Why do people give up?

pink_mint · April 2020

I know this question has been asked before here in the archives but I'm asking for 2020. Feel free to offer your personal experience.

Why do people typically give up their weight loss efforts? What makes people get discouraged to the point they say 'forget it'?

And then on the other end, what finally worked for you? What mindset did you take on that made the difference and led to success with (edit: sustainable) weight loss?

I ask because I'm feeling impatient right now.

mmapags · April 2020

Because changing habits and understanding the underlying motives for our eating behavior is neither simple nor easy. We become very attached to our patterns and thought and behavioral habits and are it takes self awareness and self discipline to change them.

What worked for me was coming to terms with exactly what I said above. Understanding my unhealthy patterns with food. Eating for comfort. Stress eating. Things like that. Understanding trigger foods for me. Experimenting with different foods and macro combinations to find what was most satisfying for me and helped control hunger. And most importantly, developing new habits.

All of this takes a huge dose of patience because, by its nature, it is not a fast process in any way and learning new habits takes trial and effort and time for them to become ingrained as the new normal.

OAS5 · April 2020

I'll try and make this short. I tried and gave 1 million times. Sometimes in a few hours, sometimes in a few days, not proud of that.
What made it stick this time, down 75 pounds, is this. I had to go for a physical for my job that my employer was going set up in a few months. Because I was so heavy/fat I was worried about it so I set it up myself before my employer set it up. I thought I'd find a push over doc that stamped my medical card and I'd be done with it. 80 bucks, cash only and I thought I found card stamper. Well this guy did this physical to a tee, Weighed me and did everything that was required in this type of physical. By the way he weighed me at 276.4 and said I'll take off 4 for the clothes, 272.4. At the end of this he said, I can't issue you a medical card because you are over the threshold BMI wise and you have to go for a sleep study. I was freaking out! He said go get the sleep study, come back with the results and then I can issue you a medical card. That same day was my sons 3rd birthday and while I hid it I was VERY depressed. I was depressed and disgusted with myself for allowing myself to become this, to get this bad with my weight. That was a Saturday and Sunday was the unofficial start but Monday was the official start in my book. That was the day I stepped on the scale and that doc was right, 272.4. This time it stuck, I was on a mission. That was the first week in July and by Sept. I had lost 30 pounds already when my employer said they were wrong, we don't need a physical, they read some law wrong. Its hard to explain but we didn't need this medical card in the end. I was already in mission mode and in less than a year I was down 70 pounds. Now down 75, 15 more would be nice but I'm not going crazy over it. I'm going on 3 years now with weight off.
What made it stick this time is fear of a sleep study, sleep apnea, and depression over what i let myself become but really its a mystery. I could have easily given up any time, especially when they said we didn't need the physical after all. I was too far in on a mission though.
Its a whole new world, a new life, EVERY THING is different now. Its like the world was here I just wasn't living in it. Now I am. So many things are better, health wise, not being out of breath and then this one I didn't expect and forgive me, but sex, yes sex. Its totally different and better. My wife says it all the time and that makes me smile.
Sorry I went on so long but that is my story. Good luck!

Duck_Puddle · April 2020

Unreasonable expectations and lack of understanding of the process generally lead to frustration which leads to giving up.

People expect to lose a minimum of 2 pounds a week (usually more). That’s not realistic or even healthy in most cases. So people expecting to lose 10 pounds a month but “only” losing 2-4 are disappointed and frustrated that they are doing “all this work” for “nothing” so why bother?

People think paleo/keto/low carb/clean eating is a requirement And/or the “only thing that works for them” (usually because a previous 2-6 week stint on said diet produced massive water weight loss in a short time). Such restrictive diets are difficult to maintain for a long time-particularly if they aren’t already very close to what you would naturally choose to eat. If you have a sweet tooth, low carb/keto will be very difficult to maintain for a long time. So you will “fail” (eg massive carb-laden binge) at “the only thing that ever works for you” so why bother?

What works for me?

Knowing there isn’t an end date. I am never “done”. I will need to eat this way forever (to maintain my loss). So if I’m not willing to do it forever, I’m not doing it now.

I have reasonable expectations. I lose 3 pounds a month at best. Best. Since this is forever, if it’s less than that-ok.

There are no moral attachments to food. I am not good or bad based on what (or how much) I do or don’t eat. This goes along with people who “ were so good for 3 days” then “I was so bad today”. Meh. I don’t fall off the wagon. My wagon has 4 wheel drive and comes with me even on days where I eat far more than I need.

I do things I enjoy for activity. I incorporate foods I like - maybe not every day, not as much as I might like, but a life without ever having pizza and cookies isn’t realistic.

I log. Everything. Every day. Good. Bad. Ugly and everything in between. This keeps me engaged in the process even on days when I eat more than I need or am just not able to make good choices (like now-when I’m playing chopped in my kitchen and wondering what else I can make with canned pumpkin, beans, crab meat and half a bag of shredded cheese).

cmriverside · April 2020

My story is a lot shorter.

