How to Handle Discouragement

Danimri84
Danimri84 Posts: 262 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Two years ago, I lost 70+ pounds. And I have managed to gain it all back. Twice I have attempted to re-start, lost 20-25, then lost motivation and gained it back again. As of this week I am trying again, but I already feel hopeless, like I know I am going to fail, that it is going to take too long, and I'm getting in a mental funk over it all. Any tips for staying positive? I know I can do it, I've done it before, but I'm having trouble maintaining the belief.

Replies

  • Cbestinme
    Cbestinme Posts: 397 Member
    Hi were your goals too ambitious? Did you try to lose weight too fast? You lost 20-25 pounds so maybe aim for that first. Then try another 20-25 etc
  • Alyssa_Is_LosingIt
    Alyssa_Is_LosingIt Posts: 4,696 Member
    Danimri84 wrote: »
    Two years ago, I lost 70+ pounds. And I have managed to gain it all back. Twice I have attempted to re-start, lost 20-25, then lost motivation and gained it back again. As of this week I am trying again, but I already feel hopeless, like I know I am going to fail, that it is going to take too long, and I'm getting in a mental funk over it all. Any tips for staying positive? I know I can do it, I've done it before, but I'm having trouble maintaining the belief.

    How have you tried losing weight in the past? Are you cutting calories too deeply? Are you making drastic changes to your diet and forbidding yourself from eating foods that you love? Are you starting an exercise program that you hate simply because you feel like you have to in order to lose weight?

    Many times when we fail at weight loss, or get discouraged or filled with dread at trying again, it's due to one of the reasons mentioned above. If you eat the foods you normally would, only less of it, and find an activity that you enjoy to keep active, you will be much more likely to succeed and it will be a much more enjoyable experience for you.
  • Danimri84
    Danimri84 Posts: 262 Member
    edited January 2017
    wrote: »
    Hi were your goals too ambitious? Did you try to lose weight too fast? You lost 20-25 pounds so maybe aim for that first. Then try another 20-25 etc

    I don't think they were too ambitious. I set my total goal on here, and then used paper tracking to break out smaller goals. 10-15 lbs here, then 20 lbs, etc.
  • zorander6
    zorander6 Posts: 2,713 Member
    Quit focusing on the past and focus on the present and the future. Look to what you can do now and don't worry about off days. Don't cut everything you love but manage it. Add a bit of exercise and just try to focus on being healthy. If you are healthy and happy that's the goal here, not weighing X pounds. Set reasonable goals and stick to them, if you have a bad day dust yourself off and do better the next day.
  • Danimri84
    Danimri84 Posts: 262 Member
    Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »
    Danimri84 wrote: »
    Two years ago, I lost 70+ pounds. And I have managed to gain it all back. Twice I have attempted to re-start, lost 20-25, then lost motivation and gained it back again. As of this week I am trying again, but I already feel hopeless, like I know I am going to fail, that it is going to take too long, and I'm getting in a mental funk over it all. Any tips for staying positive? I know I can do it, I've done it before, but I'm having trouble maintaining the belief.

    How have you tried losing weight in the past? Are you cutting calories too deeply? Are you making drastic changes to your diet and forbidding yourself from eating foods that you love? Are you starting an exercise program that you hate simply because you feel like you have to in order to lose weight?

    Many times when we fail at weight loss, or get discouraged or filled with dread at trying again, it's due to one of the reasons mentioned above. If you eat the foods you normally would, only less of it, and find an activity that you enjoy to keep active, you will be much more likely to succeed and it will be a much more enjoyable experience for you.

