I'm at a standstill and I recognize it's because summer is a hard season for me and I've been sabotaging myself on the weekends. But I also recognize tracking is what keeps me from gaining more back. As long as I'm still trying I'm not failing. Throwing in the towel is not an option, but picking myself back up and trying again is!

I didn't have time to get impatient when I was losing. I dropped 60 lbs. in three months, blowing past my WW goal and into Lifetime status. I have been less satisfied with the pace of loss during some adjustment periods over the years since. It still just comes down to embracing this as a lifestyle, rather than a diet.

How do/did I deal with time while losing?? Fortunately I took my mind away from the "horrors/fear" that time and goal specifics can bring. I joined WW unplanned & unexpectedly with friends on a morning bike ride. No clue about how much or how long.. I knew WW was sensible and focsed on day to day learning. Lots of small out of bounds moments but kept them as that and not long torrid excursions bedeviled by the mistress of food & spirits.
Time comes and goes. I might not have started looking ahead to the big picture.

The question:
How do you, or have you dealt with the time factor in weight loss? How do/did you control your expectations? Keep from sinking in the muck of disappointment? Why can't we wiggle our noses and wake up thin?


Fantastic topic!

Although I keep my end goal somewhere in the back of my head, I really try to focus on losing just 1 lb this week, and that's it... if that isn't working, then I break it down to just dealing with getting through TODAY - I don't need to worry about my week if I can make the right choices today. If it's still bugging me... then I don't need to focus on my whole day... I need to plan and execute my next meal. Or my next workout. Or getting to bed on time.

My philosophy: I will get there by focusing on TODAY... it's the only day that matters.

Also: Worry comes from inaction. If I have energy to worry and be disappointed, then I should be doing something about it.

When I rejoined WW for the umpteenth time (no exaggeration) in 2002, I decided that I didn't care how long it took me to get back to goal. What I wanted was to keep the weight off this time around. I didn't want to change my life to fit WW. I wanted to fit WW into MY life.

Seeing that I needed to lose 55 pounds to get back to my goal weight was just too daunting. I knew I could lose 5 pounds -- I had done it HUNDREDS of times. So I set my "goal weight" at 5 pounds below my starting weight. When I lost that 5 pounds, I set another goal of 5 pounds. And I continued to do that until I was finally back at goal. There were times when I didn't lose 5 pounds in a month or even two months. But over time it came off.

It took me 22 months to lose 55 pounds (an average of 2.5 pounds a MONTH!) and, until two years ago, I was at or below goal. Since that time I've been as much as 10 pounds above goal. I'm happy to say that, as of this morning, I was exactly at my goal weight!

It's taken a lot of work and two years to drop that 10 pounds. Because of some back/nerve issues, I'm not able to be as active as I was ten years ago so I've had to accept the fact that I'm going to have to adjust my food to make up for that. In addition, I was put on a BP medicine a little over a year ago that has a side effect of weight gain <sigh>.

My next goal for myself is to get back to my lowest weight -- which was 129 (11 pounds) in 2014. So I'm back to the "losing 5 pounds" plan. It may take me another year (or two) to lose those 11 pounds, but it doesn't matter. It's just time!

As a wise GOADie once told me, time is going to pass. You might as well be doing something productive with it.

This aspect is one in which finding GOAD very early in my journey was extremely helpful. When I first joined WW, I spent some time in the GOAD archives and got some insight into the fact that weight loss wasn't linear. But, I also learned if I kept at it, I'd get the results--that the plan would work if I worked it.

Ironically, in my first week or two at WW meetings, I observed people way more tied into the scale number than I wanted to be. For myself, I knew that I was eating 'unchecked' for so many years, this was my first real attempt to bring some self-control to the situation. Like turning a ship around, I realized weight loss wasn't going to happen overnight but I knew the change in my intake couldn't help but get me where I wanted to go. What I did not want was for my mood and personality to hinge on what the scale said, so I followed the GOAD advice and exercised patience. After a short while, the ship slowed and even turned!

I initially had to do some mental gymnastics to realize goal wasn't goal. Sure, it was a number to shoot for, but again, thanks to GOAD archives, I realized I wasn't going to be done when I reached goal. In fact, I would just be entering the (hopefully) much longer phase of maintenance. That reality took the pressure off reaching goal. Slow and steady, up and down on the scale, but trending in the right direction became just fine for me. I embraced the reality that it wasn't a race and became entirely satisfied with focusing on my behavior around food. I learned about some of my motivations and triggers. For me, it was a far more productive place to focus than the number on the scale.

Now on maintenance, it's more a lifestyle than it was but it's still nothing I take for granted. I know it will work if I keep working it. Equally important, I know the opposite is also true. I still take things one day at a time. I allow a little buffer so there's still room for the occasional enjoyment of life or spontaneous celebration. But I know I have to be mindful day after day. I don't view it as a chore because I appreciate all the benefits that have come with weight loss. However, I don't believe the in the phrase 'gone forever'. It's gone for as long as I'm mindful and coloring inside the lines. When and if I stop doing that, I have no doubt the weight would come back on. As when I was losing, I just take it one, maybe two days at a time. Today and tomorrow is all I care about. The rest will take care of itself.