i always gain it back plus more. :(

ameliarosa333 · January 2016

here i am again. day one of logging my calories on fitness pal again. last time i lost 13 pounds doing "the daniel plan." (that was last may/june.) then i gradually went back to my old habits and gained 15! i always do this. i struggle to stay committed. i've lost 5.4 again in the past week and a half (even during the holidays! yay!), but i need help and advice on how to STAY motivated, how to STAY committed. who on here has been able to do that? i would appreciate advice. i understand that i need to make a lifestyle change, not just diet, but i always go back to my old lifestyle -- lots of fast food and sweets. the longest i've stayed committed to eating better was when i used the "eat this, not that" books for 6 months and lost 17 pounds. that was a couple years ago and of course, as usual, i gained it all back plus more. for my height (5' 7-1/2") i could stand to lose 30-40 pounds.

snickerscharlie · January 2016

You have to this of this as a lifestyle change instead of a diet. Diets simply don't work long term.

rankinsect · January 2016

My recommendations:

1. Don't make any big dietary changes that you don't intend to keep for a lifetime.
2. Accept that you won't be committed and motivated for a lifetime. Nobody is. You need a way to be successful in spite of a lack of motivation, and that means building new habits. There are plenty of things you do every day that you're probably not at all "motivated" to do - brushing your teeth, combing your hair, etc. They are habits, and incorporating better eating habits into your life means you don't need that motivation. Habit is autopilot for your brain.

My habit that helps the most: I plan each day's meals the prior day and pre-log them before going to bed. On the day of, I just need to follow the plan, and it tells me exactly what I should eat to be successful. It's actually easier to eat what's in the plan because there's no thinking involved - I know what I pack to take to work, I know what I cook when I get home from work. I leave a few hundred calories for snacks that I log on the day of, but that's just one or two items typically to log.

ameliarosa333 · January 2016

i've been trying to make these changes a lifestyle change, snickerscharlie, but somehow i always regress.

clearly, with your mind over matter avatar you must not have that problem.

thanks, rankinsect. (what's with that name? lol. Xbox made my grown son get rid of his name: pukinturds, because somebody complained. he came up with the name after his friend's dog ate the dog's poop and threw up...)

i really want to do this daniel plan for a lifetime. it involves eating natural foods, not processed ones. i always start craving my goodies, though, or start introducing them into my diet again... mmmm: arby's roast beef sandwiches with lots of horsey sauce! cajun fries at five guys! shakes! cheeburger cheeburger! tour of italy with extra alfredo dipping sauce at olive garden! caramello and twix candy bars and whitman sampler candies! milk chocolate coconut clusters! KFC! the fattening things i make: chicken fricasee, creamed turkey, "chili stuff" topped with fritos. the list goes on. sorry. i know you're trying to help. sorry i'm sounding defeatist.

i WANT to stick with eating healthy natural foods. i feel more satisfied AND i'm losing weight when i do that. but as you know it's a lot of work -- lots of cooking and shopping for fresh foods. i'm lazy, i guess.

doing the daniel plan does involve planning ahead... cooking/preparing the snacks and breakfast and lunch the day before if i'm going to work that day. i find that that IS very helpful to have the next day's meals all planned out. so i completely agree with you. thanks for reminding me of that good point. however, i'll bring up my laziness again. i like the healthy, natural food, and like i said it is filling, but i have trouble sticking with all the cooking. cooking isn't my passion. family and photography are my passions.

do you have any really good, quick, healthy things that you make or buy? if so, i would appreciate hearing of them. thanks for your help.

--amy

ninerbuff · January 2016

If you really WANT it, you'll do what it takes. If it's not that much of priority, you won't. You can get all the advice you need, but it's you that still has to put in the effort.
Heck, if eating TV dinners works for you, then do that. There's no real wrong way to eat if you're meeting your calorie goals and nutritional needs/essentials.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

kimny72 · January 2016

I feel like I'm following @rankinsect seconding his good advice today

Amy, you say you "want" to follow this diet plan for the rest of your life, but is that realistic? Can you apply it in small steps? Like maybe follow the plan for dinner, and then just try to limit your portions of convenience foods the rest of the day so you hit your calorie goal? Once that becomes a habit you can take another step forward with something else.

Bake off 5-10 portions of chicken breast on Sunday night, cut them into bite size pieces, and store in the fridge. At the same time make one pot of hard-boiled eggs, and another pot of quinoa or rice or barley. Pop the eggs in the fridge to grab and eat whenever, and stir a little olive oil or vinaigrette into the grain and store it in the fridge. While all that is cooking, chop up carrots, peppers, cucumbers, etc and store in the fridge. In about 45 minutes you can have a weeks worth of whole foods ready to go. Keep your freezer stocked with plenty of bagged frozen veggies. Frozen shrimp are great too, low cal and defrost and cook in no time.

For breakfast, I often have overnight oats - mix together equal parts plain yogurt, raw rolled oats and frozen fruit, plus a splash of milk if you use greek yogurt. Store it in the fridge overnight and it's grab-and-go breakfast in the morning. Oh, and you could stir in some cocoa-powder or peanutbutter powder too!

