having a lot of trouble committing

zorbaru wrote: »

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.

zorbaru wrote: »

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!