    I've used MFP and exercise. For both my big loss and my smaller ones. My calorie goal is set at 1200, but eat back exercise calories so I usually end up eating around 1400-1600. I don't feel deprived, or hungry, and I don't ban myself from any specific food. For exercise I walk with a friend, and do a few dance based workouts that I really enjoy. I think the biggest hurdle mentally is that I still feel a lot of guilt for managing to undo the significant progress I made before.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
    This time around, set yourself up for a permanent change. Use MFP to lose your weight, but incorporate a level of exercise/activity that allows you to burn more calories that you can sustain long term. That will help you keep the weight off permanently this time. Look at it as a new way of life, rather than just a diet that you repeat every year or two. If you spend the next six months on MFP with moderate goals (lets say 1lb a week or so loss rate) to lose your weight but spend, maybe 3 days a week exercising for 30 to 45 minutes a day, then slowly work yourself up to maintenance while keeping your exercise routine you'll be able to continue to eat slightly above maintenance if you never stop the exercise to which you've become accustomed. Then after about a year, if you are still not happy with the level of calories you're eating, increase your exercise levels/times/frequency to adjust to a level of calories that you are happy with, then keep up the exercise long term and you are golden. Using sites like MFP to lose weight is great, but using them to change your lifestyle is a better choice.
  • zorander6
    zorander6 Posts: 2,713 Member
    Put the past where it was (it can be hard) and focus on today and the future. You know you made the goal in the past so you know you can make it now so focus on that instead of "I failed miserably and can't do it." You've done it, and can do it again.
  • Cbestinme
    Cbestinme Posts: 397 Member
    edited January 2017
    Danimri84 wrote: »
    wrote: »
    Hi were your goals too ambitious? Did you try to lose weight too fast? You lost 20-25 pounds so maybe aim for that first. Then try another 20-25 etc

    I don't think they were too ambitious. I set my total goal on here, and then used paper tracking to break out smaller goals. 10-15 lbs here, then 20 lbs, etc.

    Apologies I wasnt clear. Are you with a goal of one pound loss per week? Half pound per week?

    If you are trying to lose 2pounds a week or more maybe that is ambitious.

    Do you put all your foods in your mfp diary. If you do that you and your calories are less than what mfp tells you, you should lose weight. Apparently it is that simple.

    Disclaimer: I speak based only on my two month experience of losing weight. My first goal was to lose one pound per week. It is now half pound per week.
  • Trish1c
    Trish1c Posts: 549 Member
    Try shifting your view from "I'm going to fail" to "I did it once. I can do it again."

    This time see it as a lifestyle. not a diet. It's really not about deprivation but about portion control & restraint. You can eat whatever you like just in moderation. Learning what a size of food looks like is key.

    So is eating mindfully. Savor your food to feel fuller longer.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    Identify the reasons, and there are many, you gained back the weight. Deliberately change one of those reasons so that it ceases to be part of the problem. Then, deliberately change another of those reasons so that it ceases to be part of the problem. It's a slow process of changing a few habits one after the other so that at the end of the process you have eliminated the bad habits, lost the weight, and have a new life of being healthy and fit.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Trish1c wrote: »
    Try shifting your view from "I'm going to fail" to "I did it once. I can do it again."

    This time see it as a lifestyle. not a diet. It's really not about deprivation but about portion control & restraint. You can eat whatever you like just in moderation. Learning what a size of food looks like is key.

    So is eating mindfully. Savor your food to feel fuller longer.

    This is good advice.

    I lost 60 lbs (180 to 120) years ago, kept it off 5 or so years, and then regained for various reasons (to higher than my prior high). At first I was like you and really beating myself up about it and freaking about how long it was going to take, but then I decided to just do it, and reframed the past in a couple of ways:

    (1) I knew how to lose weight and knew I could, so it wasn't going to be hard, it would be easier this time. And, related, I knew from the prior experience losing and maintaining that it was actually kind of fun and not unpleasant and that I could do it while eating enjoyable food, not being hungry, etc.

    and

    (2) Just as I still had everything I'd learned from losing and maintaining for a while before, I also could treat regaining as a learning experience. Yeah, I was frustrated with myself for not taking action sooner, but understanding what all led to me not doing so and to regaining was something to learn from and take action to avoid doing again. This "learning experience" approach really helped me when losing, too, as each day and week if something didn't go as planned I'd try to learn from it and not beat myself up.

