Diet Fatique? What do you do?
skinnyD2308
Posts: 92 Member
Hi Folks! Last year I made a commitment to track all my food intake and strive to eat under my maintenance calories more often than I eat over them. The results was 34 pounds of weight loss and I hit my tracking goal on June 1. I continued my tracking streak up until last weekend when I went camping and honestly I was just so busy having a good time, that I forgot to log into mfp and lost my streak. But if I'm really honest, even though I've been tracking my food since surpassing the 1 year mark, I am struggling to stay on track food wise. I feel like I'm in a total slump. I still want to lose 20 more pounds, work more diligently on my fitness, and most of all not undo my progress - but I'm just really struggling with staying on track.
Clearly I have not mastered emotional eating. My mom recently moved away and I'm pretty sure the emotions around that is part of the problem, but I think it might be a little of "I worked hard to get this far weight wise, shouldn't I be able to indulge a little now". I know this is counter-productive. My evening snacking habits are starting to resemble patterns that I worked very hard to change over the past year. The drive to eat beyond my needs feels a little compulsive, like I can't allow myself to have more success. I started out good yesterday and then had a 1300 calorie binge night. ug. Just having a hard time keeping up what was really coming pretty easily to me a few months ago.
I know I need to make this a lifestyle and really that was the whole point of committing to my tracking goals for a whole year, but now that I'm into year two and feeling just "blah" about the whole thing, how do I find my mojo again? What do you do when you get in a rut?
Clearly I have not mastered emotional eating. My mom recently moved away and I'm pretty sure the emotions around that is part of the problem, but I think it might be a little of "I worked hard to get this far weight wise, shouldn't I be able to indulge a little now". I know this is counter-productive. My evening snacking habits are starting to resemble patterns that I worked very hard to change over the past year. The drive to eat beyond my needs feels a little compulsive, like I can't allow myself to have more success. I started out good yesterday and then had a 1300 calorie binge night. ug. Just having a hard time keeping up what was really coming pretty easily to me a few months ago.
I know I need to make this a lifestyle and really that was the whole point of committing to my tracking goals for a whole year, but now that I'm into year two and feeling just "blah" about the whole thing, how do I find my mojo again? What do you do when you get in a rut?
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I add something. a new cooking appliance or new exercise or a new approach to an exercise0
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skinnyD2308 wrote: »Clearly I have not mastered emotional eating. My mom recently moved away and I'm pretty sure the emotions around that is part of the problem, but I think it might be a little of "I worked hard to get this far weight wise, shouldn't I be able to indulge a little now". I know this is counter-productive. My evening snacking habits are starting to resemble patterns that I worked very hard to change over the past year. The drive to eat beyond my needs feels a little compulsive, like I can't allow myself to have more success. I started out good yesterday and then had a 1300 calorie binge night. ug. Just having a hard time keeping up what was really coming pretty easily to me a few months ago.
I fall into this trap all the time. I wish I had a secret for beating it, but if I still fall into it, that says something. Eating at a good deficit is sustainable for me, but occasionally it's the "caring" about it that gets me fatigued.
Personally, I enjoy the occasional diet "break." This doesn't mean going crazy. This means either allowing myself a week or two of eating at maintenance, going to my favorite restaurants, and/or possibly even shutting off the app for a little while. This has kept me in line so far, although I know it's also slowed down my loss rate. I think the real test for me will be on August 3rd, when I come back from a week of vacation.0 -
I think a break of a week or two wouldn't be that harmful.0
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I take a break every year...1 week.
I am typically in a place with no internet access so it makes it "easy" but lots of use take logging breaks and diet vacations...keep in mind it can be hard to come back but just make it a priority.
1 week vacation from logging
1 week after vacation to get back into the swing of things with just logging but not worrying about deficit
1 week getting to that deficit
back at it.0 -
Years ago a WW leader told our group to factor in life moments that have big impact on your life. She suggested that when these big moments happen you take a walk in the maintenance lane and give yourself the emotional break. Perhaps that would help you right now. It's a slightly different focus, you should still log your foods and exercise but try taking the burden of losing the weight out of the equation. Set MFP to maintenance mode for a month or even until the next visit wit your mom. Use the visit with your mom as motivation to keep this weight off and then after seeing her switch back into that weight loss mode with even more dedication.
