Losing weight does not mean you have a good plan
NovusDies
Posts: 8,940 Member
It doesn't mean your friend, relative, co-worker, or someone they know has a good plan either.
Losing weight can easily mean you have a perfectly horrible plan and calling it a lifestyle doesn't mean it stopped being a diet.
The scale will sometimes distract you from the truth. It has certainly distracted me in the past. There is something about losing that first 5 to 10 pounds that makes you forget all the times you have lost that amount in the past and still failed to lose all you wanted... assuming this is not your first attempt.
But this time is different. I am more committed. I have more important goals to motivate me. I have more willpower. I am disgusted over letting myself go and there is no way I will continue living this way. Any of that sound familiar? I said all the above for decades.
Any diet I have been on for more than 3 weeks has resulted in weight loss and sometimes it has been that fantastical 8ish pounds in a week number. Some of my ill-conceived plans lasted for 6 months resulting in some decent losses. None of them lasted so they were all pointless except they finally made me such an expert on failure I learned to avoid the traps.
Just about ANYONE can lose some weight on just about ANY diet that creates a calorie deficit by design or accidentally. Almost EVERYONE fails to lose all the weight they want/need to lose.
What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn.
The other thing I see distracting some people here are the bells and whistles the internet promises people who "practice" IF or keto, or low carb, or whatever. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest. If some of it is true that is great but if not you do not want to be stuck starting over again later on because you were lured in by features that were not directly related to losing weight.
Losing weight can easily mean you have a perfectly horrible plan and calling it a lifestyle doesn't mean it stopped being a diet.
The scale will sometimes distract you from the truth. It has certainly distracted me in the past. There is something about losing that first 5 to 10 pounds that makes you forget all the times you have lost that amount in the past and still failed to lose all you wanted... assuming this is not your first attempt.
But this time is different. I am more committed. I have more important goals to motivate me. I have more willpower. I am disgusted over letting myself go and there is no way I will continue living this way. Any of that sound familiar? I said all the above for decades.
Any diet I have been on for more than 3 weeks has resulted in weight loss and sometimes it has been that fantastical 8ish pounds in a week number. Some of my ill-conceived plans lasted for 6 months resulting in some decent losses. None of them lasted so they were all pointless except they finally made me such an expert on failure I learned to avoid the traps.
Just about ANYONE can lose some weight on just about ANY diet that creates a calorie deficit by design or accidentally. Almost EVERYONE fails to lose all the weight they want/need to lose.
What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn.
The other thing I see distracting some people here are the bells and whistles the internet promises people who "practice" IF or keto, or low carb, or whatever. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest. If some of it is true that is great but if not you do not want to be stuck starting over again later on because you were lured in by features that were not directly related to losing weight.
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It doesn't mean your friend, relative, co-worker, or someone they know has a good plan either.
Losing weight can easily mean you have a perfectly horrible plan and calling it a lifestyle doesn't mean it stopped being a diet.
The scale will sometimes distract you from the truth. It has certainly distracted me in the past. There is something about losing that first 5 to 10 pounds that makes you forget all the times you have lost that amount in the past and still failed to lose all you wanted... assuming this is not your first attempt.
But this time is different. I am more committed. I have more important goals to motivate me. I have more willpower. I am disgusted over letting myself go and there is no way I will continue living this way. Any of that sound familiar? I said all the above for decades.
Any diet I have been on for more than 3 weeks has resulted in weight loss and sometimes it has been that fantastical 8ish pounds in a week number. Some of my ill-conceived plans lasted for 6 months resulting in some decent losses. None of them lasted so they were all pointless except they finally made me such an expert on failure I learned to avoid the traps.
Just about ANYONE can lose some weight on just about ANY diet that creates a calorie deficit by design or accidentally. Almost EVERYONE fails to lose all the weight they want/need to lose.
What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn.
The other thing I see distracting some people here are the bells and whistles the internet promises people who "practice" IF or keto, or low carb, or whatever. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest. If some of it is true that is great but if not you do not want to be stuck starting over again later on because you were lured in by features.
Agreed, I personally am a firm believer in having a "strong state of mind" to be the outlier in how sustainable your weight loss efforts are, would even go as far as saying it is the end all, be all in the equation....my 2 cents on it.
