Attitude Adjustments! (please share YOURS)

potokat wrote: »

"What are some bad attitudes you had to overcome? How did you change your thinking, or what do you tell yourself that helps you lose weight?"
I'm 39, lost almost 60 pounds over the last 2.5 years, former yo-yo dieter. One of the big reasons I decided I had to change is because I was tired of being tired. I live in Colorado, land of people who are super fit, and I couldn't even walk down the street without being out of breath. At 37 I decided I wanted to learn to snowboard, and there were days I'd go down the bunny hill once and be done, because I didn't have the stamina to continue. I took a long look at what I wanted to be able to do, and whether or not my sedentary life of Taco Bell, craft beer, and Diablo was making me truly happy. Short answer: no. It helped that my parents are in terrible shape, refuse to exercise, and continue to eat garbage. My dad is on so many medications I've lost track, and everything started to go downhill for him in his early 40s, which isn't too far off for me. So I had all kinds of motivation of the negative sort. Not gonna lie, those first six months of exercising SUCKED. I cried almost every workout, everything was super hard, and I kept telling myself that it was punishment for all the years I sat on my butt and did nothing. I kept asking people when it would stop feeling like torture. I wanted to quit, but I'm also stubborn, and had vowed to make a change, and I knew what the alternative was. The fact that things were so hard for me really drove home how much harder life was going to be as I aged if I didn't follow through with this change. So I kept at it. And six months is about when stuff started to suck a little less. Still couldn't do a push-up, but I could do them from my knees, which was better than the wall push-ups I started with. It was those little victories I held on to, as well as the weight loss that happened, that kept me motivated for awhile. That helped change the internal monologue from "This is torture, I deserve this" to "Holy *kitten*, LOOK WHAT I CAN DO NOW that I couldn't do before! This sucks WAY less than it did at first!"
With regard to nutrition, I remind myself that food isn't going to make me feel better. Food isn't going to take my stress away - it's just going to cause a different type of stress, and I don't need any more than I already have. I'm not perfect - there are periodic KitKat binges, and those stupid flavored Oreos are super dangerous - but I'm learning to moderate more than I have in the past, and I don't use them as rewards or punishments - they are food. I log them, and I move on with my life.
Wow, this got long.

23rochelle23 wrote: »

Lots of things. Part of which is reminding myself that this isn’t hard, this is easy.. I know exactly what I have to do to lose fat, and when I do it, I lose fat.. it’s literally that simple.

Yes, taller people get more calories, as do people with more to lose, as do males, as do people who work out more than I do... but it’s a simple math equation. I have set mfp up to reflect that (I have my maintenance calories set as my daily total and whatever is ‘leftover’ is fat loss... 7700 calories leftover (whether it be over a week or a month) is 1kg... I’d rather it be over a week or two than a month or two so I find myself getting more creative with cutting calories).

What I do find is that this is boring... it seems like it will go on FOREVER... and so I change things up, I eat different food (as long as I hit my protein goal then I’m happy), I changed my workout plan to one which progresses every workout (StrongLifts), I have found low cal alternatives - reduced fat spray cream on my fruit saves me 40odd cals, shiritaki noodles instead of rice noodles in my soup saves me 150 odd, cauliflower rice saves me 100 or so cal.. if I do all three of those in one day then it’s 300cal... and I can eat something delicious like a wispa bar or two instead 😉 or that’s a 2000 cal saving a week... which is .25kg... it all adds up.

I’m eating better and more varied foods because it means I can eat more in my calorie allowance, I exercise to become strong because muscle looks good, it prevents bone density loss, it’s important for my work to prevent injuries, and it’s bad *kitten* to surprise people when I can lift heavy stuff as a short female and I keep reminding myself that the more I get off my *kitten* and do these things... the less time it will take, the more it will become habit (so I don’t have to focus on it so much) and the less bored of it I will be