I needed to lose weight, I knew it was ultimately about calories. I found a free website to help me track my calories. (This one.)

I logged food, and I planned and paid for a vacation that was in the Bahamas, which meant a bathing suit for a week. I had nine months to get the weight off. That worked! I got really close to my goal by the time I took off.

It wasn't until I got back and still had 15 pounds to lose that I had to really buckle down. The first 65 weren't nearly as hard to lose as the last 15. It required sticking to macros and calories and getting enough of all the nutrients. I had to make most of my own meals so I could control it. I weighed in daily. I used a food scale for food - all food. I walked on hilly trails for an hour 4-6 times per week. I had to be disciplined for those last 15 pounds and I had to live with quite a lot of hunger. I think that must be when people give up...the home stretch.

nooshi713 · April 2020

I have given up in the past because it is difficult to constantly be hungry. I maintain around 1500-1700 calories depending on my activity level and eating even maintenance is a struggle because I’m often hungry. It doesn’t matter what combination of foods I eat, the hunger is there and hard to manage. It is like my body senses when it is in a deficit when I try to eat less and increases my hunger. I have tried increasing protein, volume, etc but none of that helps.

wholebygrace · April 2020

I need to lose weight and I have failed so many times in the past. I have been at this a little over a month now (likely my longest streak at doing this healthy) and I have wanted to give up pretty much every single day. I lose slow so I have had to find motivation beyond the scale. I am nicer when I go for a walk, I am less prone to mood swings, and my blood sugar is WAY down from just losing 6 pounds and walking every single day. I think that looking at my health (mental and physical) is the only way I will stay the course this time. If it was solely dependent on the amount lost every single week I would have already thrown in the towel. I do look forward to sharing my success story some day, but for now I am hella proud of sticking to it and bettering my overall health even in the midst of a pandemic. It is the only thing I feel in control of right now.

lgfrie · April 2020

I think "satisficing" is a big part of it, for people who've lost some weight and then struggled to maintain or gained it back. The "good enough" problem, which can be an issue in so many areas of life. I will use my own experience with weight loss as an example, but I don't mean this to necessarily be about me but about the satisficing challenge in general.

At my peak weight I was 330 lbs. I felt like crap. Not just aesthetically but health-wise. Huffing and puffing to go up a flight of stairs, squeezing into restaurant booths that were already fairly deep but somehow weren't deep enough for my girth - and hoping to God there'd be a stand-alone table so I didn't have to do so. Tugging on 3x shirts and feeling them pulling around my moobs, and seeing the stretch around my stomach and grabbing a different shirt and sullenly biting the bullet and buying some 4x's. All of that morbidly obese person stuff. Being morbidly obese sucks.

It was easy, really easy, for me to get started. I wanted to not be morbidly obese anymore. Wanted a normal life. Wanted to fit into restaurant booths and movie seats and airplane seats, and to wear clothes that fit well, and to feel healthy and not self conscious about my weight.

So then I lost 10 quick pounds, took a couple months off, and then got seriously on a diet and dropped 50, hitting my first milestone of 270 to get out of obesity class 3, and felt really good about that. But with that milestone, the dieting got a teensy bit harder, because the initial motivation - to not be so ridiculously huge - was partially satisfied. I was big, but not as big as I was; 270 lbs was a huge, noticeable improvement that got me a lot of compliments from friends & family. So it got a bit harder to pound that calorie number every day.

Then I lost another 20 and that's where I am now and it is HARDER. I'm still technically obese but actually I don't feel very obese anymore; maybe I should feel obese, but mainly I just feel good! Clothes fit. 2x clothes, not 3x or heading to 4x. I'm large but not "mommy-that-man-is-so-fat" humongous. I have another 50 or 60 lbs I want to lose but in the meantime I feel healthy and strong and feel like I look pretty good, relatively speaking. And so it has gotten harder to hit that calorie target every single day. I still do it most days, but I had to increase the caloric number a bit because my mind was totally rebelling at the super-super-hard core number I'd started with at 330 lbs. With feeling better and like I've accomplished a lot, my appetite has come back, which was virtually absent for the first 40-50 pounds, because I was soooo motivated at first not to be that 4x shirt wearing person anymore and I don't feel quite as burning a drive to get from 2x to XL.

All of this is to say, I think as some people (including me) proceed down a path of accomplishing something, the initial high motivation tied to the huge gap between "what is" and "what should be" adapts to the now smaller gap between the current state and the end goal. The initial horror of realizing how out of control my weight had gotten provided a hard-coreness that was hard to maintain as horror gradually gave way to more of just a rational sense that "there's still plenty of work to be done". It's more analytical than emotional for me, now, and emotions were programmed into animals in the first place to provide direction to behavior, and determination to persevere against the odds.

I love that word satisficing from economics - it's very human to fall into "good enough" mode. We set big goals that'll take us all the way to a perfect outcome, but as we get closer to the outcome, "good enough" starts to slow things down.