But seriously, to start out, allow yourself to eat whole food when you can but convenience foods when you need to, just count those calories so you don't overdo. You don't have to be perfect to lose the weight, just better

rankinsect · January 2016

ameliarosa333 wrote: »

thanks, rankinsect. (what's with that name? lol. Xbox made my grown son get rid of his name: pukinturds, because somebody complained. he came up with the name after his friend's dog ate the dog's poop and threw up...)

Lol, it's a weird story.

So way back when I was getting into computers when I was 10 or 11, there was a game I played all the time called Wing Commander, it was basically a space flight sim / combat game. Played that series all the time. Now, the main alien enemies in that game - the Kilrathi - look like humanoid tigers, so my callsign (and the first "handle" I ever used on a computer game) was "Catskinner" - from the phrase that "there's more than one way to skin a cat", which at age 10 I thought was rather clever.

I used it for a while elsewhere, too, but eventually, I figured out that using that nickname gave quite the wrong impression of my personality (particularly as I am a cat lover), so I started using the nickname rankinsect - an anagram of catskinner - which is weird but at least people don't think I'm a serial killer in training or anything.

ameliarosa333 · January 2016

i must not want it enough, ninerbuff.

i wanted it in my 20s and 30s. i was a little underweight and i never gained more than 23 pounds during any of my 3 pregnancies. i exercised regularly. somewhere in my 40s i "gave up(?)" the battle. it's frustrating. i don't know why i can't stay motivated any more. i did it before... but like i say, i'll stick with some plan that gives me hope for a while, but then i go back to the bad habits that didn't faze me when i was a 117lb. youngun.

i try to make the "diets" a new way of living / a lifestyle plan. i know a lot of you healthy people do it. i keep hoping something clicks. my husband and i are both about 40 pounds overweight. we were both skinny children and slim in our 20s and early 30s. more than anything we have to find something we'll stick with for the sake of our health.

you're right, kimny72. i'm not being realistic, thinking i can give up the tasty foods i love and follow one plan. i never really approached it this way, but you make me think that i DO have to incorporate a good plan with bits of my bad "yummies" / convenience foods. and our older son tells us, too, that we don't have to be perfect, just do better.

somehow i always go back to my completely bad diet, though, and somehow i have to refuse to do that.

but don't any of you guys do that? slowly succumb to the old bad habits? how do i keep "wanting" it? --i.e. keep wanting to live healthy more than taste deliciousness?

how do i stop from giving into laziness? what keeps you guys motivated?

bagged frozen veggies. check. hard boiled eggs. check. (cinnamon almonds toasted in the oven and 6 servings of quinoa breakfast bake from the daniel plan. check.) that overnight oats sounds good. yes, i have to get in the habit of preparing as much as i can in advance, and i have to have in mind what it is i'll eat for the day -- like rankinsect says -- so as not to just start grabbing things willy nilly.

that's funny, rankinsect... your name. i guess we get attached to things... the hungarian roman catholic priest who baptized me changed my parents' name choice of amy rose to amelia rosa. after that my dad used to call me amelia sometimes (he has passed away), so i use that online if my "real" name is taken.

well, thanks for the help, guys.

--amy

Larissa_NY · January 2016

A couple of things.

First, and this sounds goofy but bear with me - the way you think about food is important. Stop thinking about junk food as "yummies," and stop thinking about it as yours - nobody wants to give up something that's theirs. It's just food. Don't claim ownership of it.

Second, you're making a false dichotomy between healthy food and food that tastes good. Stop doing that. Wean yourself off junk food and you'll find that your tastes will change. Most of the stuff you're rhapsodizing about in your previous post is stuff I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, not because it's unhealthy but because it's greasy, fatty, and nasty. I used to eat a ton of fast-food too, but I don't now, because it just doesn't taste good to me anymore. It's no longer a question of me being "motivated" to not eat fast food - it's a question of "How much are you willing to pay me to eat that crap, and do I want the money that badly?"

Third, you're lazy? Good. So am I. Put it to work for you. Going through a drive-through requires effort. Going to Olive Garden is even worse - drive to the restaurant, wait for a table, wait for the food, wait for a check, someone's kid is always screaming, and you could be home in your pajamas. Soooo much easier to just keep driving and eat the stuff that's already in your refrigerator.

sheermomentum · January 2016

Consider this: you say that longest amount of time that you were consistent with the habits you want to have was when you were reading a series of books that reinforced those habits. Reading those books kept you mindful of what you wanted to do. They helped you surround yourself with thoughts that were consistent with your goals, and because you had those thoughts and goals clear in your mind so often, your behavior fell in line with them. Then you stopped connecting with those thoughts, and your behavior changed.

