Restarting Quickly & Sticking To It - Advice Needed

So, I'm overweight again and I'm getting myself going with improving my diet and exercise to take it off. I've done this many times, so I know how to do it in a way that works for me - counting calories is the only way I've ever lost weight. My problem is that I know from repeated experience that it is very, very hard for me to get started. In the past, I've always had a lot of false starts - days where I said "I'm doing it today!!" and by dinner I was already eating over. Or maybe I stuck to goals one day, then the next day I'm off track. This often takes weeks or months of time. Eventually, I string a week or two of success together and then I have momentum - I start building on that success and things start seeming manageable, easy even! This goes on for weeks or months and I get to close to my goal weight. And then something happens that knocks me off course - sometimes it's a week vacation, sometimes I get sick, sometimes something else. And then I'm back to square one and it's intensely difficult for me to get back on track - I end up taking up weeks or months with false starts, often gaining back what I lost in that process. The whole things repeats.

It seems to me the thing I need most is to be able to get on track - or get BACK on track - quickly, in a day or two at most. Any advice? Ugh, why is this so hard for me.
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Replies

  • mctaggart433
    mctaggart433 Posts: 4 Member
    I am here, and can understand what you are saying! I lose thirty pounds then put it back on. I have done this for years. Talk to yourself for a day ,and say tomorrow I will start this program, get the foods that you need to be able to achive this. Its not easy. :| But you can do this!!!! take it hour by hours .. Fogus be postive.
  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,598 Member
    Enlist people to hold you accountable. Either IRL or a buddy on here.
  • aries68mc
    aries68mc Posts: 173 Member
    Food/meal prep may help!
  • mackybuhia
    mackybuhia Posts: 3 Member
    It same goes with me. But I guess, tracking your workout and food intake with a friend might help. It can motivate you more than doing it alone.
  • NicbPNW
    NicbPNW Posts: 47 Member
    You need to be in this mentally. Change your thinking. Track everything every single day. It's not easy, I'm not saying it is but you have to REALLY want this in order to be successful. Failure is not an option. #mambamentality
  • kenthepainter2
    kenthepainter2 Posts: 58 Member
    I have been in your place, actually I'm in it now. I know what to do but I seem to need to be at a point of utter depression and frustration to start. I like calorie counting with emphasis on lower carbs (reduces bloating for me). I know that after the first 2 weeks I start to feel better and it gets easier, its always been that way for me.
  • maureenkhilde
    maureenkhilde Posts: 850 Member
    If you do not have a food scale buy one. And then weigh all solid foods, because then and only then do you really know how much food you are putting in your mouth. Which equals to how many calories. I found for me the biggest things that made a difference.
    Was the food scale.
    Committing to logging all food, even when I fell off the wagon, I still log it
    Pre-bagging snacks. I love nuts, so now I will bag up in 1 oz amounts, almonds and or walnuts. So I know the calories, protein, fats, carbs.
    I also do some pre-logging. I have the same thing for breakfast almost every single day. So if I am making a batch of chaffles, and know I will eat with two good yogurt. I will pre-log for how 4 to 6 days ahead of time.
    Saves time, keeps me from going for foods I should not be grabbing, keeps me on track.

    Somewhere have a reminder list, of why you want to lose weight. I have one on my phone and one at my desk. It is a reinforcement for me.

    Good Luck! I think everyone has been in your shoes at one time or another.
  • polvo71
    polvo71 Posts: 40 Member
    I can commit to at least tracking. I admit that a lot of times when I start going off track, I stop tracking altogether.
    This is me for like over 10 years. It’s exhausting, frustrating, and defeating. However, the strength and determination can only come from you. Like PP have said, log every day, everything. It’s the only way. You know it works. You’ve done it before. It’s a life-long commitment.
  • freda666
    freda666 Posts: 338 Member
    The single act I find helps the most is to log before I eat.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    I can commit to at least tracking. I admit that a lot of times when I start going off track, I stop tracking altogether.

    Do you also stop tracking your weight?

    If yes - why?
    If no - what goes through your head when you see your weight rebounding more than a few pounds?