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@NovusDies Agreed. @fitnessguy226 it is definitely a state of mind for sure. Each and every day I push through my workout and see the changes in my body I am inspired!5
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@NovusDies Great wisdom!2
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fitnessguy266 wrote: »It doesn't mean your friend, relative, co-worker, or someone they know has a good plan either.
Losing weight can easily mean you have a perfectly horrible plan and calling it a lifestyle doesn't mean it stopped being a diet.
The scale will sometimes distract you from the truth. It has certainly distracted me in the past. There is something about losing that first 5 to 10 pounds that makes you forget all the times you have lost that amount in the past and still failed to lose all you wanted... assuming this is not your first attempt.
But this time is different. I am more committed. I have more important goals to motivate me. I have more willpower. I am disgusted over letting myself go and there is no way I will continue living this way. Any of that sound familiar? I said all the above for decades.
Any diet I have been on for more than 3 weeks has resulted in weight loss and sometimes it has been that fantastical 8ish pounds in a week number. Some of my ill-conceived plans lasted for 6 months resulting in some decent losses. None of them lasted so they were all pointless except they finally made me such an expert on failure I learned to avoid the traps.
Just about ANYONE can lose some weight on just about ANY diet that creates a calorie deficit by design or accidentally. Almost EVERYONE fails to lose all the weight they want/need to lose.
What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn.
The other thing I see distracting some people here are the bells and whistles the internet promises people who "practice" IF or keto, or low carb, or whatever. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest. If some of it is true that is great but if not you do not want to be stuck starting over again later on because you were lured in by features.
Agreed, I personally am a firm believer in having a "strong state of mind" to be the outlier in how sustainable your weight loss efforts are, would even go as far as saying it is the end all, be all in the equation....my 2 cents on it.
There are definitely times when willpower, motivation, extraordinary discipline will come into play. There will be those days that do not go as smooth as you like and you believe exceeding your calorie goal will not make it any better and you need to suck it up. You just can't sustain a plan where that is happening everyday... or at least I have never been able to do it.
I think of it as having a dam to keep back most of the water most of the time and needing willpower when a temporary crack appears.11 -
@NovusDies, you exhibit real wisdom here.1
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I agree, we've definitely lined up in other threads over this. The short of it being, "your diet should feel manageable on bad days and downright lazy on good days".
It's taken me twice as long to lose the same amount of weight this time around, but it felt so much faster because I wasn't counting down the days until the weight came off. I was just going about my life and losing weight was like brushing my teeth - a minor responsibility that I don't care for but I do anyways 'cause it's good for my overall health.21 -
fitnessguy266 wrote: »It doesn't mean your friend, relative, co-worker, or someone they know has a good plan either.
Losing weight can easily mean you have a perfectly horrible plan and calling it a lifestyle doesn't mean it stopped being a diet.
The scale will sometimes distract you from the truth. It has certainly distracted me in the past. There is something about losing that first 5 to 10 pounds that makes you forget all the times you have lost that amount in the past and still failed to lose all you wanted... assuming this is not your first attempt.
But this time is different. I am more committed. I have more important goals to motivate me. I have more willpower. I am disgusted over letting myself go and there is no way I will continue living this way. Any of that sound familiar? I said all the above for decades.
Any diet I have been on for more than 3 weeks has resulted in weight loss and sometimes it has been that fantastical 8ish pounds in a week number. Some of my ill-conceived plans lasted for 6 months resulting in some decent losses. None of them lasted so they were all pointless except they finally made me such an expert on failure I learned to avoid the traps.
Just about ANYONE can lose some weight on just about ANY diet that creates a calorie deficit by design or accidentally. Almost EVERYONE fails to lose all the weight they want/need to lose.
What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn.
The other thing I see distracting some people here are the bells and whistles the internet promises people who "practice" IF or keto, or low carb, or whatever. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest. If some of it is true that is great but if not you do not want to be stuck starting over again later on because you were lured in by features.
Agreed, I personally am a firm believer in having a "strong state of mind" to be the outlier in how sustainable your weight loss efforts are, would even go as far as saying it is the end all, be all in the equation....my 2 cents on it.