    Related to this, once I started losing again I remembered that the benefits of weight loss start right away, in feeling that you are taking control, being healthy, caring about yourself again. I started thinking I have 90 lbs to lose, but the benefits were there, increasingly, as I lost 10, 20, 30, so on. Framing it as about how long it will take to get to goal doesn't help.
  • Danimri84
    Danimri84 Posts: 262 Member
    Thank you all so much. I'm trying to learn self accountability. I have a friend who is doing this with me, but she has done it with me before and fallen off, so I am attempting to be more self motivating. I do log everything, and I'm very mindful about it. My problem isn't losing weight, I lost my 70 lbs in just shy of 8 months before, without deprivation or insane workouts. I just have to get over this mental hurdle.
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    Actually, 70 pounds in 8 months *is* really fast weightloss (assuming you got down to a healthy weight). That's 9 pounds/month - or almost 2 pounds/week.

    That said, take it one day at a time. And remember that if you have a slip, keep it to one day, get past it, and "start over" the next day. (Not that you want to plan to have slips, but you also don't want to get pulled down by them. We're all human.) 2 pounds/week is fine as a goal while you still have 50-70 pounds to lose but at some point, you're going to want to aim for a more conservative 1 pound/week for sustainable weightloss.
  • abitofbliss
    abitofbliss Posts: 198 Member
    Such great advice here.

    I've experience the same fluctuation with losing and gaining weight and definitely face mental challenges every day. I found that while I was losing the most weight, my biggest achievement was letting a bad day be a bad day and focus on making the next day better or "normal" again. I know the struggle all too well after suffering from an injury that almost shot me back to my old habits for about a month and a half. Luckily, I picked up where I left off and a lot is due to the below:

    Something I read in this forum before that has really helped me... think about 30 days from now. The 30 days will pass (probably quickly) regardless if you're working towards your goal or not. You can look back in 30 days and wish you did something different or look back and be proud of your progress -again, either way 30days is going to pass.
  • jennybearlv
    jennybearlv Posts: 1,519 Member
    Have you tried focusing on mini-goal weights? I know I need to lose over a hundred pounds and will get there someday. That is a huge long-term goal and I find it less overwhelming to focus on losing 5% of my body weight at a time. I already hit my first 5% of 261. Now I'm working towards 248. I got a thrill this morning when I realized it was less than 10 pounds away! If I was looking at the long term I would be like, oh, still 100 something pounds to go, ugh.
  • BiomedDent
    BiomedDent Posts: 107 Member
    *hugs* chick! I completely empathise. I lost 3 stone a 8ish years back and kept it off for a number of years. In the last 2 I've put it back on :-( and tried many times to get back on the wagon. Perhaps add people who have struggled on here? A few of us have added each other and are trying to be positive with each other to keep us all on track.

    Feel free to add me x
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,053 Member
    edited October 2016
    Danimri84 wrote: »
    Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »
    Danimri84 wrote: »
    Two years ago, I lost 70+ pounds. And I have managed to gain it all back. Twice I have attempted to re-start, lost 20-25, then lost motivation and gained it back again. As of this week I am trying again, but I already feel hopeless, like I know I am going to fail, that it is going to take too long, and I'm getting in a mental funk over it all. Any tips for staying positive? I know I can do it, I've done it before, but I'm having trouble maintaining the belief.

    How have you tried losing weight in the past? Are you cutting calories too deeply? Are you making drastic changes to your diet and forbidding yourself from eating foods that you love? Are you starting an exercise program that you hate simply because you feel like you have to in order to lose weight?

    Many times when we fail at weight loss, or get discouraged or filled with dread at trying again, it's due to one of the reasons mentioned above. If you eat the foods you normally would, only less of it, and find an activity that you enjoy to keep active, you will be much more likely to succeed and it will be a much more enjoyable experience for you.

    I've used MFP and exercise. For both my big loss and my smaller ones. My calorie goal is set at 1200, but eat back exercise calories so I usually end up eating around 1400-1600. I don't feel deprived, or hungry, and I don't ban myself from any specific food. For exercise I walk with a friend, and do a few dance based workouts that I really enjoy. I think the biggest hurdle mentally is that I still feel a lot of guilt for managing to undo the significant progress I made before.

    You know, they say the hardest person to forgive is yourself. It sounds like you have so, so many things going for you for success ... past success, self-knowledge, accurate expectations, eating plan that satisfies you, great exercise you enjoy with social aspect<-extra bonus points for that. What do you think it would take to release the guilt and forgive yourself for the past?

    ETA: I really liked what @lemurcat said about framing the re-gain as a learning experience that helps moving forward.

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