NO MOTIVATION

Remember you can't exercise your way out of a bad diet- if you eat more calories than you burn then you will not lose weight, so you're kind of wasting all the time you spend working out. You don't want your workouts to be a waste right?

Also you don't necessarily need to eat healthy to lose weight, you just have to be in a calorie deficit. It's easier to stay under your calorie limit if you eat healthy foods, but you can eat unhealthy ones in small portions still if you want. Healthy food is better for improved health, but calorie deficit is the main thing needed for weight loss.

Also if you're sick of chicken for your lean protein you can try:
Eggs
Egg whites
Shrimp
Prawns
Greek yogurt
Cottage cheese
Turkey
Ground turkey
Halibut
Tilapia
Crab
Lobster
Turkey jerky
Protein powder/shakes

Or you can also make chicken more interesting with different flavorings, slow cooking it, sauces, lemon, roasting it whole, herbs, salsa, etc...

Healthy food doesn't have to be boring if you make an effort and get creative

Large cuts of beef and pork in a crock pot are easy and you can make all sorts of different recipes and flavors. Also look into curries, you can change the taste of veggies or meat and they are surprising easy to make.

Both are good for meal prep as well since it is easier to make a pot full and the refrigerate well.

Most importantly make the small changes you can live with for the longer term. If it is too much of a change will power gives up. Health is a wonderful gift, enjoy it.

Truth be told, I don't always eat all that healthy, but I still lost weight (19 lbs so far, 11 to go). So don't try to be too restrictive, else it might not be sustainable.

Some keys to losing for me have been to make small changes and work on one thing at a time. Here's a few key steps from my journey, maybe some will help you...
1. First, keep your calories near your deficit goal (within 50-100 calories plus/minus) with whatever you currently eat. You can eat less healthy, which will likely have less nutrition from your food, but you will still lose. You can 'eat healthy' and still eat too much. Track everything you eat and just start focusing on staying near your calorie deficit goal initially.
2. Remember extra cardio helps to make your calorie deficit higher if you feel like you need more calories. Cardio doesn't have to be super crazy either - go for a walk, mow the lawn, just get more active. Track cardio very conservatively. It is better to overestimate your food calories and underestimate your cardio calories - most people do the opposite.
3. Next focus on trying to balance your macro ratios (proteins, carbs, fats). This starts you in the process of making healthier choices as you try to meet those macro goals. Do I have a glass of empty calories with wine, or have a protein drink because I need to get more protein today? Some days you may still chose the glass of wine just because it's been one of 'those' days, but other days you will start to make the healthier choice because you know you need to get more protein and will feel better if you have that instead.
4. If eating healthier is your goal, next start learning healthier substitutions for the things you consider less healthy in your food diary. Maybe instead of a piece of candy, you choose a piece of fruit. This is another good place to do it one step at a time. Too big of a change is overwhelming.
5. Eat foods that fill you up and you still enjoy. It's going to be different for everyone, so this requires figuring this out for yourself. Remember to make this sustainable for your life.
6. Give yourself a lot of grace in the process. It's going to take time to get it all figured out, and time to lose the weight. You'll have a "bad" day; just don't let it turn into a "bad" week. And if it does, then get back on track as soon as you can. We all have 'off' days and 'f--- it' days. It's how we react to those bumps that affects the ultimate outcome. Don't beat yourself up because you had a 'bad' day...just fix it and get back on track the next day.
7. Finally, motivation is an inside job. Have a goal and stay focused on it. If the goal is too far in the distance, establish some intermediate goals. If you make your goal, reward yourself. If you miss it, reset it and keep moving forward toward it. Figure out what will motivate you...a picture of yourself now, or maybe a picture of yourself now that you draw on to show how you want your body shape to be at goal, or joining a challenge where you are accountable to others in the group, or a promise of a reward if you meet an intermediate goal (like a new article of clothing). Motivation is different for everyone. You have to figure it out for yourself.

Honestly, I'm in a motivation lull right now too, so I'm trying to shake things up a bit to keep me working out since I'm finding it hard to workout 4-5 days a week especially as we're moving into fall/winter. I joined a gym where a number of my friends go, so we're going to be accountable to each other. Plus they have some classes that I've been wanting to try, and I tend to do better with live classes than working out with a video at home. I've noticed that my eating after 5 months is starting to veer off track again, so I'm branching out to try some new things to keep it interesting and I'm trying to get back on track with my macros to get me back to making better food decisions. It's a process, and like weight loss, it's not always linear...sometimes it's quite recursive. But you just keep moving forward toward the goal.

You can do it!

For motivation, someone suggested that we eat a meal in front of a mirror, naked. Just thinking about that gives me motivation!

Healthy doesn't mean bland or boring...basically cooking at home using scratch, whole ingredients is going to be pretty healthy...

mysteps2beauty wrote: »

Try making your favorite fast foods at home but use healthier ingredients. Like burgers, use ground turkey meat. Like nachos, same thing...count out the calories for the chips, put ground turkey meat on it, cover with shredded cheese and salsa. Get a salad from a fast food place but don't use their dressing, make your own vinegar and oil. Fish is easy to make at home, along with a veggie like broccoli steamed with lemon butter on top.

Your being here means you realize something has gotta happen, either you will lose, stay the same or gain. Do you really want to be here next year? So, I keep posting here, even on days that suck. I know I will see a post here that will change my outlook even for just a few days. Look at the success story thread. Full of inspirational stories.

