how can I be more CONSISTENT?
ThriftyChica12
Posts: 373 Member
What suggestions do u guys have for CONTINUED CONSISTENT tracking? I feel like I have spent the last couple years struggling in the same 10 pound range simply because I don't "stay with it" long enough. I can track and follow my food plan (stay within cals) for one week, two weeks at most, then I miss a couple days here and there, that turns into weeks....and I find that I am "off" more than I am "on". I find myself wondering, "am I simply unable or unwilling to diet?". I have maintained a loss off over 30 pounds for years now, but I am STILL 30 pounds overweight (according to BMI, body fat percentage, medical charts, and my own honest perception). Why can't I put more than a week or two together?
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To be honest it just sounds like it isn't serious enough for you yet. My reality hit when I couldn't fit in any of my favorite clothes anymore and I couldn't look in a mirror bigger than my makeup compact. If you want to stick with it look at it this way, it's not a "diet" it would be a complete change up. It's like learning a whole new lifestyle. If you can't view it that way yet then you're pretty much not ready to commit yet.0
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xkitxkatxkaix wrote: »To be honest it just sounds like it isn't serious enough for you yet. My reality hit when I couldn't fit in any of my favorite clothes anymore and I couldn't look in a mirror bigger than my makeup compact. If you want to stick with it look at it this way, it's not a "diet" it would be a complete change up. It's like learning a whole new lifestyle. If you can't view it that way yet then you're pretty much not ready to commit yet.
That's a good point, I do need to shift the way I look at the diet vs lifestyle. Also, motivators like not fitting clothes, etc, are not effecting me because I am happy with my current size and appearance (as much as any woman can be in this world LOL) but I mostly want to do this for health, and to PROVE to myself that I am STRONG and can real my goals. But I do want less weight on my joints so I can run, and that is a motivator too
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Use that! As someone who is arthritic I totally get trying to lose weight just to be kinder to the joints. Try this, every time you feel an ache in your joints use that as your reminder. It's forever better to feel an ache in your muscles than in the joints from being used.
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I would say there are three possibilities:
- You aren't serious enough about it, and no one can make that happen but you.
- You are trying to over-restrict, so you are making it harder than it needs to be.
- You don't have a plan, so you are making it harder than it needs to be.
With 30 lbs left to lose, set your goal to 1 lb per week at most. Start just eating what you would normally eat, but log everything so you can get an idea of where most of your calories are going, how over you are, and where you can make changes easily. Then make small changes one by one, only adding more when you have the first one down cold. Things like, drink less calories, increase your veggies while decreasing the size of your portions for high calorie foods, getting take out for lunch 3 times per week instead of 5, etc.
Too many people go all out, looking for 2 lbs per week loss, cutting out all their favorite foods, setting up tons of rules, trying to exercise an hour everyday all of a sudden, and they burn out.
A lot of people find pre-logging your days helpful. Decide ahead of time what you are going to eat throughout the day, and log it. It helps some stay honest.
You already lost the first 30, so you know you can do it. But you have to want to lose the weight MORE than you want to over-eat, or no amount of tips will help. I'm sure you will get plenty of advice, good luck :drinker:
Edited to add: And if you have a bad day, don't get discouraged and turn it into a bad week. Everyone has days they don't stick to the plan, just use it to motivate you to do better tomorrow...0 -
^^^^ This.0
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I would say there are three possibilities:
- You aren't serious enough about it, and no one can make that happen but you.
- You are trying to over-restrict, so you are making it harder than it needs to be.
- You don't have a plan, so you are making it harder than it needs to be.
With 30 lbs left to lose, set your goal to 1 lb per week at most. Start just eating what you would normally eat, but log everything so you can get an idea of where most of your calories are going, how over you are, and where you can make changes easily. Then make small changes one by one, only adding more when you have the first one down cold. Things like, drink less calories, increase your veggies while decreasing the size of your portions for high calorie foods, getting take out for lunch 3 times per week instead of 5, etc.
Too many people go all out, looking for 2 lbs per week loss, cutting out all their favorite foods, setting up tons of rules, trying to exercise an hour everyday all of a sudden, and they burn out.
A lot of people find pre-logging your days helpful. Decide ahead of time what you are going to eat throughout the day, and log it. It helps some stay honest.
You already lost the first 30, so you know you can do it. But you have to want to lose the weight MORE than you want to over-eat, or no amount of tips will help. I'm sure you will get plenty of advice, good luck :drinker:
Edited to add: And if you have a bad day, don't get discouraged and turn it into a bad week. Everyone has days they don't stick to the plan, just use it to motivate you to do better tomorrow...
OMG....agree with everything I said, and I will refer back to it often: I tend to OVER restrict and set up a million rules. Gonna make my only goal right now: log everything, stay within cals0 -
ThriftyChica12 wrote: »I would say there are three possibilities:
- You aren't serious enough about it, and no one can make that happen but you.
- You are trying to over-restrict, so you are making it harder than it needs to be.
