Accountability and motivation:)

You can add me as a friend; let's get that weight off before your wedding!


:flowerforyou:

Okay, I'm not good at all the day-to-day Rah! Rah! Way-To-Go! sort of stuff.
I am good at giant brain dumps of what's worked for me.

Here are 2 of my favorites. I hope you find them helpful.
If you make it to the end your attention span is longer than mine. Good Luck

PERSPECTIVE:
I know you are on a time-line and slow and steady is not what your are looking for right now. But small changes that you can actually do are better than grand schemes that are out of reach. I swear #5 is what kept me going.

Here's how I started:

1) tracking for a couple of weeks before I worried about losing.
(although seeing what I was eating I couldn't help but rein back a bit)

2) seeing where I could make small changes on things that weren't that important to me.
(Don't even think of taking chocolate out of my diet!!!)
--Reducing quantities where I won't notice it so much
--Swapping out things instead of eliminating them.

3) Look at my diary and started adding foods that had positive healthy effects specifically for the health issue in my family.
I found most of the things I "should" add were really yummy too! salmon, avocado, oatmeal, mango, red grapes....
(Sort of think of food as medicine to deal with family history of various health issue oatmeal is good for heart health, mango and red grapes lower cholesterol, tumeric and cinnamon good for arthritis)

4) every couple of weeks I see where I can make another couple of small changes.
If you completely revamp your diet, it's way easy to revert to old ways in times of stress.
If you make a series of small changes, food still offers you some sense of comfort.
sort of a comfort continuum, and after a while the first small changes will seem comforting in themselves.
You don't have to be perfect you just have to do better.

5) also rather than being uberstrict with the target MFP set for me I did the math to find out the calories needed to maintain my goal weight and my current weight and I gave myself a range with 1200 as my rock bottom, lose 1 lb/wk as my target*** and maintain my goal weight as the top of my range. As long as I keep within in this range I'll lose. I tend to naturally zig zag my calories 3-4 at very close to my target and then a higher calorie day closer to the top of my range.

As long as I stayed under maintain my current weight calories I won't gain. So no need to throw in the towel, just pick-up where I left off.

Once I found ways to lessen the stress, I found it way easier to focus on the process and let the results follow. (It's what worked for me some people need the stress to get them motivated. Me I get scared and overwhelmed and don't see the big goal as acheivable. I only worry about it 1 lb at a time.)

I did have to take a break for a month due to a health scare, but otherwise I kept with the slow and steady approach. Took me 9 months (including the month off) At first I lost at the rate of about 3 lbs per month, but the closer you get to the goal the slower it goes. So be patient and hang in there.

***also once my lose 1 lb/week target was down to 1200 calories I switch to lose 1/2 lb/ week (1200 cal rock bottom, 1/2 lb/week as my target, maintain goal weight as the high end of my range.)

Food is not the enemy.
Oddly enough on my journey here I've reduced guilt over food.
I have the occassional treat and I fully enjoy it with no guilt involved.
The thing is since I'm not eating crap all the time the occassional treat is just that a TREAT it's special and I enjoy it so much more than when I was unconsciously shovel junk food into my face.

I figure if I've got a good plan that I can actually maintain I can keep this off for a long time to come, without feeling deprived.

SUGAR IS THE DEVIL:

Sugar AND Artificial Sweeteners INCREASE your appetite.

I've had the science explained to me by valid sources (biochemists, diabetics and nutritionists), but it was something I'd recognized in my own body before I knew the science behind it.

One being that if I eat too much sugar I simply cannot keep to my target calorie goals.
(If I have a DIET coke, really it's all over. and that's FAKE SUGAR)

I've really been amazed at how much sugar I've found in "REAL FOOD" Food manufacturers add a lot of sugar under a lot of different unrecognizable names into products, because it's cheap and it increases your appetite, so you eat more.

I found the TOMATO SAUCE I was using had 9g per 1/2cup and that wasn't the worst of the brands.
I'm trying to buy plain canned tomato sauce (1g) and doctor it up with spices, but yes I am lazy the best I've found in the prepared sauces is 3g

Flavored YOGURTS are also little sugar bombs, with between 22-29g of sugar (yogurt used to be an 8oz container now it's a 6oz container with a much smaller percent of yogurt to flavoring. Again I buy the plain and doctor it up.

Also Nutrigrain BREAKFAST BARS and the like are promoted as healthy, but I counted, I think 11, different types of sugar in them

FROZEN MEALS like lean cuisine often have tons (it varies by flavor though so be careful to read)
I forgot to check one day and picked up a meal with 30g sugar once, now...
A) I only get 25g a day,
my favorite cookies are 9g for 15 cookies. If I'm going to eat sugar I want to enjoy a treat!!!

Yes, I have a sweet tooth and like a cookie now and again.
No, I haven't been able to stay under my sugar even when I don't eat cookies.

I just miss the days when real food was real and you could enjoy a cookie or a piece of cake without coming down with type 2 diabetes.
End of rant

Good Luck

Hi I live in Canada. nowhere near Texas but would love to have another mfp buddy! Add me if you'd like

oops don't know what I did here! haha sorry