your mistakes made

Something I still do unfortunately.

I tend to allow certain things to "trigger" me...i.e. if I eat something that I consider "bad" (I hate that word when used with food) it still at times tends to make me think, *kitten* it,might as well blow the rest of the day and then start fresh tomorrow.

Or if my plan was to get up in the morning and hit the gym and for whatever reason I did not go, that would trigger me to saying okay then just blow today and start tomorrow.

Such a weird way of thinking and have gotten a little better at it but depending on the day still can happen.

kds10 wrote: »

Something I still do unfortunately.

I tend to allow certain things to "trigger" me...i.e. if I eat something that I consider "bad" (I hate that word when used with food) it still at times tends to make me think, *kitten* it,might as well blow the rest of the day and then start fresh tomorrow.

Or if my plan was to get up in the morning and hit the gym and for whatever reason I did not go, that would trigger me to saying okay then just blow today and start tomorrow.

Such a weird way of thinking and have gotten a little better at it but depending on the day still can happen.

Yeah, in the past this kind of all or nothing thinking has been a problem for me.

Another one that some others have mentioned is being reluctant to weigh myself. Regular weighing is my best tool.

I regret not taking before pictures, I honestly didn't think this would work so I didn't see the point.
And not starting strength training earlier.

I didn't count coffee creamer for a long time because I knew someone with an unhealthy relationship with food and her body who stopped using coffee creamer entirely because of the calories, so I thought weighing and logging my creamer would be taking it too far. Then I realized that stuff adds up, so I count it now.

Over-restricting and eating too low fat in the search for the lowest calorie things ever. Ended up on mostly sugar-free jello and sugar-free jello mixed with fat-free greek yogurt. Had a "binge day" to eat all the foods I'd been restricting and couldn't recover from it. Didn't turn out well.

My main mistake last time I lost weight was developing an all-or-nothing mentality. After regaining completely, it took me years to shake myself out of a depressive slump where I felt like a switch had flipped and I was just completely unable to lost weight or have a healthy relationship with food. Thankfully, therapy has helped me start to overcome that mentality; trying to keep in mind that it’s the overall habits that matter, not an individual “bad” choice.

NovusDies wrote: »

Which time?

For this time:

Looking back at my early log entries I made many classic mistake. There were things I didn't weigh. Things for which I chose the wrong DB entry. Things I underestimated. Things I grossly overestimated. I am glad I didn't actually worry about my mistakes but just kept logging and learning.

I think education is key and it was my ignorance about certain things that held me back on every other previous attempt.

Why the woo? I identify with this. I’ve discovered errors with entries, significant errors, for things I’ve eaten almost daily for a year! Oh well. We do get better accuracy with practice. Logging is a great tool.

My biggest mistakes were:
- excluding completely certain foods, like bread, pasta, rice, sweets/dessert out of my diet. As it turns out, much better strategy for me is to moderate, nothing is off limits.
- thinking that once weight is lost, i can gradually return to the way i was eating before. Nope, no way.
- not knowing what the portion size really is, and how much i was actually eating, not using food scale.
Those mistakes caused me many years of yoyo, regaining all weight lost and adding another 5-10 lbs to it before i would get some resemblance of control. Then i would feel defeated and believing that losing weight and sustaining the loss was the battle i could never win, so why even bother.