- You don't have a plan, so you are making it harder than it needs to be.
With 30 lbs left to lose, set your goal to 1 lb per week at most. Start just eating what you would normally eat, but log everything so you can get an idea of where most of your calories are going, how over you are, and where you can make changes easily. Then make small changes one by one, only adding more when you have the first one down cold. Things like, drink less calories, increase your veggies while decreasing the size of your portions for high calorie foods, getting take out for lunch 3 times per week instead of 5, etc.
Too many people go all out, looking for 2 lbs per week loss, cutting out all their favorite foods, setting up tons of rules, trying to exercise an hour everyday all of a sudden, and they burn out.
A lot of people find pre-logging your days helpful. Decide ahead of time what you are going to eat throughout the day, and log it. It helps some stay honest.
You already lost the first 30, so you know you can do it. But you have to want to lose the weight MORE than you want to over-eat, or no amount of tips will help. I'm sure you will get plenty of advice, good luck :drinker:
Edited to add: And if you have a bad day, don't get discouraged and turn it into a bad week. Everyone has days they don't stick to the plan, just use it to motivate you to do better tomorrow...
OMG....agree with everything I said, and I will refer back to it often: I tend to OVER restrict and set up a million rules. Gonna make my only goal right now: log everything, stay within cals
I meant "everything YOU said I agree with" LOL
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xkitxkatxkaix wrote: »Use that! As someone who is arthritic I totally get trying to lose weight just to be kinder to the joints. Try this, every time you feel an ache in your joints use that as your reminder. It's forever better to feel an ache in your muscles than in the joints from being used.
I LIKE that...joints and muscles can be the reminders for my goals
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You must understand that it takes time. MONTHS, not weeks, to lose 30 pounds.the first time I did it, it took 8 months to lose 27 pounds. This time I am losing less, but it has taken me 10 weeks to lose 11 pounds. At this rate it will take me 5 months to lose the 20 pounds I want. You can't put a time limit on it. You can't get frustrated when it doesn't happen immediately. You must do the work and then trust the process.
For motivation, try going over to the Sucess Stories forum and look at the thread where everyone has posted their before and after pics. Whenever I look at those I tell myself that if they could lose those huge amounts of weight successfully I can lose a measly 20 pounds.0 -
Simple advice: add a person who you interact with regularly IN PERSON to your MFP and ask him/her to monitor your progress. When you don't log in to your MFP for a couple of days, they are a present reminder so you kinda have to. online friends are AMAZING but if you don't logon to your MFP they have no power
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I kind of take it 1 day at a time, especially with tracking. Like if you do it one day, you know you have to start over & do it again the next day. Aim for a "streak" with your logins on MFP, maybe 30 days & reward yourself. That way you have a goal but you focus on doing it every day. Hope that helps!0
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Great advice from kimney72, I endorse it!
I wanted to add a comment based on something I picked up on in your original post, about how one bad day turns into more. Sounds like you might be having an overly perfectionist "all or nothing" mentality that you'll need to break. I was really bad about this in the past and it derailed my progress, so maybe I'm reading my behavior into your words and if so I apologize.
But I used to see "dieting" as this phase of hard work where you do everything perfectly and then when I "messed up" I'd just say "I've messed up my diet for the day/week, so why bother." The thing to realize--if you think this way--is that this is a lifestyle change, and pretty much nothing in a lifestyles goes "perfect" all the time. Not for me anyway. So don't worry about perfection, just stay on the path of changing to a healthier lifestyle. It's isn't a pass/fail test, it is a habit of sticking to healthy habits better on some days than on others, but you just do the best you can do with the circumstances of your day and stay on the path.
Sometimes I take breaks, but they are planned breaks. For example, most days I'm on track and trying to stick with the program so I can get these last few pounds off that I want to lose. But some days I just don't wanna! So I press pause and give myself a chance to catch my breath after all that hard work at being perfect. For me the crucial part is that I'm NOT just getting sloppy and drifting away or going hog wild, but PLANNING a "pause" in logging/deficits/exercise for a brief period of time to take a "mental health break" that won't contribute to my weight loss efforts but that won't harm them either, after which I will firmly drag myself back on track. In other words: "I'm going to take maintenance eating days on Saturday and Sunday, just take light walks (no hard exercise), and then get back on track with the plan on Monday morning." or "I'd like to stop logging and worrying about precision on my macros/micros for a few days because it is making me stressed out. Instead will do X (try intuitive eating, count calories on paper or keep a rough tally in my head, etc.). " I've had periods of as much as a week or two when I ate at maintenance, or cut back exercise to a minimum, or stopped logging--usually not all in the same week--and I am fine. 115 pounds lost and still making slow but steady progress. Taking a break here and there isn't the end of the road, but for me has been part of the journey that I think was essential for my motivation. It's just all in how they are executed. You can't see them as failure, at which point you give up and have license to completely abandon thoughts of health, but instead as part of the process that you can intelligently manage with some planning. 0
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