There are definitely times when willpower, motivation, extraordinary discipline will come into play. There will be those days that do not go as smooth as you like and you believe exceeding your calorie goal will not make it any better and you need to suck it up. You just can't sustain a plan where that is happening everyday... or at least I have never been able to do it.
I think of it as having a dam to keep back most of the water most of the time and needing willpower when a temporary crack appears.
I agree. I think if you have to rely too heavily on willpower, you are white knuckleing the process and that is not sustainable. It means your approach is too aggressive.10 -
It doesn't mean your friend, relative, co-worker, or someone they know has a good plan either.
Losing weight can easily mean you have a perfectly horrible plan and calling it a lifestyle doesn't mean it stopped being a diet.
What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn.
The other thing I see distracting some people here are the bells and whistles the internet promises people who "practice" IF or keto, or low carb, or whatever. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest. If some of it is true that is great but if not you do not want to be stuck starting over again later on because you were lured in by features that were not directly related to losing weight.
I agree with so much of what you said in your original post. However, your sentiment of sustainability is the reason I call it a lifestyle over a diet. I view a diet as something that I will do for a short time and maybe lose a little something before returning to all the habits that led me to gain in the first place. I'm building, ever so slowly it seems sometimes, a better life overall, hence again why I personally call it a lifestyle. Part of that lifestyle is a way of eating that I can live with not only while I lose, but when I choose to maintain and for the rest of my life.
Do I sometimes need to re-evaulate? Of course, my needs as far as nutrition change, my tastes change, and my understanding of what I am eating changes. My way of eating today, is vastly different from my way of eating when I began and when I think I want to eat that way I quickly realize how much I really don't. I urge everyone to find what works for them, but to never be afraid to ask on occasion, is this truly working, is this something I can live with for the rest of my life. When those answers start to shift to no then it's time to re-evaluate, but never stop moving forward.
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RelCanonical wrote: »I agree, we've definitely lined up in other threads over this. The short of it being, "your diet should feel manageable on bad days and downright lazy on good days".
It's taken me twice as long to lose the same amount of weight this time around, but it felt so much faster because I wasn't counting down the days until the weight came off. I was just going about my life and losing weight was like brushing my teeth - a minor responsibility that I don't care for but I do anyways 'cause it's good for my overall health.
To me all the bonus stuff that I do like getting steps, exercising, and eating nutrient dense food is easier because I know that I can also be moving towards my weight goal binge watching netflix while eating pizza. I like a good challenge but the thought of living perpetually challenged for the rest of my life is mentally exhausting.8 -
ConfidentRaven wrote: »It doesn't mean your friend, relative, co-worker, or someone they know has a good plan either.
Losing weight can easily mean you have a perfectly horrible plan and calling it a lifestyle doesn't mean it stopped being a diet.
What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn.
The other thing I see distracting some people here are the bells and whistles the internet promises people who "practice" IF or keto, or low carb, or whatever. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest. If some of it is true that is great but if not you do not want to be stuck starting over again later on because you were lured in by features that were not directly related to losing weight.
I agree with so much of what you said in your original post. However, your sentiment of sustainability is the reason I call it a lifestyle over a diet. I view a diet as something that I will do for a short time and maybe lose a little something before returning to all the habits that led me to gain in the first place. I'm building, ever so slowly it seems sometimes, a better life overall, hence again why I personally call it a lifestyle. Part of that lifestyle is a way of eating that I can live with not only while I lose, but when I choose to maintain and for the rest of my life.
Do I sometimes need to re-evaulate? Of course, my needs as far as nutrition change, my tastes change, and my understanding of what I am eating changes. My way of eating today, is vastly different from my way of eating when I began and when I think I want to eat that way I quickly realize how much I really don't. I urge everyone to find what works for them, but to never be afraid to ask on occasion, is this truly working, is this something I can live with for the rest of my life. When those answers start to shift to no then it's time to re-evaluate, but never stop moving forward.