I took a break when we put our house up for sale. Smart move, the stress really could have sent me over the edge but I was able to maintain within a 3 pound range quite well.0 -
I had to take a break the month of June because half the month I could barely hit 800 cals a day. So I got a bunch of food I knew I would eat even when I was hungry so I let myself indulge for about 2 weeks and now I am back at it as of July 1st. Sometimes you just need to give yourself a break but, I still kept logging most of my days so I never got out of the habit.0
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I have to keep changing things, to make this feel fresh and to keep me interested. At the moment I am having a love affair with overnight oats and wraps and it is helping to keep my food prep fun. Once that gets old, I will find something else. I will do a boot camp in a month or so and then something else after that. I will probably need a big goal eventually, like a mountain or a bikini shoot, but I will find something to press my buttons. I need to have a sense of accomplishment as I go along, that is me anyway.0
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Not only is it not harmful, its actually extremely helpful! I always recommend people take a 2 week diet break for every 8-12 weeks they spend in a calorie deficit. Now that doesn't mean a 2 week free for all. You simply increase calories to maintenance and remove the deficit. It provides you with more calories to fit in more foods you enjoy. Since you will be eating maintenance, any weight gained will be water/glycogen, not fat. After the break you just go right back to the deficit. The leaner you are, the more often you should take the break.strong_curves wrote: »I think a break of a week or two wouldn't be that harmful.
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Two week diet break. I take one every 6 months. It doesn't mean you go crazy, you're still conscientious of intake. It means you're just not logging or most important for me, weighing food.0
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Not only is it not harmful, its actually extremely helpful! I always recommend people take a 2 week diet break for every 8-12 weeks they spend in a calorie deficit. Now that doesn't mean a 2 week free for all. You simply increase calories to maintenance and remove the deficit. It provides you with more calories to fit in more foods you enjoy. Since you will be eating maintenance, any weight gained will be water/glycogen, not fat. After the break you just go right back to the deficit. The leaner you are, the more often you should take the break.strong_curves wrote: »I think a break of a week or two wouldn't be that harmful.
Off topic - I follow you on youtube! Love your channel!
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I took a diet break. I think if you feel fatigued it's a lot easier to eat at maintenance for a while and practice that than to try to force yourself into a deficit and then end up feeling like a failure or even losing it and overeating by a lot. At a point I found I was struggling too hard with myself to try to do a deficit and not and it was causing me to feel tired and unhappy and I was starting to get into bad thought patterns with food. So I took a break until I was ready to start again.
I'm now ready to lose again.0 -
Emotional eating is something I struggle with too, and the excitement of successfully losing weight made it a lot easier to deal with. It popped back up as something to really deal with once I got close to goal--I think you have to think of this as a process and just be mindful of what you need to work on.0
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I think a day of emotional eating when something big happens in your life is absolutely needed. A couple of weekends ago on of my very dear friends died unexpectedly and then my beloved dog died unexpectedly the day after. I told myself I was aloud to emotionally eat for an entire day but I had to be right back on CICO the next day. It was pretty therapeutic and I was right back on it the next day while I continued my grieving without the emotional eating.
I hope everything works out for you.0 -
Wow! thanks so much everyone. I wasn't expecting such consistent advice. I've been fearful of getting off track and regaining all my weight. I need to think about how I want to approach this, as I don't want to get into a "free for all" mentality, but a break where I'm not "rebelling" against my own plans sounds like it has potential. I had no idea people took such thoughtful "breaks" from their efforts and found it fairly simple to get back on track afterwards. Really appreciate the support and advice. I needed it today.0
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skinnyD2308 wrote: »Hi Folks! Last year I made a commitment to track all my food intake and strive to eat under my maintenance calories more often than I eat over them. The results was 34 pounds of weight loss and I hit my tracking goal on June 1. I continued my tracking streak up until last weekend when I went camping and honestly I was just so busy having a good time, that I forgot to log into mfp and lost my streak. But if I'm really honest, even though I've been tracking my food since surpassing the 1 year mark, I am struggling to stay on track food wise. I feel like I'm in a total slump. I still want to lose 20 more pounds, work more diligently on my fitness, and most of all not undo my progress - but I'm just really struggling with staying on track.
Clearly I have not mastered emotional eating. My mom recently moved away and I'm pretty sure the emotions around that is part of the problem, but I think it might be a little of "I worked hard to get this far weight wise, shouldn't I be able to indulge a little now". I know this is counter-productive. My evening snacking habits are starting to resemble patterns that I worked very hard to change over the past year. The drive to eat beyond my needs feels a little compulsive, like I can't allow myself to have more success. I started out good yesterday and then had a 1300 calorie binge night. ug. Just having a hard time keeping up what was really coming pretty easily to me a few months ago.
I know I need to make this a lifestyle and really that was the whole point of committing to my tracking goals for a whole year, but now that I'm into year two and feeling just "blah" about the whole thing, how do I find my mojo again? What do you do when you get in a rut?
Change bold To I worked hard getting here why would I throw it all away now?