  • katsheare
    katsheare Posts: 1,025 Member
    polvo71 wrote: »
    I can commit to at least tracking. I admit that a lot of times when I start going off track, I stop tracking altogether.
    This is me for like over 10 years. It’s exhausting, frustrating, and defeating. However, the strength and determination can only come from you. Like PP have said, log every day, everything. It’s the only way. You know it works. You’ve done it before. It’s a life-long commitment.

    I agree with this, and with others who have suggested that it's not a question of stop/starting: you're still living, no matter what. You're still fueling your body, even if you're not monitoring what that fuel is. For me, there is no wagon, no track, nothing for me to fall off and have to climb back onto. There's just my life and how much I know and can understand about what I'm doing in it.

    Like you, I've lost and not maintained the loss. And this was the promise I've made to myself: I'm going to track at least food or weight every day for the foreseeable future. And if I stop [avoidance], to make myself admit to me why.

    I'm within my maintenance range now. Still at a deficit because I'd like to be a little lower in it, but I feel like this is now about living, rather than changing. Find your live-able way - what you can hold to even when life happens because life will happen. And remember to forgive yourself for being human. If you have an over day - or week - but you get back to what you know works and that becomes normal as soon as you can, that will make a massive difference.

    Wishing you all the success - you are capable and can do it!
  • xmarye
    xmarye Posts: 385 Member
    I've always had a lot of false starts - days where I said "I'm doing it today!!" and by dinner I was already eating over. Or maybe I stuck to goals one day, then the next day I'm off track.

    I don't know if that's the case for you, but for me what made it hard to stick to was being hungry all the time! Like genuinely hungry.

    This time, I did a few things that helped me overcome this and reign in my self-control and discipline:

    1. Delayed my first meal so my calories take me further in the day. For example I don't eat until 10-11ish and that ways my lunch is around 12-2, my pm snack at 3-4 and then dinner at 5-6. If I were to eat at 7-8, it would be much harder for me to wait until later in the day to eat again!
    2. Sticking to a meal schedule/no snacking outside of planned meals. I am the type of girl who is addicted to eating, plain and simple. I would even eat everytime my children woke me up during the night. Anytime I would go by the kitchen I would eat, often something healthy, but it would add up and then I would lose control. So that's why I decided to find the amount of meals and frequency that works for me and stick to it! I don't eat outside of the times I mentioned in point #1.
    3. I make sure to drink a couple glasses of water in between each meals to keep me hydrated and feeling full. The zero calorie water enhancing drops really help with this!
    4. I allow myself something I enjoy! Sometimes it's a small portion of dessert after dinner that fits my calories, or it can be as simple as not denying myself sugar in my morning coffee. This makes such a drastic difference!
    5. And last one but not the least... Accepting that I might be hungry sometimes, and deciding that it's okay. I swear, from the moment I told myself that I would not give into my hunger and that I would let it pass, it stopped haunting me everyday. But seriously, if you are like me and your hunger cues are messed up (meaning that I can eat up to 3000cals per day because I feel hungry even though I am suuuuper sendentary) it can be beneficial mentally to acknowledge this.


    I hope this helps. Sent you a friend request so we can share the journey together! We can do this!! :smiley:

  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Sometimes in think that Novus is my twin!

    To the OP: I'm glad to see you're questioning the process you've been choosing to implement

    The fact that you're ready to start again highlights that you do *not" know how to do it in a way that works for you.

    You know how to do it in a way that you can tolerate for a while before giving up on it

    To find a way that works for you, start looking for / developing your new normal.

    Try to make things easier

    I have always wanted to be someone's evil twin.

    OP: There is a reason I prefer to think of my weight loss as adjusting my normal instead of as a diet or a lifestyle. In some ways it is all those things but when I have a mindset of adjusting my normal it helps me to understand that this is forever. It also helps me to understand I need to protect what feels normal by not allowing too many things to change at one time. Anything drastic leaves normal behind and forces me into adaptation mode which is something I will naturally resist.

    The reason I know this works for me is that while I enjoy having a deficit break or eating a little too much around the holidays it doesn't take me very long to want to get back to normal.