Lessons I've learned in previous failed attempts that have helped me to succeed this time.
- Misery doesn't burn any extra calories and there are no prizes for doing things the hard way. It's not a punishment and it's counterproductive to view it as a battle.
- It's about weight management, not weight loss. Weight loss has an end date, weight management is for life. Weight management is about being in control of your weight. Making conscious decisions about when you'll eat in a deficit to lose weight, eat at maintenance, or even eat in a surplus to splurge and enjoy life.
- It's all about consistency. It's better to eat 'pretty well' forever than 'perfectly' for a month or two. It's better to eat in a sustainable calorie deficit than overstrict for a while then binge.
- If it's not a 'forever' change then it's not worth making. Temporary changes yield temporary results and as soon as you stop you just end up back where you started. There a loads of different ways to achieve results so find the ones that you can honestly say are forever and make those changes and discard the others.
- Motivation is a catalyst for change not a fuel. Motivation is what starts a change, not what keeps it going. Motivation is the temporary burst that overcomes inertia and gets things moving. But it's temporary and limited. Once motivation has set things in motion it's done it's job. You can't rely on motivation to keep you going and you certainly can't rely on someone else to motivate you.
- Support is bonus but shouldn't be a necessity. In the end this is something you have to do yourself and while having supportive people can make things easier they can't do this for you. Support is nice, support is helpful but when all is said and done if you don't do this yourself all the support in the world isn't going to make a lick of difference.
- Weight management is simple (but not necessarily easy) so don't overthink it. When it comes down to it weight management isn't complicated. For the most part it's a very simple energy equation so there's no point making things more difficult than it needs to be. Find what works, do what works and keep it simple.
- The old saying you can't out run your fork. While there's a small degree of overlap, generally speaking weight management happens in the kitchen and fitness happens in the gym.
- Weight management isn't worth compromising or missing out on the good things in life. There are 365 days in the year, a week here and a few day there of indulgence while celebrating or on vacation only accounts for about 8% of the year and no matter how much you indulge isn't going to undo the progress of the other 92% so live it up when you get the chance. Life's too short.
- Denial and deprivation don't work. I want what I want and denying myself something isn't going to stop me wanting it. In the end that craving will be indulged and chances are I'm gonna make the most of the 'forbidden' and really go to town. A much better approach is to have nothing off limits. This takes away the lure of the forbidden, allows for 'controlled' indulgences, removes the feeling of deprivation and denial and the guilt associated with 'falling off the wagon'.

Probably relying too much on heavy cardio for years instead of focusing on healthier eating habits. It seems that contributed to my hormone *kitten* storm and I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue. I still do a little cardio but I focus on strength training . I also kept joining WW thinking that time would somehow be different and I’d keep the weight off. I ate a lot of ‘diet’ foods that were essentially processed garbage because they were low in points. Now I realize whole food is where it’s at and I’ll have to track for the rest of my life if I want to maintain any weight loss.

Danp wrote: »

Lessons I've learned in previous failed attempts that have helped me to succeed this time.
- Misery doesn't burn any extra calories and there are no prizes for doing things the hard way. It's not a punishment and it's counterproductive to view it as a battle.
- It's about weight management, not weight loss. Weight loss has an end date, weight management is for life. Weight management is about being in control of your weight. Making conscious decisions about when you'll eat in a deficit to lose weight, eat at maintenance, or even eat in a surplus to splurge and enjoy life.
- It's all about consistency. It's better to eat 'pretty well' forever than 'perfectly' for a month or two. It's better to eat in a sustainable calorie deficit than overstrict for a while then binge.
- If it's not a 'forever' change then it's not worth making. Temporary changes yield temporary results and as soon as you stop you just end up back where you started. There a loads of different ways to achieve results so find the ones that you can honestly say are forever and make those changes and discard the others.
- Motivation is a catalyst for change not a fuel. Motivation is what starts a change, not what keeps it going. Motivation is the temporary burst that overcomes inertia and gets things moving. But it's temporary and limited. Once motivation has set things in motion it's done it's job. You can't rely on motivation to keep you going and you certainly can't rely on someone else to motivate you.
- Support is bonus but shouldn't be a necessity. In the end this is something you have to do yourself and while having supportive people can make things easier they can't do this for you. Support is nice, support is helpful but when all is said and done if you don't do this yourself all the support in the world isn't going to make a lick of difference.
- Weight management is simple (but not necessarily easy) so don't overthink it. When it comes down to it weight management isn't complicated. For the most part it's a very simple energy equation so there's no point making things more difficult than it needs to be. Find what works, do what works and keep it simple.
- The old saying you can't out run your fork. While there's a small degree of overlap, generally speaking weight management happens in the kitchen and fitness happens in the gym.
- Weight management isn't worth compromising or missing out on the good things in life. There are 365 days in the year, a week here and a few day there of indulgence while celebrating or on vacation only accounts for about 8% of the year and no matter how much you indulge isn't going to undo the progress of the other 92% so live it up when you get the chance. Life's too short.
- Denial and deprivation don't work. I want what I want and denying myself something isn't going to stop me wanting it. In the end that craving will be indulged and chances are I'm gonna make the most of the 'forbidden' and really go to town. A much better approach is to have nothing off limits. This takes away the lure of the forbidden, allows for 'controlled' indulgences, removes the feeling of deprivation and denial and the guilt associated with 'falling off the wagon'.