Maintenance is exactly like weight loss with a couple of hundred extra calories
You don't get a free pass ...you get an extra slice of bread and a banana
Work treats into your calories
Take a diet break and then Get back to logging0 -
I was really on track for about 6 months, then more up and down but still trending down for 2 months, and then over the past 3 months enough on and off track to put on a few pounds. I look a vacation and ended up dropping logging and explicit restrictions, and I really do feel much more on track again. At first i was overeating fairly regularly on trip, but I seemed to gravitate to more normal eating as it progressed. Now I am energized to start losing again. I did lose my streak but back on 10 days and below by pre-trip weight.0
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Change bold To I worked hard getting here why would I throw it all away now?
Maintenance is exactly like weight loss with a couple of hundred extra calories
You don't get a free pass ...you get an extra slice of bread and a banana
Work treats into your calories
Take a diet break and then Get back to logging
Excellent advice - thanks. I have also been asking the question, "why would I throw it all away now?" too, but in more the helpless way instead of the take charge way, which is so pathetic now I'm looking at it in black and white.
That being said, I stuck to my goals yesterday, tracked, and made a plan for today, and am in the process of meal planning for next week. I feel like I'm moving into action mode again and am ready to continue on my path.
Thanks for the perspective.
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skinnyD2308 wrote: »
Change bold To I worked hard getting here why would I throw it all away now?
Maintenance is exactly like weight loss with a couple of hundred extra calories
You don't get a free pass ...you get an extra slice of bread and a banana
Work treats into your calories
Take a diet break and then Get back to logging
Excellent advice - thanks. I have also been asking the question, "why would I throw it all away now?" too, but in more the helpless way instead of the take charge way, which is so pathetic now I'm looking at it in black and white.
That being said, I stuck to my goals yesterday, tracked, and made a plan for today, and am in the process of meal planning for next week. I feel like I'm moving into action mode again and am ready to continue on my path.
Thanks for the perspective.
Good for you
(A diet break still isn't a bad idea though)0 -
I can't imagine dieting or maintaining without indulging once in a while. Whether you take a week or two off, have cheat meals or days, calorie cycle or whatever, I think it's good to have days where you loosen the reigns a bit. For me it's more than good, it's imperative. I'd never stick with weight control long term without periodic splurges.0
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skinnyD2308 wrote: »Hi Folks! Last year I made a commitment to track all my food intake and strive to eat under my maintenance calories more often than I eat over them. The results was 34 pounds of weight loss and I hit my tracking goal on June 1. I continued my tracking streak up until last weekend when I went camping and honestly I was just so busy having a good time, that I forgot to log into mfp and lost my streak. But if I'm really honest, even though I've been tracking my food since surpassing the 1 year mark, I am struggling to stay on track food wise. I feel like I'm in a total slump. I still want to lose 20 more pounds, work more diligently on my fitness, and most of all not undo my progress - but I'm just really struggling with staying on track.
Clearly I have not mastered emotional eating. My mom recently moved away and I'm pretty sure the emotions around that is part of the problem, but I think it might be a little of "I worked hard to get this far weight wise, shouldn't I be able to indulge a little now". I know this is counter-productive. My evening snacking habits are starting to resemble patterns that I worked very hard to change over the past year. The drive to eat beyond my needs feels a little compulsive, like I can't allow myself to have more success. I started out good yesterday and then had a 1300 calorie binge night. ug. Just having a hard time keeping up what was really coming pretty easily to me a few months ago.
I know I need to make this a lifestyle and really that was the whole point of committing to my tracking goals for a whole year, but now that I'm into year two and feeling just "blah" about the whole thing, how do I find my mojo again? What do you do when you get in a rut?
Change bold To I worked hard getting here why would I throw it all away now?
Maintenance is exactly like weight loss with a couple of hundred extra calories
You don't get a free pass ...you get an extra slice of bread and a banana
Work treats into your calories
Take a diet break and then Get back to logging
That's true..my maintenance isn't' that far off from my deficit! I have remember that once I 'move' into my maintenance calories.I'm losing so slowly, that it's really not that noticeable until about 3 1/2 weeks at a time
I think that's why in the past, when I would get off the deficit, I seemed to gain SO QUICKLY..but that's b/c the diff between calories was so small, i would eat over maintenance easily. 0 -
I'd recommend you take a break if you want but continue logging. Two reasons, first, it's a good habit and second, you might surprise yourself at how well you do without the focus.0
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skinnyD2308 wrote: »Hi Folks! Last year I made a commitment to track all my food intake and strive to eat under my maintenance calories more often than I eat over them. The results was 34 pounds of weight loss and I hit my tracking goal on June 1. I continued my tracking streak up until last weekend when I went camping and honestly I was just so busy having a good time, that I forgot to log into mfp and lost my streak. But if I'm really honest, even though I've been tracking my food since surpassing the 1 year mark, I am struggling to stay on track food wise. I feel like I'm in a total slump. I still want to lose 20 more pounds, work more diligently on my fitness, and most of all not undo my progress - but I'm just really struggling with staying on track.
