Restarting.. again

Hi! I feel your struggle - after two years of struggling to keep my weight down, I hit a very stressful time in my life and just like that, found myself binge eating and weighing 30 lbs more. I know it's hard starting again when it feels like you've been down this road before, but you can do this!! If you tell yourself that this time will be different, it will be.

I'm with you! Feel like crap too so this is something I must do. Do it for yourself. The last time I lost weight, I felt fantastic. I want to feel that way again!

Me too, been here before and I also was dumb enough to sign up to Weight watchers in Jan and haven't even tracked one day with them. Anyways I like MFP so I am back.

Don't ever stop starting again. I've started and stopped many times throughout my life. I'm down 75lbs now but its probably taken me the effort of losing four times that much because I'll lose focus and regain weight then regain focus and lose weight. Don't use the word fail. People who are overweight tend to do a lot of negative self-talk.

The point is, you can do this. Start making small changes, cut out pop or reduce your portions sizes. Watch your salt, change out a snack of chips for a snack of fruit or hummus or something a little better for you. Don't knock yourself down to 1200 calories and expect to be able to maintain it. You have to make your changes sustainable. Start off slow with exercise. Talk a walk, do a little light lifting, ride your bike. Get your family involved too with a nature hike, makes it more fun to do together. As you start to feel better, you'll want to do more. Good luck, you CAN do this!!!!!

I am sitting at 324 lbs myself and aiming for 2lbs weekly weight loss until I reach 200 lbs, then I will likely adjust it to 1lbs weekly.

The important part is that you are back to restarting and keep doing so until you are ready to continue tracking through the bad times despite anything.

I have done it a couple of times now and I have gotten better each time to stay focussed and just keep on tracking, even when I do not meet my goals - because when it comes down to it, sometimes I will think twice about if something is worth it or if I should maybe limit the amounts, when I see how much it is going to count on the tracking.

My weak side is getting started on exercising though. This close to risking Diabetes II, exercise is the best way to battle it off. I walk a little during the weekend, but have not even unpacked the yoga mat I bought a year ago to start some kind of floor exercises. My exercise bike is gathering dust and I totally forget taking breaks from sitting down to get on my feet and moving around. I need some serious change of habits.

Tracking food takes me far, but until I do learn to enjoy my body through movement and not just live in my mind to avoid the body, I think, I will be returning to restart again and again.

But for every restart I actually feel better about going the distance this time, because I already know the tracking method works. That is half the battle won.

Hi there i'm at about 215 pounds I would really like to get down to 160, I have lost some weight before-but after i got married i gained it all back :-(

Steph K..... I am in the exact same boat !!! I seem to live in a constant yo-yo weight circle.... I lose 30 pounds, get "lazy or unmotivated" gain it back. Today is another RE-start for me. It is 11:06 CST and so far so good. LOL I am hoping to use all the tools offered here to Get and Stay motivated.... Good Luck to us all.

I have restarted like 4 times in just the last 3 months! I am afraid to get on the scale and probably won't until I am back on track fully for at least 2 weeks. Hopefully by then I will be close to my last weight. However I am in a better place than I was, started at 350 and my last weigh in was 285. I know I have only gained a little because my clothes still fit relatively the same. You can do this, just take it one day or even one meal at a time. Weigh and measure everything, people are terrible at estimating. Track everything, the good and the bad, be honest with yourself. Progress, not perfection, is my current mantra. we can do this, friend me if you want, always happy to give and get support!

StephK38 wrote: »

I hate to ever mention dieting to family or friends because it always tends to make me not do as well. I hate to fail at anything but weight is something I have always struggled with.

I can empathize with your struggle. I am 48 years old and have struggled with my weight and emotional eating for as long as I can remember. I was probably a healthy size in high school, but compared to all of the skinny girls, I looked fat then too.

Sorry in advance for the long post, but I hope it will help someone.

For me, I can't use the words diet or dieting when it comes to what I'm doing now. They imply deprivation and a short term effort. I refuse to let anyone in my house use them to refer to what I'm doing. A diet is what a living creature eats, so I have a diet (omnivore), but I'm not ON a diet. I told my kids and husband that I was following a "reduced calorie food plan" and if I ran out of calories for something in a day, I would tell them "that doesn't fit in my plan for today." If I told myself 64 pounds ago that I was going on another diet, I know I would have failed as I have failed before.

