I feel empty and I'm addicted to food.

Ugh i could have written this post a few days ago. i have been struggling for the majority of my life doing spurts of doing really well with food and exercise, then spurts where i just binge eat and am stuck in that cycle and feel like im never gonna be able to get out of it... its truly awful. so many days of my life have been my "day one" of being better with food and exercise then would end in a binge. Ugh its horrible. know i can relate... but i am on day three of being on track and i feel a lot better. im trying to stay in control... good luck!

Fall seven times; stand up eight.

Just keep going.

The all or nothing mentality will lead to failure about 100% of the time....

I can tell you that I no of nobody who's had success trying to make wholesale changes overnight...this is all a process and like any process, it's usually about baby steps...you don't have to fix every single deficiency overnight...that is completely unrealistic.

Maybe make a goal to exercise 3 days per week...then up that to 5, etc. And on that note, understand that you don't have to exercise every day...if you talk to fit people and athletes, they don't train every day...they take rest/recovery days (which can be active recovery days, just rest from more vigorous training).

Maybe look at your diet and see where you might have issues....tackle one of those issues at a time...maybe you're not getting enough veg...so set a goal to get X servings of veg per day, etc.

Nobody makes wholesale changes overnight and you really have to lose the all or nothing mentality...it's unrealistic to think you will be "on" every single day for the whole of your life.

So, you didn't 'exercise' yesterday. You 'rested'. Rest is good. Now, get to work.

mar_pow wrote: »

I'm really discouraged. Today was supposed to be the start to a new fresh week where I workout every day and stick to my food plan and that did not happen. This is the 3rd week where I just *kitten* up again.

I feel defeated and empty. I just want to get back into my groove.

I see this error over and over again. People come up with some draconian exercise and diet regime and think they can just go from zero to a thousand miles an hour. Of course you burn out! You need to work up to that. You need to build habits over time.

For years I had the exact same struggle. I just couldn't do it.

You know what I did? I started by doing the next smallest thing. I'm the naturally fat kid that hates cardio, hates exercise. Years ago, I could never have imagined myself going to the gym.

I discovered a Japanese principle called Kaizen. One of the ideas is that you take the next smallest step, and just focus on that.

So I started psychologically easy. I went 1 day a week. That's right. Just go 1 day a week.

Get used to going 1 day a week. Get into that habit. How easy is that? Surely you can go one day a week for a couple of months? Right?

For me that was a single full body workout. I did that for months. By the time I had done that for months, I had actually made a little strength gains, and I started to feel more at home at the gym. Then the idea of twice a week didn't seem so bad. I already had the habit of going once a week. And for a year I just went twice a week. I made some more strength gains.

Slowly I started doing cardio.

I hated cardio. I was cardio hater of all time. I started to like lifting, but I hated cardio. But I remember that I hated lifting in the beginning too so I made myself do it.

And you know what? Now I look forward to smashing out some cardio! I couldn't be without it now.

And so here I am today, the fat nerdy kid who hates exercise, and I go three times a week, and it feels like a natural thing. I just... go. I can't imagine a life not going to the gym now. I will never stop going.

And you know, if I feel like a rest, I take a week off, or I just go twice a week for a while, and that's fine. You won't lose anything going twice a week.

Here's a small trick I found that has helped. I go Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. That way I only have to go twice during the work week, and on a Saturday I have all the time in the world to go the gym and I'm nice and rested up.

Here's another trick. Just go to the gym. Don't think about the workout. Just tell yourself to move your body physically to be at the gym. When you get there set up on a machine or exercise thing, and then ask yourself, "OK, do I want to leave now?" And if you do... actually leave. Yeah that's right. Leave. I've only actually done it a couple times. You can skip a workout day if you really want to, but only once you are physically at the gym (or if you go for jogs, if you are on the pavement in your running clothes). I know that sounds weird, but getting to the gym is 50% of the battle a lot of the time. Don't argue with yourself in your mind. Just get to the gym. That's how I got there a lot in the beginning. Now it's just so automatic. I just go to the gym when I need to. I don't have any internal resistance. I guess your subconscious eventually learns that resistance is futile, so it stops.

Also working out every single day is really just unnecessary. I've started to think about working in cardio and little vanity lifting on Mondays and Wednesday, and that'd be 5 times a week, but I'm wary of the psychological burden that would require. Three days a week is a good amount.

My ex was very slim, and she didn't work out every single day. Most slim people don't.

I may still not have much muscle, but I'm the kind of guy who would have never imagined I would ever have any muscle when I was alone and depressed sitting in my room all those years. I certainly have more than I would have if I had never worked out consistently!

And now, as I enter a new journey to get as lean as I can, I have started to get into a routine with my diet that makes it feel like it's on autopilot. I've started to take on the psychology of someone who just eats healthy. When I go to the grocery store, I realize on my way out... I didn't even look at the junk food. I didn't even think about the junk food. It wasn't a matter of will power, it wasn't even a question. That's when you know you are on the right track. And I am super excited to see where this leads me.

And I hope you start taking the next smallest steps towards the habits you want. It's so much more realistic doing it that way.