Clearly I have not mastered emotional eating. My mom recently moved away and I'm pretty sure the emotions around that is part of the problem, but I think it might be a little of "I worked hard to get this far weight wise, shouldn't I be able to indulge a little now". I know this is counter-productive. My evening snacking habits are starting to resemble patterns that I worked very hard to change over the past year. The drive to eat beyond my needs feels a little compulsive, like I can't allow myself to have more success. I started out good yesterday and then had a 1300 calorie binge night. ug. Just having a hard time keeping up what was really coming pretty easily to me a few months ago.
I know I need to make this a lifestyle and really that was the whole point of committing to my tracking goals for a whole year, but now that I'm into year two and feeling just "blah" about the whole thing, how do I find my mojo again? What do you do when you get in a rut?
Yoga really helped me with emotional eating.
How Yoga Can Help End Binge Eating
One breath at a time, end the suffering of binge-eating
...According to Juliano, yoga gives people the skills to stay with what they are feeling, rather than turning to food to escape. People who are obese or suffering from eating disorders have a tendency to dissociate from their bodies -- to choose not to feel what they are feeling when they are angry, anxious, or sad. Often, they turn to food to numb themselves. "There's this sense that I have to feel better right now, " Juliano says. "There is a complete intolerance of what is happening right now." This need to escape unpleasant feelings triggers a binge.
When you eat to escape what you are feeling, you lose touch with the experience of eating, as well. This is one reason binges can spiral out of control. "You have no understanding that you are full, way past full, into uncomfortable, because you're so out of it," Juliano explains. "You have no connection to what you're eating. You're eating a pint of ice cream and can't even taste it. Or you go to make yourself some toast and before you know it, half the loaf is gone."
Mindful yoga directly challenges the habit of dissociating from your body and your present-moment experience. "The whole point of yoga is to stay connected to your body. You learn it through practice, through breathing, and through breathing through the sensations."
Read more: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-willpower/201007/how-yoga-can-help-end-binge-eating0 -
I've been able to take occasional breaks and not get too far off track. I find that the key is to have a clear end date for the break.
I'm not an emotional eater or binger though, so YMMV.0 -
Have you been at it a long time?
I know after...I don't know how long, two years, maybe?...I was so very sick of it. The weighing. The logging. The ALWAYS having to think about the calories. For some of us, it's hard work. All the time, day after day, after month after year. I happened to hit a plateau. The weight loss got slower and slower and crawled to a stop. It was like the prefect storm, lol.
I just took a break. A long, long break, It took maybe a week before I could eat without wondering about calories, but then I didn't. No weighing, logging, thinking or worrying, I ate the same food in mostly same amounts, but I had more bread, lol.
It's the best thing I have done yet and I wish I'd have done it sooner. When I started up again, I was energetic and didn't mind weighing, logging and counting. I was happy to do it again. Best of all, the weight began coming off like it did before.
I checked with the doctor about the plateau. It happens a lot. Some experts actually recommend doing six months of dieting and then six months off for that very reason. There was never any doubt in my head that I'd go back to losing. I wasn't stopping or caving. I just took a break. Much needed and well-deserved.
I'm not saying you need a break. I'd hate to talk someone into it and have them stop losing and start gaining. I'm just tossing it out as an option. It worked so well for me, so I'm a huge fan of the break when it's needed. 0 -
I take a break every year...1 week.
I am typically in a place with no internet access so it makes it "easy" but lots of use take logging breaks and diet vacations...keep in mind it can be hard to come back but just make it a priority.
1 week vacation from logging
1 week after vacation to get back into the swing of things with just logging but not worrying about deficit
1 week getting to that deficit
back at it.
^^This^^0 -
I am an emotional eater as well. Sometimes I leave the house if I start feeling the need to graze. Go for a drive, take the dogs for a walk. You know what to do. You have to want it just as bad again. You got this!! I have started brushing my teeth and flossing teeth after dinner which is finished by 6pm. I drink lots of water after dinner to stay full. If I am absolutely starving and need a snack, 1-2 tablespoons of LF cottage cheese does the trick.0
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Have you been at it a long time?
...
I'm not saying you need a break. I'd hate to talk someone into it and have them stop losing and start gaining. I'm just tossing it out as an option. It worked so well for me, so I'm a huge fan of the break when it's needed.
I've been at it for 13.5 months. Only missed one day of logging (camping).0 -
This is where I'm at too I think now. I'm just a bit fatigued with tracking although I'm well in the habit. Hitting my goal though has been trickier, I'm still doing it but I'm just not feeling it. So today at least I'm splurging. Chipotle for lunch (my first time, we only have a couple in the UK!), going to the cinema where I may have popcorn and then a treat later too. I don't know how many days I'll do this for but long enough to get my mojo back.
I did it with working out too, was struggling with my depression and just couldn't stick to my schedule. So took 4 days off and am now back at it as enthusiastic as before.0
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