having a lot of trouble committing
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You have to really want to change your existing eating habits. Try shouldn't come into it, as the ad goes 'Just Do It' Set yourself small goals/ pre plan your days meals and don't buy the things that are calorie dense. Little by little you can change how you see food.
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the statement in your mind should go "I have to" rather than "I want to" (even if you "really" want to)0
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really having trouble losing weight. i want to lose weight. i know how to lose weight in terms of food and excercise. my issue is actually getting the body to do what the mind needs it to do.
every day i wake up saying "today is the day, im going to do this" and by lunch time im scoffing and iced coffee and eating crap again. if you look through my history on here, you will see that i have "restarted" many times.
it is really starting to get me down. i dont know what to do.
I was in the same boat for few years. I knew my why. I knew what to do. But what I finally realized that my lifestyle was SOOO complex and SOOO ingrained, trying to go from 0-60 on the diet track just wasn't working for me. So over a year and a half ago, I decided to switch my thought process from "dieting" to changing my lifestyle. From there, I picked one, just one, issue at a time and stuck to just that one until I felt I finally had it down. I decided to start with exercise, simply because I knew it was something I actually enjoyed, so I knew the motivation wouldn't be as hard. I also vowed not to beat myself up over failures, but rather look at them as lifestyle problems to solve. So I started with walking. Set a goal to try and get 2 miles in 5 days a week. I did fine for a few weeks, until my knees and hips started killing me. So a took a week off to let them heal and started again...same thing. I stayed in the cycle for a few months, but found walking was not really doing it for me. But instead of getting frustrated and giving up, I instead looked at it like a problem to solve. What kind of exercise would I enjoy doing that wasn't going to kill my joints. I settled on swimming, something I love doing. Of course, there were a few others issues to solve before I could finally afford the gym and carve out the right time to go, but after 9 months, the issues were solved and I had finally managed a great fitness routine that included swimming, water aerobics and walking. I had managed to stick to it for 3 months and felt great, even though the scale didn't really budge much at all.
Since then, I've tackled my soda drinking habit (took a couple of months), my breakfast meal (only took a couple weeks), my morning routine (another month), then pushed on to a salad every day for lunch (another month). They were all little changes that only showed a total of a 5lb loss, but I felt great and felt motivated to keep going.
Finally, came back to MFP in January to start counting calories and work on creating the deficit needed to try and get more serious about the weightloss side of things. Spent the month of January getting into the habit of logging my food and being honest with myself on what I was eating. By the end of the month, all new habits still going strong and another 5lbs gone. February, I spent 3 weeks incorporating more fruit into my diet. That helped curb my awful sugar cravings and seriously cut back the amount of refined sweets I was eating. Another 5lbs gone. I've spent the last 3 weeks working on incorporating more vegetables at dinner time. Another 5lbs gone.
So yeah.. Just under 2 years and I may have only lost 20lbs... but I'VE LOST 20lbs!!! I also am far less stressed, better able to tackle the daily demands of my day, I'm sleeping better, enjoying life more, my work performance has shot up drastically, My finances are under control and this whole losing weight things feels kinda like a breeze now.14 -
HealthyVitamins wrote: »Don't take your wallet to work if possible. I would bring well thought out and prepared meals, eat them, and eat chips and chocolate from the canteen anyway. Once I stopped bringing cash I stopped eating from there and broke the bad habit. Now I can bring my wallet to work and not feel the need to buy anything
Ha, the wallet thing worked for me too! Well, not bringing cash anyway.
I would bring good things, and eat them, and enjoy them. But I would still grab food from the vending machine. And of course I wouldn't log them because I'm embarrassed (although no one else is looking at my diary!) and then I would eat something else not as good at home out of guilt. When I wouldn't lose weight, I'd just stop working at it for a couple months and have to start over 10lbs heavier.
So I stopped bringing cash to work, and so I couldn't get my extras, and I got over the habit of doing it. I still struggle with not going out to lunch every day, but since it's still wintry outside, I really don't feel like going out most days. And I don't have a problem when it's nice outside, since I usually go out for a walk at lunch.
I'm glad I dropped the habit when I did, because they just put a damn credit card reader on the vending machine a couple weeks ago. It makes the (already overpriced) goodies 5 cents more, and darn it if the old me wouldn't have cared. I would have been grabbing 3-4 candy bars and chips each day anyway, perhaps more so since I'm not limited by how much cash I had on hand!
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...my issue is actually getting the body to do what the mind needs it to do...
