Unmotivated and Lack of Confidence

I so hear you, sister!! If anyone talked to me the way my brain talks to me, I would punch them in the face! I'm my worst critic and my biggest assassin! Hang in there.

So keep that in mind. You wouldn't let anyone else talk to you the way you talk to yourself! Try and change your internal monologue to the way you would talk to another person. WAY easier said than done!!!! I know!

You aren't lazy. You're just busy. Don't let exercise dictate your weight loss. I lost my first 35lbs without any exercise. Being successful at the diet part of weight loss is more indicative of your end results than the exercise piece. Yes, you will feel better, be stronger, and be able to eat a bit more if you exercise, but it isn't necessary to lose weight.

I agree with @emdeesa. If you keep trying eventually you'll see success. Manage your calories in, so to speak before worrying about calories out.

I am thinking maybe you're starting out with too much. Suddenly adding 5 exercise sessions a week is a lot. Even if your body keeps up and feels good, it's a lot of lifestyle change at once. So when you get those schedule changes - when you previous commitments hit - you can't maintain both.

Try changing things gradually.

Commit to 2 times a week at the gym that you refuse to budge on. Next month, add a 3rd... then the month after a 4th, etc. You have to kind of condition your life around it - including other people, in a way. It takes them time to learn your schedule too.

Just an idea.

This happens to all of us. Eventually we get better at recognizing when it's happening and correcting it sooner. It's taken me years, and I'm still prone to falling off the wagon. But it's still better than before I started!! So there is progress

Making good habits can be really hard.

Try a cooker with a timer so healthy dinner is hot and ready when you walk through the door. To me junk food is like crack cocaine. Once I start I need more and more. The food industry actually designs it to be that way. Good luck

A few thoughts come to mind @TheKrysiaJean . Much of your uncertainty and lack of confidence I can so relate to...three years ago. I'm a different person today. The team that helped me make this change ran me through many classes and a weight loss therapy group. Even though not all the problems expressed by the other brave ladies in my group were the same as mine, I developed a whole new respect for them tackling the weight loss enterprise again. I mean, how many times can you go through failure until your psyche just says, "enough"!

- I learned about cognitive distortion (look this up on wikipedia) and all-or-nothing thinking. It goes like this, "I just ate one cookie I shouldn't have eaten. I am a failure. Might as well eat the whole box". All of a sudden a 60 calorie hiccup turns in to a 1,600 calorie No Good Very Bad Day. You can teach yourself to see one cookie as a blip, not a curse.
- Check out Duhigg's book on Habit. You are changing ingrained habits over from one way of living to another. It pays to spend some time thinking about what your triggers are, how you might divert them, and how you can set up "rewards" that are healthier and give you better returns.
- My confidence jumped in leaps and bounds when I finally got a few successes. It took about four months for me to see real progress. One great success led to another, and I started to feel a whole lot better about myself. Most of my big successes were non-scale victories. Like being able to recover from a fall, or running down a hallway. Things I couldn't do when I was grossly unfit and forty pounds heavier.
- And finally, I learned the power of baby changes getting through my first Tough Mudder course last year. All the training (mostly mental) paid off. I was able to get up a long muddy slope by breaking the job down in to baby steps. I would slog up five steps, stop, and take a breather. Repeat. Slowly, painfully, I made it. That sort of determination and progress could sum up life. Kind of makes a woman feel like anything is possible.

I hope you get to feel this sort of success.

Oh, and if you have IBS, MFP might be able to help you a lot. Instead of trying to eat "clean", stick to the foods that are kind to your system. Simply weigh, portion, and log. Stay in your calorie goal. You will lose weight on these supposedly "bad" foods. Not bad for you.

I had a work team that had every sort of digestive restriction you could name. It was difficult finding a food we could order in that suited everybody. We settled on cheese pizza. But my IBS lady brought in plain buttered macaroni noodles. It was her thing and her deal.

TheKrysiaJean wrote: »

As for being busy...I do have that wonderful 8am - 5pm schedule Monday through Friday...with a 45 minute commute each way. That has been my excuse to pick up dinner on the way home instead of make it. I also work in a corporate office that has a HUGE cafeteria with so many options including Panda Express, Sbarros, sushi, burgers, etc and so forth. And while it has good options too, it is very easy to give in to temptation. On the weekends, time with family and I work burlesque shows in the city late night...which leads to sleeping in, beer, and late night Taco Bell runs!

I too have the 8:30-5:00 corporate gig, one hour each way commute, and attached mall with many dining options, including THREE different fast food Chinese restaurants. I do buy lunch most days, but my lunches average 700 calories. I have three basic lunches: hibachi with no rice, all veggies, and double meat, a burrito bowl with tons of veggies, or Chinese with some rice but two servings of veggies and not (usually) fried chicken. All of these come in at 600-800 calories, and work in my day. I cook three or so nights per week, but make my days meals work with my caloric budget for the most part.

Don't worry about eating "clean". Eat to your body's needs--macros, micros, and tummy. Focus on small, sustainable changes. Don't worry about being a special little snowflake with "your" food at work. When we have lunch (usually pizza) provided, I duck out and get my food. I'm sure some people look at me eating my burrito bowl and scoff about it being more diet friendly than pizza, but I eat for myself and my body, not for what others think.