People who are engaged in an actual "lifestyle" typically express that lifestyle in their hobbies and their social interactions. People who do a particular sport make friends with other people who share that interest, read books and magazines about it, and generally give up other activity opportunities in order to do their sport. People who (for instance) live a lifestyle based deeply in their religious beliefs generally have friends that share those beliefs and participate in activities that center around them. And so on. That doesn't mean that they never do anything else; it just means that the focus of the lifestyle is a strong focus in their daily life. That's what MAKES it a lifestyle. (And, OT, but that's why I have a bug up my butt when people throw the word around when they are talking about dieting.)

There's a strong indication that dieters who engage socially with other dieters have more success. That's because the social interaction reinforces the mindfulness of the behavior. We're all little monkeys who mimic what we see around us. If books do it for you, get some more books. Stay active on this site. Take a healthy cooking class. Take an online class in nutrition from one of the free sites out there. Grow a vegetable garden. Whatever. Engage your mind in activities that reinforce the behaviors you want to have, and don't stop engaging in those activities just because you reach your goal.

karlis87 · January 2016

Maybe you should just try calories in calories out. I always want to eat healthier but it seems really difficult to figure it out and stick to it and change EVERYTHING all at once so I eat what I always eat, just less. And over time I notice myself eating healthier because I want to eat more. To start, just eat regular, but track everything. Just tracking will help a ton. Good luck.

Jain · January 2016

I can never stick to just 1 diet, so over the years I've found that cooking from scratch, using 'real' ingredients works best for me. So that's lots of fresh fruit & veg, homemade everything, and bulk cooking so when I don't feel like cooking there's a selection of healthy, low cal meals ready to go. And if I can't get fresh fruit & veg I use frozen. I make big pots of veg & bean soup using various herbs & spices to jazz them up. And have quite a list of recipes for stews & casseroles that freeze well that I've collected over the years.
My big downfall is depression. I know what I should be eating, but when I'm in a downward spiral it's hard to feel like I'm worth the effort. So I'm very familiar with the yoyo you described. I wish there was a magic answer, but it's down to being in the right mindset, and not letting myself get so low that I stop looking after myself. To help that we're just become doggie parents. She's company for me, gets me out a few times a day, and theses no way I'd ever let her be as unhealthy as I can be, so hopefully that'll be a good influence on how I treat myself.

seska422 · January 2016

ameliarosa333 wrote: »

you're right, kimny72. i'm not being realistic, thinking i can give up the tasty foods i love and follow one plan. i never really approached it this way, but you make me think that i DO have to incorporate a good plan with bits of my bad "yummies" / convenience foods. and our older son tells us, too, that we don't have to be perfect, just do better. somehow i always go back to my completely bad diet, though, and somehow i have to refuse to do that.

but don't any of you guys do that? slowly succumb to the old bad habits? how do i keep "wanting" it? --i.e. keep wanting to live healthy more than taste deliciousness? how do i stop from giving into laziness? what keeps you guys motivated?

bagged frozen veggies. check. hard boiled eggs. check. (cinnamon almonds toasted in the oven and 6 servings of quinoa breakfast bake from the daniel plan. check.) that overnight oats sounds good. yes, i have to get in the habit of preparing as much as i can in advance, and i have to have in mind what it is i'll eat for the day -- like rankinsect says -- so as not to just start grabbing things willy nilly.

I didn't make a new diet into my new lifestyle. I remade my old diet so that I'm essentially still eating my old diet but with fewer calories.

Rather than trying to do a "good plan" with bits of your bad "yummies"/convenience foods, why not eat mostly "yummies"/convenience foods and incorporate delicious healthy things with that?

If you keep eating what you really like to eat, you won't have to worry about slipping back to it. The fact that you keep going back to those foods means that they work for you. You can make them work for you and still lose weight.

As an example: I like Taco Bell. It's convenient. I might have bought 900 calories worth of food for a meal from there before. Now I make different choices for a 300-400 calorie meal. I still have the flavors without all of the calories.

I keep a freezer full of frozen dinners and frozen veggies. Fast, easy, lower calorie, and more veggies than I used to eat.

As your son said, don't let trying to be perfect get in the way of being good enough.

lululapagaille · January 2016

seska422 wrote: »

I didn't make a new diet into my new lifestyle. I remade my old diet so that I'm essentially still eating my old diet but with fewer calories.

This. So much ! When I did that everything changed ! You can still eat burgers and candy and balance it out over a week and lose weight. Don't deny yourself the foods you love. Just eat a smaller portion.

I lost weight eating pizza twice a week

Good luck !

fiddletime · January 2016

We had a house fire a few years ago and had to stay at a hotel for two months. The insurance company paid for our meals. I think I gained 20# in 5 weeks. One day I said "enough". Even though I was still eating out dinners, I stopped eating out breakfast and lunch. I started calorie counting. I ate 1/3 of my restaurant meal and had a third a night for two other nights. After a couple of weeks of this I changed to dividing the restaurant portion in half as I was losing too quickly.

We left the hotel finally, but that's still how I eat out. I ask for a box at the beginning and I count calories. I come on here daily to be surrounded by people in the same place with food and exercise as I am, and to give and get support.

i always gain it back plus more. :(

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