I would say your problem is actually the opposite.
You need to get the mind to do what the body needs it to do. Trouble committing is not a fault of the body. The mind is making the choices here, and the body is just following along.
You need to figure out why you keep failing. What's your motivation? How badly to you really want this? You have to want this change more than you want the comfort and familiarity of your old ways. Until this becomes a bigger priority than some of your other choices, you aren't likely to change.
Change can be scary. Are you attempting to make these changes at too fast a pace and either burning out or psyching yourself out? Start gradually, make simple achievable changes, experience some small successes and build on those. Everybody loves to win. So set easier, more attainable goals to start, so you can feel the taste of victory. Once you start winning in small ways, you can set bigger goals.
This all comes down to getting your head in the game. Without the right mindset, you're just spinning your wheels. Good luck!1 -
Do not let yourself get too hungry, that's a big pitfall for me. Everything goes out the window if I'm starving.3
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It can be REALLY difficult! That's ok. Its ok to have bad days, its ok to fall. It's ok to not be good enough. It's ok to lose really slowly. It's ok to gain back 1 pound after losing 2. You just get back up and start again. I've done it, too. I was depressed all winter and logging was too hard. I am constantly fighting the munchies! But at the end of the day, I'm a bit fitter, and a bit stronger than the day before. Every little thing helps. On the contrary, it's little things that makes it hard. Sometimes you just gotta try different things and see what works for you. It's all in the baby steps1
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For me I just have to keep telling myself WHY I am here and on CICO. I want to be slender and healthy as opposed to morbidly obese. I am half way down to my goal since starting May 2016. It can be difficult but I just have to stay focused on the end game.... good luck you can do it!0
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really having trouble losing weight. i want to lose weight. i know how to lose weight in terms of food and excercise. my issue is actually getting the body to do what the mind needs it to do.
every day i wake up saying "today is the day, im going to do this" and by lunch time im scoffing and iced coffee and eating crap again. if you look through my history on here, you will see that i have "restarted" many times.
it is really starting to get me down. i dont know what to do.
Hello, what I think will work for you is to build your diet around the food you're eating. You have to trick your mind and body into thinking you're eating certain foods, but in actuality your cutting most of the unhealthy carbs. For example, I eat Taco Bell daily, but I modify the food so I can get the best out of it. If I order a chicken burrito i ask to remove any type of dressing, sauce, and cheese, I eat everything inside and throw the giant tortilla in the trash. And I drink lots of water in between bites, also I eat a small bowl of fruit I get at the nearest 7/11. And a cup of coffee with a little French vanilla cream. My cravings for eating a burrito are gone.2 -
I paid $1.00 for 4oz of mixed fruit at 7/11.
You can eat any foods just make better choices.
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i want to lose weight.
There are a lot of people who say, "I want to lose weight," when what they really mean is, "I want to have lost weight." I don't blame them; weight loss is hard. But to lose weight, you have to want the end result enough to deprive yourself of some temporary pleasure, and endure some temporary discomfort. Personally, I found the latter to be worst for the first three weeks of losing weight, when I would get nasty hunger pangs a few hours after each meal. After three weeks, my body seems to have adapted to the persistent calorie deficit, and the hunger became a lot more manageable, so if you stick it out, it might get easier.
Also, as Dr. Yoni Freedhoff points out in his great book The Diet Fix, you won't be able to stick to a diet that cuts out your favorite treats. And if you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need a permanent change; otherwise, you'll gain it back when you return to your old habits. So if an iced coffee is a big treat for you, figure out how to make it work: have it less often, or have a smaller cup, for example. We often just crave a taste and then keep eating after that craving is satisfied; it's helpful to ask yourself, "How much of this do I need to be satisfied?" Then stick to that amount.
Good luck!7 -
its hard to describe. my mind is definitely the problem, not the body. but there are 2 parts of it. there is the knowing all the theory and the how to's and the what to do's. i know them, ive done it before. ive lost up to 7 kgs on previous attempts. then there is the other part of the mind which is the part that controls the what the body actually does. that is the part of the mind that is weak.0
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Keep trying and don't get discouraged at some point it will click. Last weekend I fell off track after doing well for a good stretch. i took time to identify what went wrong and to figure out solutions so it doesn't happen again. Just keep working on it. Staying within a calorie deficit is hard and it takes planning and setting yourself up for success. it takes more than just feeling guilty and wanting to be thinner.3
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Iits hard to describe. my mind is definitely the problem, not the body. but there are 2 parts of it. there is the knowing all the theory and the how to's and the what to do's. i know them, ive done it before. ive lost up to 7 kgs on previous attempts. then there is the other part of the mind which is the part that controls the what the body actually does. that is the part of the mind that is weak.