What I meant to say and perhaps did not say it clearly enough that simply declaring a plan a lifestyle does not make it one. A lifestyle is something you live and the only way it is a lifestyle is by choosing to make changes that you can live with for a very long time if not forever. A lifestyle encompasses most every possible day that you will face and especially the ones that end wildly imperfect.
The best way I know to make it a lifestyle is to start with how you lived before losing and start adjusting it.
I actually do not like using the term lifestyle at all. I prefer to think of it as normal. When I make changes I adjust my normal slightly. When it feels normal I am not fighting it and like @RelCanonical says time just seems to fly by.7 -
ConfidentRaven wrote: »It doesn't mean your friend, relative, co-worker, or someone they know has a good plan either.
Losing weight can easily mean you have a perfectly horrible plan and calling it a lifestyle doesn't mean it stopped being a diet.
What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn.
The other thing I see distracting some people here are the bells and whistles the internet promises people who "practice" IF or keto, or low carb, or whatever. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest. If some of it is true that is great but if not you do not want to be stuck starting over again later on because you were lured in by features that were not directly related to losing weight.
I agree with so much of what you said in your original post. However, your sentiment of sustainability is the reason I call it a lifestyle over a diet. I view a diet as something that I will do for a short time and maybe lose a little something before returning to all the habits that led me to gain in the first place. I'm building, ever so slowly it seems sometimes, a better life overall, hence again why I personally call it a lifestyle. Part of that lifestyle is a way of eating that I can live with not only while I lose, but when I choose to maintain and for the rest of my life.
Do I sometimes need to re-evaulate? Of course, my needs as far as nutrition change, my tastes change, and my understanding of what I am eating changes. My way of eating today, is vastly different from my way of eating when I began and when I think I want to eat that way I quickly realize how much I really don't. I urge everyone to find what works for them, but to never be afraid to ask on occasion, is this truly working, is this something I can live with for the rest of my life. When those answers start to shift to no then it's time to re-evaluate, but never stop moving forward.
I agree with most of what you said. However, I always find the "lifestyle" tag a little odd.
To me, it's just a matter of eating appropriately to get to or maintain a healthy weight /body fat level. Exercise is something everyone should do for health and fitness regardless of their lifestyle.
I do really see eating properly in the same light as I would see, say, an urban lifestyle or a beach lifestyle or any of the more odd ones (use your imagination). It's just eating appropriately.4 -
@NovusDies and @mmapags Fair enough points and I understand why the two you don't prefer or wish to use the term. For me it's about the mental and about a slow overhaul of my entire life. I may one day feel the same as either of you, but I wanted to explain why I use the term. Find me odd, but so far it's working well and we all need to do for ourselves to get to where we want to be.
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ConfidentRaven wrote: »@NovusDies and @mmapags Fair enough points and I understand why the two you don't prefer or wish to use the term. For me it's about the mental and about a slow overhaul of my entire life. I may one day feel the same as either of you, but I wanted to explain why I use the term. Find me odd, but so far it's working well and we all need to do for ourselves to get to where we want to be.
If it works for you, great! A lot of the whole process of eating appropriately is changing our mindset and learning to recognize the triggers that cause overeating. So, whatever works for you.1 -
Terminology is really only important in how you relate to other people. Internally if it helps to call it a diet, a lifestyle, normal, or awesome sauce it does not really matter.
I think a diet is commonly viewed as a temporary thing so if what you engage in doesn't last it wasn't really awesome sauce it was a diet. That was the point I was trying to make.4 -
I think whether a diet is a "diet" or a "lifestyle change" is something that emerges over time and is more of an empirical discovery than a decision. The first month, one begins with eating less, losing some weight (hopefully), and a whole lotta intellectualizing about the thing - lifestyle changes, "this time it's for real", "I'll just repeat this forever", talking to friends and online strangers about diet techniques, reading that thousandth article about keto or carbs, etc.
Then life eventually gets in the way. Could be the third week or the third month, but it's gonna happen. An injury. Job loss or other big schedule change. Some kind of emotional stressor. Diet fatigue - just need a damn pizza and are tired of denying yourself that one sacred thing. So there's some scale backslipping. Hopefully not a complete crash and burn reversal. And then you climb back on the horse, with a couple of wounds and scars, and the terrible but extremely valuable knowledge that diet hubris is dangerous because it's very easy to give up the gains and you are never free from the risk of gaining the weight back.
