What caused your relapse? How did you get back on the horse?

I’ve never relapsed hard or anything but the thought of having to redo my hard work always kept me on track.

I don’t “mess up”. I have days that I eat over my calorie goal (some), I have days I eat at or under my calorie goal (most). There’s no moral judgment to either. I’m not “good” on the days I eat my goal and “bad” on days I don’t. It’s just a tally of calories. Even if I have a string of days where I eat over my goal (say vacation or I happen to have an absolutely delicious cake in my house and I am happy to enjoy it and understand the weight-related consequences of choosing to eat it), it’s all fine. I’ll have plenty of other days when I’m at or under goal.

It seems like semantics, but it’s a really important difference. My horse/wagon/track and I go eveyewhere together-days I’m over and days I’m at/under. My horse/wagon/track includes allowances for being human.

Try this. Make your food diary the center of your effort. Log in everything, every day no matter what. Go over your number? Put it in your diary. Wildly over? Log that in too. Don’t know how many calories in that meal or dish? Make a good faith estimate and keep going. Forget? Do the best you can to put in everything, keep going.

You will soon find that you have a better chance to hit your number if you have a plan. Plan for each day and week.

If your diary is the center of your program, the only way to go off track is quit. You have to make a decision not to do it. You have to abandon the process. Don’t.

Oh, sooner or later you’ll almost certainly go over your number. No human undertaking is error free. We misread menus, lose focus at the wrong time, make inadequate plans, get tired, make math mistakes. Lots of ways to make mistakes. But stick to the process. The process is more important than the numbers.

Frankly, I don’t understand the idea behind “I’m over my number, I won’t write it down.” There’s a big difference between the 200 calorie lunch mistake I just made and the 1500 calories I’ll eat for dinner tonight if I decide I’m off the hook until tomorrow. If I’ve messed up big at lunch it’s egg whites and veggies for dinner again. But it all goes in the diary.

Seems like I just lose interest in working out, or I get something stressful like a death in the family that derails my progress. Honestly, in the past I've had trouble getting back into it, and kind of gave up. This time I've been trying to maintain consistency. And instead of treating it as a temporary thing to get me to my goal, I treat it as a new normal. Vacation last month kind of got me out of my habits, but I picked up calorie tracking again a couple of weeks ago, and the scale is moving again. Now to pickup working out consistently again. I guess it's just dusting yourself off and picking it back up if you get off track. Seeing if you can analyze why you got off track, and what can you do to prevent it is helpful too. The most important thing for maintaining consistency is to make changes you are comfortable with doing for the rest of your life, and also accepting it's all trial and error. You might try things that you thought would work, and figure out they don't. Or discover new things you never thought of before. Never try to be perfect. Just try to make little improvements here and there, and keep plugging along. We all overindulge, or get out of habit now and again. They key is to just refocus and get back into it. This is a major reason weight loss isn't linear. No one is perfect at it but as long as you keep moving forward you'll be good.

@gallicinvasion - Great Question!

Like a lot of others this is my umpteenth time on the wheel. In 2006 I successfully lost around 20 pounds counting calories the old fashioned way with a pencil and paper. I was doing small things to get more active like taking the stairs at work, walking to the next bus stop away, etc. I was doing well and enjoying it when my I was offered a promotion that moved me back to a downtown high rise. I went from the 4th floor to the 10th, a more demanding job and a food court in the attached mall. Work became so all consuming that I could no longer afford the time to go up and down the stairs, then I also grabbed quick and easy in the food court instead of walking on breaks and getting healthier options.

Move forward to 2009 - I decided to quit smoking and was petrified that I would gain even more weight so I bought a Wii and started counting calories. I did good for about a year losing around 25-30 pounds. My husband and I started having problems. My girls moved out and I became lonely and was treading the empty nest territory. Nothing really major just again quit working at it at all.

In 2011 - I started working on myself again around February was taking it slow and working away at it. Not losing a lot but feeling better health wise at least. My eldest got married and I became a Grandmother, he was my 43rd birthday present. My daughter was going to have a big party to celebrate her wedding in our hometown in 2012. I started seriously trying to lose around April of 2012. I made it to the lowest I had been in more than a decade 168 in November of 2012. Then I was called home because my Dad was gravely ill, the day after I arrived he ended up in palliative care and passed a little over 2 weeks later.

I became very depressed, I lost my biggest supporter, my husband and I were growing even further apart. My job sucked, our finances were failing because of the economy. Life just started beating me down and I didn't have enough energy to do anything about it. I didn't even have the energy or motivation to cook meals. I started eating out for lunches and supper. I did go on anti-depressants, but nothing really helped. We lost a truck, then lost a house. Last year on August 31st I lost my job. That was actually the biggest blessing in disguise I have ever had.

Since that time I have found happiness, peace, realized that as long as you have your health and family you are blessed. I didn't have money for anti-depressants anymore so had to find another way to get happy. I started being grateful and positive. On February 1st of this year I decided to try MFP again, it is what worked in 2012. I wouldn't kill myself exercising everyday, I would take it much slower and see what happened.

As of this week I am officially 20 pounds lighter, I still haven't been on anti-depressants, had a great doctors appointment yesterday and I'm truly happy!

This time I think I might be able to keep it up.
I know I have to track my food, probably for a lifetime.
I know that I can have a high calorie day and it won't stop me, it may slow me down a day or so though.
I don't have to kill myself to exercise an hour every day, but I should try to move every day for my overall well being.
I think I will have to weigh weekly for the rest of my life so I at least see if I'm slipping.
I have to remain positive and know that the "worse" has happened and I survived it. I now realize what I thought was the worse actually wasn't.
I found the message boards and blogs on MFP and have made a new community of friends that help each other without judgement.
I have a happier marriage and a brighter outlook and am very blessed to have my family and friends.

Good luck to you!