Rough Patch

If you're going to continue living in your brother's house, offer to do the cooking. Then you'll know what you put in the food and you'll know how much you can eat.

Make a plan, make a shopping list, write it down and execute. Do whatever you need to do to recommit yourself, you are the only one who can make yourself do it! Talk to yourself positively rather then dwelling on old habits. "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right" - Henry Ford.

I find when it comes to these types of critical times that I need to evaluate what is important in my life. Why did I decide to change my eating habits, and how important are those reasons to me now.

As JeromeBarry said, you will have to decide for yourself to get back on track. If you do want to get on track and stay on track you need to identify a sustainable lifestyle that will allow you to eat in a way that leads to your personal health goals.

What I do is track my calories extremely closely. I find that for me it really helps if I weigh and log everything that goes in my mouth that has any calories at all. Then it is pretty easy to simply make sure the calories I eat do not go over my maintenance. As long as I am honest with myself about everything I eat and what my true maintenance calories are, I can simply stop eating when I hit the limit.

Once I have that down I start setting more specific goals. for example now my eating goals are the following:

1. Stay below maintenance in calories
2. Eat at least 200g protein
3. Eat at least 5 servings of fruits + vegetables
4. Eat at least 50g fat

That's it for me. I don't need any more specific goals than that. You may end up having different goals or different needs, and you will definitely need to find something that works for you.

Be sure you are eating mostly food you like as well. That makes a huge difference. Find proteins you like, find vegetables you like, find fruit you like and fill your diet with a lot of those. And make sure you save some room for food you really like to eat, even if it doesn't add a lot of micro nutrients. I have some candy every single day, because having some candy makes it so I don't hate my life. For many years I tried to completely eliminate candy from my diet whenver I was "starting a diet," and it inevitably came crashing down when I would binge on candy for weeks at a time and destroy any progress I had made.

Anyway, that is what I do, and it seems to work for me.

Find something that works for you and then simply decide that those reasons why you want to change are enough and do it.

I know it can be hard to get back on track. It happens all the time. Just hang in there and do your best.

One day at a time. Just decide to keep to your calorie limits on the first day you get home. Then decide to do it again the next day.

Be kind to yourself. We all go off track sometimes. I did last week and in early July. It's funny, the hardest thing for me to do is to get back on the scale (I tend to avoid it when I get off track), assess the damage done (usually it's not as bad as I think it's going to be) and recommit. This isn't a diet, it's my life. There will be ups and downs. It's okay to go on maintenance for a while, it's okay to go over, just try to get back to what you were doing before you completely go back to the old habits that made you gain in the first place. You can do it!