At this point you're still intellectualizing the whole thing - diets vs lifestyle choices, etc etc. Then 2 or 3 or 5 more life stressors pop up, as do nights where you've been at this so long you're just tired of it so you pig out, the logging gets sloppy one day or one week, whatever.
Well, whatever you've "got" left after your diet's been all bruised up like that is the truth, the real one. At that point, you either have some new way of approaching food and exercise, or you don't. Some people (most, actually) eventually revert back to what they were doing the day before the diet or "lifestyle change" began, regardless of what they called it. Hopefully, if you've ingrained enough good habits, some of them stick and, voila, you have an actual lifestyle change, because even under the pressure of all the things that can and do go wrong in life, you're *still* behaving in a new way.
In my case, my very sound and sensible and easily repeatable diet took a massive battering in the last month from a trip to the ER, unbelievable family stress issues, and so forth. I did have a couple of weight gain weeks, though the damage was really down to 2 pounds given back on 60+ lost, so no biggie. But it did give me a great bird's eye view of what was an actual lifestyle change and what wasn't. All my "low carb higher protein" stuff went right out the window - I was definitely carb loading there for a couple weeks LOL What did stick was (more or less) my commitment to 16:8 IF and, much more importantly, an ability on most days to use my maintenance TDEE level as the cutoff for binging and pretty much stop there, instead of going berserk. That has always been my Achilles Heel, for decades - "the day's shot, I want a pizza". I've actually been mostly good at stopping at 2500. I also got on the scale every single day without fail, which was a huge problem in the past, as I would start engaging in scale avoidance and then a vicious negative circle would ensue. Are these lifestyle changes? Who knows. "Better ingrained habits" is probably more accurate.
It might be that "lifestyle change" is generally meant to imply a layer of healthier eating plus exercise, on top of the simple CICO formula of losing weight. That is to say, if you eat less, you'll lose weight, but if you eat less, eat right, and exercise, you're engaging in overall health betterment above and beyond just dropping tonnage. I do like the use of "lifestyle change" for that aspect of things.12 -
To the great surprise of no one, 😍 the OP.
Re the terminology lifestyle vs other, the "word" defines that the changes are intended to be long term and not temporary measures.
I think that mental state enters a lot in all this. And primary among them is to figure out how to reduce the amount of white knuckling necessary!
It is a given that things will change over time.
I like to see the "word" I've created over time as layers of protection.
The whole thing won't collapse if one or two layers break down. But if I give up the last layer which is "willing to give a *kitten*", then we'll be in trouble!7 -
Diets should be used as a tool. I lost 130 pounds low carb, (more than I planned) That's not really sustainable for life and always. That said, I understand where my weakness is and what I have to avoid so I don't get fat.
After I lost weight I wanted to bulk up (I was 162.2 pounds) and gain muscle. Which i did, but i gained more fat than i wanted and then got put on TRT, and that made my weight shoot up 20+ pounds and had low energy and struggled with consistency at gym. I'm finally coming back, but it's been a struggle. I'm now ~240 pounds
Anyways, of course calories in/calories out, but for me and many I believe, carbs are an issue, I just cant get full like I should and end up eating way too much. So avoid all junk and try to keep other carbs to minimal. I do better somedays than others, but that's what is needed for me.0 -
Good OP, Novus. I've come to expect no less. :flowerforyou:
I feel like the terminology issue (diet, lifestyle, journey, etc.) is a bit of a red herring: That's all abstractions, when what matters most is the practicalities. We can each use the abstract terms that work best for us, I'm thinking.
Maybe I'll use "lifelong interpretive dance performance".
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Be sure to bump this in a few weeks when the resolutioners show up.9
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Thanks for an excellent post, OP. Also, many good points in @lgfrie post. I believe planning for life stressors and other disruptors (such as travel, holidays, etc) is absolutely critical to success. That includes planning the bootstrap for when we completely give up for a week or two. It may never happen, but if it does, it's just reality of life, and we all had better prepare for it.