This should be a sticky...

garystrickland357 wrote: »

Danp wrote: »

Lessons I've learned in previous failed attempts that have helped me to succeed this time.
- Misery doesn't burn any extra calories and there are no prizes for doing things the hard way. It's not a punishment and it's counterproductive to view it as a battle.
- It's about weight management, not weight loss. Weight loss has an end date, weight management is for life. Weight management is about being in control of your weight. Making conscious decisions about when you'll eat in a deficit to lose weight, eat at maintenance, or even eat in a surplus to splurge and enjoy life.
- It's all about consistency. It's better to eat 'pretty well' forever than 'perfectly' for a month or two. It's better to eat in a sustainable calorie deficit than overstrict for a while then binge.
- If it's not a 'forever' change then it's not worth making. Temporary changes yield temporary results and as soon as you stop you just end up back where you started. There a loads of different ways to achieve results so find the ones that you can honestly say are forever and make those changes and discard the others.
- Motivation is a catalyst for change not a fuel. Motivation is what starts a change, not what keeps it going. Motivation is the temporary burst that overcomes inertia and gets things moving. But it's temporary and limited. Once motivation has set things in motion it's done it's job. You can't rely on motivation to keep you going and you certainly can't rely on someone else to motivate you.
- Support is bonus but shouldn't be a necessity. In the end this is something you have to do yourself and while having supportive people can make things easier they can't do this for you. Support is nice, support is helpful but when all is said and done if you don't do this yourself all the support in the world isn't going to make a lick of difference.
- Weight management is simple (but not necessarily easy) so don't overthink it. When it comes down to it weight management isn't complicated. For the most part it's a very simple energy equation so there's no point making things more difficult than it needs to be. Find what works, do what works and keep it simple.
- The old saying you can't out run your fork. While there's a small degree of overlap, generally speaking weight management happens in the kitchen and fitness happens in the gym.
- Weight management isn't worth compromising or missing out on the good things in life. There are 365 days in the year, a week here and a few day there of indulgence while celebrating or on vacation only accounts for about 8% of the year and no matter how much you indulge isn't going to undo the progress of the other 92% so live it up when you get the chance. Life's too short.
- Denial and deprivation don't work. I want what I want and denying myself something isn't going to stop me wanting it. In the end that craving will be indulged and chances are I'm gonna make the most of the 'forbidden' and really go to town. A much better approach is to have nothing off limits. This takes away the lure of the forbidden, allows for 'controlled' indulgences, removes the feeling of deprivation and denial and the guilt associated with 'falling off the wagon'.

This should be a sticky...

Agreed. This is one of the best things I've read on these forums.

My BIG mistake was thinking I had it ALL figured out and got away from logging and weighing my portions. I lost close to 70 lbs. when I was at Calorie Count. When the site closed and we all moved here, I was in Maintenance Mode. I thought I had everything down and could now "eyeball" my meals. That soon led to COMPLACENCY which then became LAZY. 60 lbs GAINED later, I am BACK ... HUMBLY... ready to KICK IT in gear and get back on track!

MY biggest mistake is not starting 10 years ago.