I told myself and anyone who asked (when they saw me making different choices than I otherwise would have) that "I am putting effort into making healthier choices in my life", because that is what I decided to do, and I was doing it for ME instead of because someone else told me I should. First I started logging food on MFP as well as restricting my calorie intake (I didn't tell anyone except my family that lives with me who saw me logging, planning, and weighing things). Second, I got on the scale every single day. Other people weigh once per week, but that doesn't work for me. And this is my plan, so I do what works for me. Yes, it bounces around up and down 1-2 pounds due to various factors, but I need to see that. Third, I pushed myself to drink the 8 glasses of water per day that is recommended. After I got comfortable doing those things, I started walking more every chance I got (parking farther from the door of work or the grocery store, walking to the farthest bathroom at work instead of the closest) and eventually made it a habit to get 10,000 steps a day (I bought an activity tracker to count for me). As I saw some success but still didn't feel great, I started paying attention to a couple of the macros: Iron, Fiber, and Protein, which meant I had to plan my daily food more carefully to hit my targets. I still don't get the 1g of protein per pound of body weight, even if it's only lean body weight. But I try to get 85-100 grams per day (I now weigh 149), and I'm conscious of trying to get more protein than I otherwise would. I wasn't getting anywhere near the amount of iron recommended, so I added a multivitamin and that has helped my energy level too. Fiber, as you know, is good for healthier cholesterol, bowel regularity, and makes you feel full longer. Five healthier choices so far. One year later, I'm a healthier person than I was, but I'm ready to do a little more.

My next healthier choice goals are to eat more vegetables (I'm lucky to get one per day now, so I'm going to try to get two!) and to incorporate some sort of exercise (other than walking) into my life. I know I "should" do weight lifting, but I'm not mentally ready for that yet. I'm leaning toward trying yoga in my home with DVDs. Maybe later I'll lose my resistance to weight lifting, but for now I'm trying to keep the healthier choices I've made and keep making more small ones and I'm not going to beat myself up or feel like a failure because I can't make myself do the things that other people tell me I should (for example, I'm not giving up sugar unless I decide I want to, which right now I don't). I am not perfect but I'm not trying to be. I am committed to being a healthier me. I am so much better off than I was a year ago and I can't bear the thought of going back... not just to being fat, but being dehydrated, being ashamed of how I look, not being able to buy clothes that fit or feel good, being sedentary, and having no energy at all for anything.

My mother asked me the other day why I didn't take a "before" picture and my response to her was, "I didn't know then that this would work." I also didn't want to really see how fat I was. I thought maybe MFP would just be another diet that I'd try and eventually give up because it was too hard or because I was sick of someone else telling me I can't have chocolate or cheesecake or whatever, but I was heavier than I'd ever dreamed of being and had to try something. When I tried the 1200 calorie effort for quicker weight loss, I was grumpy and miserable and had no energy. So I thought, why am I killing myself like this? I'm in control of this plan, and I'm going to make healthier choices than I used to and I'm not giving up. So I upped my calories to around 1600 and what do you know? I was happier, I still lost an average of 1 pound per week over the course of the year, and I had the energy to move my body which then burned more calories. There was no one telling me not to do that, or not work into my plan 105 calories for a chocolate macadamia nut caramel cluster (from Costco) if I wanted to. Hey, I can do this!

I am happy to say that this has worked for me because it wasn't another diet. I started out "making healthier choices" and one led to another and to another. This is something that I can do (and plan to do) for the rest of my life. I know myself, and if I stop demanding accountability from myself, TO myself (in the form of 8 glasses of water per day, striving for at least 10,000 steps per day, and faithfully logging my calories even if I'm not proud of what or how much I ate)... I'll be back to where I was. I am not suddenly someone who loves exercise (I'd much rather sit on the couch) and my impulse is to live on chocolate and cookies and cheesecake, especially when I'm sad or stressed. I don't really like most protein sources. If I don't log every bite, I will consume hundreds of extra calories without choosing to do so. But I like the results of the changes I've made, so I'll go walk those steps even if I don't feel like it, I'll log my food so I'm honest with myself about what I'm eating, and I'll try to eat more protein, fiber, and vegetables since I know I feel healthier when I do that.

For me it is a lifestyle, not a diet. Therefore there is no end, I don't have to be perfect and there is no one judging my "success" or "failure" and I don't feel like anyone is trying to sabotage my "diet".

I am 2.5 years into this and still only half way to my goal weight. That said, I have lost and maintained a loss of 100 lbs for 2.5 years. So there's that. The key for me is logging. It's the ONLY promise I make to myself, that I will log everything. I make no promises on what and how much I will eat or move, because in the long haul, those things can change day to day. But by being consistent with logging, at least I see what is going on plainly without the shroud of denial. While I might not even attempt to limit my calories or to move purposefully in a given day or week, I can and will log my efforts and I think that's what has given me the continuity to not ever give up. I have actually changed my threshold for intake and can't physically hold the amount of food I used to eat. I gave myself a year at maintenance to heal from a surgery that left me with large open wounds for that year (didn't want to eat in a deficit while I was rebuilding tissue, so I took up strength training and continued to log at maintenance until I healed). What I'm saying is, that through whatever detours and crises and ups and downs that could derail your efforts, JUST KEEP LOGGING and you will ALWAYS come back to it before falling off completely. It's about retraining your body and mind to the new lifestyle, and that doesn't happen when we are living in denial. Not logging makes denial too easy. Hope this helps someone! I'm giving myself as long as it takes (another few years if needed), because I'm worth the wait AND the hard work ... GOOD LUCK! XO