I totally understand where you are because I've been there myself. It's bewildering how you could want so much to change, yet keep putting it off. The motivation is there, especially in the middle of the night when the worry and the guilt is keeping you awake. Or first thing in the morning, when the dawn of a new day seems to hold such promise.
You want to change. You want to feel in control again and at ease with your food choices. You've been in that good place before, but now it seems like there's this great chasm between where you are and where you want to be, and the bridge isn't in sight. Or maybe it is in sight, but it just seems so scary and/or sad to leave the "comfort" of where you are.
You start each day with conviction, but then the temptation comes. Cravings start to gnaw at you constantly, grabbing all your attention. After resisting for a while you begin to grow weary and the evil little voice in your head says, "go ahead and splurge today, dieting will be easier to do tomorrow." Or it says, "Life's happy and fun when I get to eat what I'm craving." Or even worse, maybe it says, "You should have known not to hope that you could change. You're too weak."
But all of those are LIES! They are extremely seductive LIES! The truth is, If you hold firm to your goals today, holding firm will be easier tomorrow. And life is not happy when you're out of control. It's miserable. In the past, you have shown yourself just how strong you can be. You're not weak, you CAN reclaim that feeling of powerful self assurance again.
You have to get good and mad first, like the battered wife who's finally decided not to take it ANY MORE! Get angry at the evil thoughts that come to you and tell them to BACK OFF cause YOU'RE in charge again!
And you have to get good and scared too. Scared of your body becoming ill and weak way too young. Scared of heart problems, deteriorating joints, and shrinking brain matter. Scared of becoming dependent of others to take care of you. Every overweight person knows their own personal pain and sense of loss due to being too large. Dwell on that pain and let it become very real to you. Then stand up and say "NO MORE!"
Write a list of positive things you can say to yourself through the day. Yes, really do the work and get out the pen and paper and THINK! You won't regret the time you spend doing this. Look on "mantra" threads for ideas. One of my current favorites is "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
Practical advice: Eat protein for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don't skimp on it, especially the first week. Even over-eat protein to help you through the transition away from the high sugar, high carb diet you're used to. And drink lots of water. Six cups before noon. Another three or four by 8 PM. Protein and water help to quiet those pesky little voices that tell you to indulge. Wishing you the best! You can do it!
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Also expose yourself to lots of weight loss chat. Spend time on the forums here and find a good weight loss podcast to listen to (I like Half Size Me). This can help to get your mind in the zone. I also watch shows like Secret Eaters and Fat Families for motivation (have run out of episodes though )0
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I agree with most of the above, do not try to make drastic multiple changes all at once, change one thing, get settled into that for a month or two, then add another change, you can stop bad habits by making them a little more difficult, as long as you have something more healthy already planned for to replace it. Getting to a healthy weight and staying there will require a lifestyle change and you can't do it all at once.0
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Temptation is like a toddler. When you always give in it gets used to doing it's own thing so if you tell it no it throws a temper tantrum but if you are consistent and keep the rules the temper tantrums go away you just have to out stubborn a few times until following the rules becomes the expected thing.2
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It all in our heads
Sort your head out the rest will follow
I have many times stuck to plan for over a year then bam I've lost that willpower and resort to old
Just gradually make changes don't do the all or nothing start with calorie reduction then do a walking plan don't go full steam into something that you know isn't manageable forever
Very true for me too. I've started a diet, had my reasons, confident I could do it, then one thing happens that makes me think "What's the point?" and I give up. It is all in your head, you have to WANT to not eat the crap food, you have to WANT to go back to smaller waisted trousers and be happy with what you see in the mirror etc.
This time round, I don't think I will give up, but this time I have a three year old who will be relying on me being fit by summer time. I don't want to be walking along the beach this year with a top on to hide my belly, while all the other dads are topless, soaking up the sun, getting tanned etc.
I still have chocolate every single day!1 -
It's a case of wanting to improve your health/body/life more than you want to eat crap or have an easy life.0
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trigden1991 wrote: »It's a case of wanting to improve your health/body/life more than you want to eat crap or have an easy life.
True, but not feeling in control of your choices isn't an easy life. While you're in the midst of being out of control, you might believe it's a hardship to begin watching what you eat and exercising. But once you make some changes and chose health/body/life it's such an easier life (imo)0
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