ridley2011 wrote: »I'm not a former yet either, but one message I read on the maintenance board has stuck with me. The poster still had a significant amount of weight to lose, but talked about figuring out her maintenance calories for her goal weight and just starting to eat at that amount now. And forever. I haven't yet moved to that model, but think it has some real benefits, as there is no transition to maintenance, you just keep eating like you have been while losing. Of course, you might have to tweak the calorie goal as you get closer to your goal weight.
Yes to the bolded. Maintenance for my current weight is very close to my maintenance for goal (assuming continued activity)...even though they are many pounds apart!0 -
Wow. Such good insight here. What a couple people said really resonated. In particular, I share 4legsRbetter's observation that outside of a medical condition (of which there are many legitimate ones--I'm just lucky and grateful not to suffer them), it's mental. At least for me it is. This body is amazingly tolerant, flexible, adaptable, gracious, will put up with so much and still serve like a champ... It's my head that has trouble cooperating. And LAWoman captured it exactly for me--none of the rationalizations (lying to myself, hiding truth from myself) matter to this resilient body. It counts it all whether I choose to or not. I will also say I have been maintaining a long time (3 decades), and even though I appeared to have it under control on the outside, the inner improvements have been gradual and, mercifully, continue.
I wish I could say an instant realization made maintaining easy for me. What I can say is the mental aspect has become easier over time, even with an older body.0 -
The biggest thing for me was to learn that there can be no "all-or-nothing" response to losing weight. I would yo-yo because I would mess up and that would trigger old habits and I would go back to the way I was before. Now I realize that if there is a special occasion, sick, or just super hungry one day, I should eat more because I want/need to. BUT then the next day I go back to my plan. These off days don't really add up to much in the grand scheme of things. Once I learned that, and really believed it, losing weight has been much easier, and there has been no yo-yoing.
Also educating yourself is very important and not listening to everyone on the internet lol.
I've gone through 5 yo-yo cycles and I have now lost 47 pounds (181-->134) and I want to get to ~120
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I'm not a yo-yo dieter, but have been around them a good portion of my life. I've been able to maintain my weight at a healthy level for the vast majority of my life, and I can tell you what I do differently than those yo-yo dieters I've been around.
1. I don't deprive myself of food I really like. I simply reduce the amount of it I consume when I feel myself drifting in the wrong direction.
2. I don't do exercises I hate, I try to find something active that I can enjoy to do a little each day, or at the very least not hate doing.
3. I don't set specific goals for a specific time frame, I realize this is a marathon. I say I would like to be in this healthy range for my height - http://www.calculator.net/ideal-weight-calculator.html I consider my daily routine to be a success if I'm headed in the direction of getting into that ideal range, if I'm over that range and headed down then I feel like the week has been a success.
4. I look for big benefit payoffs when looking at cutting the food I'm consuming. For example, if I am regularly taking subway lunches where I'm eating a foot long with a cookie and a drink at 2,000 calories, then taking lunch at McDonald's instead with a McChicken, cookie, and a water at 530 calories is going to save me a pound nearly every other time I make that change. Substituting something like apple slices instead of a large fry would be another example where I'd save 500 calories (that's an hour and a half on the treadmill from one food swap).0 -
I quit looking at it as a temporary "diet" and just accepted that I needed to change my eating habits permanently. I also cut out added sugar and wheat (bread, pasta, etc.). I just have too much trouble having them in moderation. They both, especially sugar, trigger massive cravings and sometimes binges in me. And since I think sugar is not good for the body anyway, this makes sense for me for many reasons.
Once I did this, and it became habit, it seemed very easy. I found what works for me, and now just stick to it.0 -
bluekitdon wrote: »I'm not a yo-yo dieter, but have been around them a good portion of my life. I've been able to maintain my weight at a healthy level for the vast majority of my life, and I can tell you what I do differently than those yo-yo dieters I've been around.
1. I don't deprive myself of food I really like. I simply reduce the amount of it I consume when I feel myself drifting in the wrong direction.
2. I don't do exercises I hate, I try to find something active that I can enjoy to do a little each day, or at the very least not hate doing.
3. I don't set specific goals for a specific time frame, I realize this is a marathon. I say I would like to be in this healthy range for my height - http://www.calculator.net/ideal-weight-calculator.html I consider my daily routine to be a success if I'm headed in the direction of getting into that ideal range, if I'm over that range and headed down then I feel like the week has been a success.
4. I look for big benefit payoffs when looking at cutting the food I'm consuming. For example, if I am regularly taking subway lunches where I'm eating a foot long with a cookie and a drink at 2,000 calories, then taking lunch at McDonald's instead with a McChicken, cookie, and a water at 530 calories is going to save me a pound nearly every other time I make that change. Substituting something like apple slices instead of a large fry would be another example where I'd save 500 calories (that's an hour and a half on the treadmill from one food swap).
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First of all, I think whenever someone is successful at weight loss, something “finally” clicks and they are able to tackle this issue. I pray I am at that point now. I am finally understanding, at the age of 58, that if I do not get this weight off it is going to kill me. I also agree with the other people that most food is OK. I have to make this lifestyle change and just not eat so much. Tracking my REAL food intake has helped me this time. I used to cheat and not really put down what I was eating. I don’t know why because no one else was going to see it. This time I am tracking everything I put in my mouth. Tracking on MFP has shown me that while I am staying at my calorie range, I am eating too much fat. Duh? Now I know what I need to cut back on.
Also, I agree with setting reasonable goals. I need to lose 83 pounds. But I am taking it 10 pounds at a time. I have lost a little bit and I am at the point where I used to start my yo-yo of back and forth. I am going to dig in this time and not let it beat me. I am determined to not bounce back up again. I know this is an everyday battle that I am going to fight the rest of my life. Each morning I get up and ask myself “Can you do it today?”
Hang in there and stay on track 1 day at a time.
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I'm not an experienced dieter and haven't been one to diet back when I was morbidly obese, this has been my first real attempt at it that isn't just a random "yeah, I'll diet with you". So for this reason I may not have had real yoyo diets.
With that said, I've had many multipl-month maintenance periods where I yoyo'd a bit. First time I decided to "take a break" I gained back about 20 pounds - mainly on "no" foods. It was an eye opener. I started allowing myself everything I wanted, either in smaller quantities, or made room for bigger quantities, or made up for them later, depending on the situation. For the next maintenance period I set a certain number on the scale I'm never allowed to go over. If I found myself over even by 0.1, I kicked into full gear and had a fast day or two to correct it. Basically just nipping it in the bud. I found the best thing was to weigh myself every day and allow for micro yoyos but not for big ones. Meanwhile, dieting has taught me what foods keep me full and a few habits that have genuinely become automatic, so the mandatory fasts are not as frequent now.0 -
Thank you all for the wonderful comments! This has given me a lot to reflect on. Here's to making this weight loss the last weight loss!0
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This sounds crazy to post, especially on mfp, but I found that not logging has helped me at least for the time being. By watching the scale, reading labels, but not logging, I have been able to see how my body works. I've been able to observe maintenance, weight gain, and weight loss in relation to food, and without logging I've still lost weight. I'm still learning and I will eventually begin to log again purely for micros and macros, but I realized that logging will not be something I do forever. It was making me obsessive and afraid of food, but that is JUST ME. Logging really works for a lot of people! Hope I could help! 0
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