I don't agree with the following:Well, whatever you've "got" left after your diet's been all bruised up like that is the truth, the real one. At that point, you either have some new way of approaching food and exercise, or you don't.
I don't believe that's "the truth." There are days when we feel so bad we call in sick. Or stay in bed all day. Or drink a bottle of wine. Or whatever. That's not the truth - those are exceptions. We live with them, we accept them - and we move on. Moving on means going back to our "normal" lifestyle. Which includes getting up in the morning, going to work, etc. Which also includes going back to eating, drinking, and exercising as usual.4 -
Hi @tony56pr! You said above:Diets should be used as a tool. I lost 130 pounds low carb, (more than I planned) That's not really sustainable for life and always. That said, I understand where my weakness is and what I have to avoid so I don't get fat. Anyways, of course calories in/calories out, but for me and many I believe, carbs are an issue, I just cant get full like I should and end up eating way too much. So avoid all junk and try to keep other carbs to minimal. I do better somedays than others, but that's what is needed for me.
Hopefully without putting words in his mouth, what you describe is exactly what @NovusDies addresses in his OP. "What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest.
And please believe me that I would be saying the same if you had said low fat, or disciplined regiment, or any other number of things instead of low carb in your post.
Because what you're not mentioning is what you're changing and how you're attempting to make things easier and more sustainable for you this time around!2 -
Hi @tony56pr! You said above:Diets should be used as a tool. I lost 130 pounds low carb, (more than I planned) That's not really sustainable for life and always. That said, I understand where my weakness is and what I have to avoid so I don't get fat. Anyways, of course calories in/calories out, but for me and many I believe, carbs are an issue, I just cant get full like I should and end up eating way too much. So avoid all junk and try to keep other carbs to minimal. I do better somedays than others, but that's what is needed for me.
Hopefully without putting words in his mouth, what you describe is exactly what @NovusDies addresses in his OP. "What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn. If weight loss is your primary goal then evaluate everything on how easy you can sustain it and ignore the rest.
And please believe me that I would be saying the same if you had said low fat, or disciplined regiment, or any other number of things instead of low carb in your post.
Because what you're not mentioning is what you're changing and how you're attempting to make things easier and more sustainable for you this time around!
MFP is reputed as a credible, educational, and inspirational source for short, and long term health principles and best practices......i question the validity(of actual long term dieters/healthy lifestyle advocates) with all the "gloom and doom" posts from self-proclaimed experts here that have a supposedly futuristic view into the outcome of every posters optimistic approach to dieting, strategy, etc.....an anticipated behavioral pattern based on "controlled studies" is appreciated, but please stop the "i've seen it before, it won't work" pessimism...individual commitments, goals, outlook on life in general, will vary per person....for the 5+ billion people on the planet.2 -
.double post.-1
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The above is the OP of this thread with a couple of sentences removed.... Losing weight can easily mean you have a perfectly horrible plan and calling it a lifestyle doesn't mean it stopped being a diet.... But this time is different. I am more committed. I have more important goals to motivate me. I have more willpower. I am disgusted over letting myself go and there is no way I will continue living this way. Any of that sound familiar? ...What I learned is that a good plan has less to do with the scale and more to do with how easily I can stick to it. If just about any plan can produce results then the real secret is to pick one or design one that I can execute most days without much extra motivation or willpower. It is also important that I never think I have all the answers or that I am stubborn.
In a previous post I responded to @tony56pr's description of his diet plan by saying:
I thought my comment to be quite in line with the spirit of this thread which seeks to differentiate between sustainable and unsustainable plans. However, it appears that you took exception to my comment, @fitnessguy266.... what you're not mentioning is what you're changing and how you're attempting to make things easier and more sustainable for you this time around!
Allow me to apologise for not being a cheerleader in encouraging people to go down the road of the ~80% of general <not MFP forum aware> dieters who fail to maintain a 10% weight loss for at least 1 year.fitnessguy266 wrote: »stop the "i've seen it before, it won't work" pessimism...individual commitments, goals, outlook on life in general, will vary per person....for the 5+ billion people on the planet.