The only thing I'd say about this is that there's this illusion that ground turkey is so much healthier than ground beef...the difference between 93% ground turkey and 93% ground beef is...wait for it...nothing. This is where actually looking at nutritional information can be important.

First things first: there is no rule, written or otherwise, that says you can't enjoy your food and still portion it enough to control what you eat. I love food . . . like a lot a lot . . . but I just control how much of everything I eat.

And I'm curious as to why you don't want to eat out any more - unless it was in one of the replies, and in that case I apologize - because you can still eat out and eat the foods you enjoy you just have to watch how much you eat.

There's a really harsh stereo type that makes people think they can't lose the weight unless they're starving themselves and eating boiled chicken and veggies all the time and that just isn't the case. I personally do eat a lot of chicken, tuna, turkey and fish because I have a hard time stomaching red meat but that doesn't mean I can't or don't eat it I just don't eat a lot of it. I love steak, but it's usually about a 6 month period between having one . . . but that's my personal choice.

All you need to lose weight is to make sure you are consuming less than you're burning - that's really all there is to it. If you are looking for nutrition then that's a completely different story for another day because it sounds like you aren't super concerned about nutrition, just that you lose the weight.

You can get your protein from animal or plant sources, it doesn't have to be chicken. I make oatmeal with protein powder in it, I eat chicken, greek yogurt, boiled eggs, hemp hearts, home made trail mix (but BE CAREFUL with this, nuts are a super dense food so they pack a lot of calories for their size, but they're very good for you), cheese, milk products - so like chocolate milk or 2% added to a smoothie, etc etc. There's a lot of sources of protein out there, you just have to start to understand what is really in the food you're consuming.

Here is what has helped me the most (and take it for what it's worth . . . not saying it's gold or anything)
1. Understanding what I'm actually putting into my body - do research (solid, credible sources) on what is in the foods you are eating and read up on what you're cooking with . . . it can be a real eye opener to find out what you have actually been eating.
2. Meal Prepping/Planning - HUGE, HUGE, HUGE help here and especially because I am single it can be hard to cook meals when everything is packaged for multiple people so I just do batch cooking. This way I know what I'm eating because I made it and I can just throw it in the microwave when I get home late at night.
3. Weighing food - you might know what a serving size 'should' be but are you eating that? Even after a couple years of weighing I have tried eye balling portions and I'm still (shockingly!) pretty far off sometimes. It's super easy to underestimate what you're eating.
4. Portioning everything - so when I batch cook, everything I need for a meal (for the most part) goes into one container . . . that way I know what is in the container is what I'm supposed to eat and that's it. One container = one meal, period.
5. Grocery Lists - make a list based on your meal planning (point # 2) and stick to it. Know what you need to buy and that's it. Until you know you can portion control properly and know your own limits, do not fall into the trap of buying 'snack' foods with little nutritional value thinking you'll just have a few only if you're hungry and only on Friday night. If you're going to snack, then own it and know how much you should be eating. As per point # 4 - portion is everything and if you can't put the bag/box away after a handful then you just aren't ready for that snack. It took me a LONG time before I could have chips in my house and not devour the whole bag in one sitting.
6. Shop mostly in the produce section - majority of my cart when I shop comes from the produce section of my grocery store and I have very few products in bags or boxes (save for pasta and rice, because as a runner those are STAPLES). Fresh foods are huge bang for your buck foods - they are (usually, depending on what is in season) cheaper, better nutritional content, easy to cook with (see Pinterest . . . you can do like a million things with a spaghetti squash), lots of variety and they will (usually, again depending on what you buy) have higher fiber content - see the hard, crunchy veggies like peppers - so they will keep you fuller, longer because fiber takes longer for your body to digest.

In all seriousness though, you have to have the willpower to just do it . . . but that being said, don't do it all at once and think you have to completely overhaul your life. I mean you do, but a renovated home isn't done in one day right? Start with small things.

For me, I started with making oatmeal that I could have for breakfast every day instead of buying a bagel and a coffee at Tim Hortons. Then I started to make sure I had fruit with breakfast, and veggies with lunch and dinner every day. Then I started making sure I ate every 3 - 4 hours during the day, and so on.

You can't do it all at once, it takes baby steps to make it happen but if you want it bad enough for yourself (and that's the thing - you have to want it bad enough for YOU) you can do it. Feel free to reach out if you ever have any questions about meal planning/batch cooking . . . I live by it and I've refined it over the years and found out things that work with batch cooking and (unfortunately) things that don't lol

Best of luck to you! You can do it

LynnBBQ72 wrote: »

For motivation, someone suggested that we eat a meal in front of a mirror, naked. Just thinking about that gives me motivation!

This really, really bothers me.

If you stand in front of a mirror naked and then eat and realize you hate how you look you will associate that with eating, and that develops negative relationships with food and is prime breeding grounds for a lot of disordered eating. It's a dangerous and slippery slope.

I do not really like how I look naked, and I'm pretty sure there's a ton of people out there who look better naked than I do, but my motivation doesn't come from that: it's from running further, faster or longer, it's from feeling better about myself every day, it's from my clothes fitting better and so on.

Food is fuel, and it's essential to our well being, so if you start to associate it with the negative feelings you get standing in front of a mirror naked and think if you could just put the fork down then I just think it's asking for trouble down the road. What happens if you get to your goal weight and you still hate how you look naked because maybe you lost really fast and you have a bunch of saggy skin? Or you aren't as muscular as you thought you'd be? I think food and physical views of ourselves should be kept separate but maybe that's just from my experience.