How do you keep to your goals?

It’s tricky, and I haven’t been terribly successful in the past...hence why I’m in this situation lol.

I’m a huge work in progress. What I’ve discovered, is I have to follow what my mindset is at that day. If it’s an indulgent food, let’s use cheesecake as an example, and I don’t think just eating a half slice will satisfy me (I.e brain reverts to condition thinking of “I’m being deprived”), I will eat the whole slice and move on, and continue with my normal healthy eating. I don’t restrict later or over exercise. I accept that one piece of cheesecake is not going to have a profound affect on my goals. I do pay attention to trends though. If I’m finding reason to eat cheesecake everyday...I try to figure out why. For me, it’s usually an emotional issue.

I also ask myself if I will really enjoy it? For example, it may not be worth it and I can make a choice to avoid, but it also depends on my frame of mind at time.

If this is going to be a forever thing with me, I needed to find a way to coexist in this world with tempting and triggering foods, and get to the emotional root of my binge eating, while also developing a healthier relationship with food that makes sense to me.

It has taken me years to deal with the root of the emotional and binge eating through therapy, and self confidence, self love and self respect to fix my relationship with food. 1 slice of cheesecake doesn’t have to mean the whole dish. And if it becomes the whole dish one time, so what? It’s not cause for going off the rails, starvation or over exercising. If it starts to look like whole cheesecake everyday, I’m responsible for recognizing in myself that I’m self medicating and need to figure out why.

My intake goals shift depending on the day. Ok I may not have room for cheesecake today, but maybe I will tomorrow or on the weekend. And sure maybe I want more than one slice, then I have to make a decision. Take it away from other places (maybe important places which could affect my macro goals) or I move a little more (not punishment but to balance it out), take it way from the upcoming week or I slow down my weight loss overall that week. Typically I will try to think of my goals above all but sometimes that extra slice gets in there. Log it.. move on.

Make friends that want to help, or even better trying to do the same thing. Then you will be motivated by not wanting to let them down

For me, I know there are certain things I have trouble controlling myself around, sweets especially. I just make room for those in my calorie goals and only buy what I am willing to eat. For example, only buy the individual slice instead of the whole cheesecake because I know if I get the whole cheesecake I will eat the whole cheesecake. For candy, I will only get one serving. If I am not willing to eat all the calories in the package, I will pick something else. After time, those cravings will get better. Last week I managed to make a pint of ice cream last 4 days (1 serving/day).