Former yo-yo dieters, what changed for you to finally make it 'stick'?

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.

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).

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).

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.

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!