What I try to do instead is alert those who are willing to be open minded that they may want to put on their thinking cap so that they can figure out how to redirect their great optimism and commitment into working with their biology and individual circumstances so that they CAN become one of the 20% of general dieters who maintain a 10% or more weight loss for at least a year.
And to maybe become one of the even more rare snowflakes who get to move past the 2 year maintenance mark. Incidentally moving past the 2 year mark improves your odds of not regaining more than 5lbs to 58%.
Ideally, of course, we all want to get to the 5 year or more mark where our odds of not regaining 5lbs improve to 71%.
I'm still a year or two short of that mark myself depending on how I define the end of my weight loss; but I am hopeful since enough time has passed that most of the usual side effects of a substantial weight loss have subsided.
While I don't think the national weight control registry study is "excellent"; I freely admit that I *considered* the strategies employed by its members and adopted the subset of them that I deemed appropriate for myself and my circumstances.
[all facts and figures quoted above are from: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/82/1/222S/4863393, a national weight control registry study, hence my mention of the registry by name above]
I also considered, just as @NovusDies did, all my previous weight control failures.- Doing so, in fact, while ready to give up on losing weight because the methods I was employing were unsustainable for me at the time was what led me to seek alternatives, and to find MFP, in November 2014!
P.S. the figures above are for the GENERAL weight loss seeking population. I suspect the MFP forum reader and participant population is much more likely to experience success. But I, unfortunately, don't have a study for that!13 -
The OP post does address a common theme especially with yo yo dieters. We come up with some new approach every time and we are gung ho and do great for the first bit, but where we fail is that we don't have an exit strategy. I am going on 2 plus years of maintenance now and one of the biggest differences this time is that I set my goal at a very reasonable place which was not a dangling 'treat' just outside reach. I also decided that another of my goals was to maintain for at least a year to see if my skin would firm up some. It seems many of us are really really good at losing weight but not so good at maintaining. I spent a lot of time reading and lurking in the maintenance forums here (esp the stickies) to see what was working and what wasn't for people. I still do.
So perhaps however a person chooses to loose their weight is NOT the most critical for long term success. For the first 30 or so years I had no idea that after I lost weight I could not just act "normal" and go back to where I was before. That was a sort of light bulb moment. Yes I agree that the long term plan needs to be sustainable and one which each individual reaches on their own but in most cases it is very likely that long term plan is not going to be the "before" woe. 7 -
@SummerSkier I totally agree with you, maintenance is a whole different beast! I went pretty hardcore with calories and exercise while losing weight. I also haunt the maintenance forum. Taking it slower would have taught me a more sustainable way of living. I'm working on finding that balance now. Losing you have feedback from the scale and healthy gains from losing the extra weight. Now it's a matter of setting goals like fitness ones and keeping those healthy changes.4
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SummerSkier wrote: »The OP post does address a common theme especially with yo yo dieters. We come up with some new approach every time and we are gung ho and do great for the first bit, but where we fail is that we don't have an exit strategy. I am going on 2 plus years of maintenance now and one of the biggest differences this time is that I set my goal at a very reasonable place which was not a dangling 'treat' just outside reach. I also decided that another of my goals was to maintain for at least a year to see if my skin would firm up some. It seems many of us are really really good at losing weight but not so good at maintaining. I spent a lot of time reading and lurking in the maintenance forums here (esp the stickies) to see what was working and what wasn't for people. I still do. So perhaps however a person chooses to loose their weight is NOT the most critical for long term success. For the first 30 or so years I had no idea that after I lost weight I could not just act "normal" and go back to where I was before. That was a sort of light bulb moment. Yes I agree that the long term plan needs to be sustainable and one which each individual reaches on their own but in most cases it is very likely that long term plan is not going to be the "before" woe.
My goal is to act normal when my weight loss is done. I am adjusting what my normal is as I go.
Whether or not a person can lose weight with a method that is completely different from how they maintain it will depend on the person. I have been losing for close to 2 years so the idea that I could have been on a cabbage soup diet all this time and the time I need to finish is far-fetched to me. I think because I had much more to lose and would spend much more time losing it I have to employ a plan that is closer to what I think maintenance will eventually look like for me. I have to keep slowly adjusting my habits which will consistently improve my normal.5
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