Now I think many people get into satisficing mode before they're done with weight loss and at some point it's "good enough" and then they just want normalcy back - being able to eat what they want, without counting and logging and being hungry. And just get fatigued with pretending a brussel sprout tastes as good as a peanut M&M. So one day, "I'll take a break" just happens, not a planned, intentional refeed but a spontaneous "I need a f'ing break". And it feels good, those M&Ms and whatever else was denied or in such short supply for so long, so the break gets extended to 2 days, then a week, and month, year, decade, whatever. And of course, without the counting and logging, or whatever the methodology was to drive the weight loss, in most cases the weight will come back - 85 % of dieters regain, supposedly.

I have had plenty of unintentional, spontaneous time-outs over the last 10 months . "Binges", I guess. The only difference for me this time is that I've successfully climbed back on the horse the next morning instead of letting it grind on until the poundage is back. For me, that is absolutely, 100 % the critical success factor - getting back on plan the next day. So I'm still dieting, still pushing forward, but with each additional pound lost, it gets harder because of the ever smaller gap between what is and what should be. I could live with my current weight if I had to, and that wasn't the case at 330 pounds. And when I'm 20 lbs less than today, that feeling that "I don't really need to do this every day, and I really want a pizza" will be even stronger.

This satisficing problem inconveniently dovetails with the fact that with every pound lost, you get 5-6 calories less to eat. Lose 50 pounds, and you either have to eat 250 cals/day less food or slow down your weight loss goal (the latter making much more sense, obviously). So, when you think about it, the more success you have with weight loss, the more your progress slows down and/or the less food you can eat. This alone is probably responsible for many failed efforts.

Just my 2 cents.

JeromeBarry1 · April 2020

I don't recall learning from anyone the deep reason why they gave up. I only know the deep reason why I gave up all the previous times before I finally decided in 2000, to start caring. It is that I did not care whether I lived or died, and would be perfectly happy to arrive at death obese.

It wasn't a question of hunger or difficulty. I just didn't care enough.

ruqayyahsmum · April 2020

This year? I'm a stress eater. I did well until beginning of March when my daughters respiratory consultant rang to really ram home that if my girl catches corona she won't make it so get in the house, don't see another living soul and keep steroids to hand to whack in to her at first sign of a cough and do not set foot in the hospital

So as my mother taught me eat all the crap while plastering on a smile

Took a month to get a grip of myself mainly by telling all professionals that called to repeat what respiratory said, that if I need them I'll call but until then assume where fine and stop phoning

It's a learned behaviour that I think I'll be working on the rest of my life
My mother never stopped that behaviour until she took vascular alzhimers and could no longer get up and grab what she wanted

I remember summers as a child being shut in the garden to "play" and seeing her eat a whole cheesecake alone slumped in front of the TV
And I spent many years doing the exact same thing, rapidly gaining weight through a horrendous marriage and the early years of my daughters life while we lived in hospital

I'm trying not to pass my behaviours on to my kids because I want better in life for them

So I ordered a stack of colouring books, adult ones included and I get those out when I'm struggling instead

sijomial · April 2020

pink_mint wrote: »

I ask because I'm feeling impatient right now.

Impatience seems to be a big factor so beware!
There is commonly an unreasonable impatience to lose quickly the weight that took a long time to gain (or in my case to fix a long time being overweight) in a very short timescale.

Why did I fail previously?

Blaming someone else (the car driver who rearranged my knee and made me disabled for a period of time) rather than taking responsibility for the quantity of food I put in my mouth.
I really enjoy good food and social events around good food and being restricted is simply unpleasant.
I tried to lose too fast and restricted too much.
I dieted in ways that might suit other people (such as eliminating certain foods) but which didn't suit me.
Accepting near enough is good enough, I twice successfully dropped from what to me was an unacceptable weight but didn't continue to my optimal weight.

Why did I succeed?

I finally admitted my food intake and my long term health was my responsibility alone.
I made the very deliberate choice how at the age of 52 I approached aging - I could continue to be chubby but reasonably fit and accept my damaged knee will wear out quicker and my risk of weight related health issues in old age would be higher or I could do something about it.
I thought very clearly what my dieting strengths and weaknesses were and played to my strengths and mitigated my weaknesses. (I'm goal oriented/I love exercise/I'm very determined short term - I'm bored by routine/long term food deprivation saps my willpower/I can procrastinate when the goal gets close). So I used the 5:2 diet (you have to be determined on the 2 low days), I planned my weight loss with a clear cut but reasonable goal, I didn't restrict anything apart from my weekly calories, I used my love of exercise to let me lose weight with a higher calorie allowance boosted by exercise.

pink_mint · April 2020

nooshi713 wrote: »

I have given up in the past because it is difficult to constantly be hungry. I maintain around 1500-1700 calories depending on my activity level and eating even maintenance is a struggle because I’m often hungry. It doesn’t matter what combination of foods I eat, the hunger is there and hard to manage. It is like my body senses when it is in a deficit when I try to eat less and increases my hunger. I have tried increasing protein, volume, etc but none of that helps.

I can relate to this. Being in a deficit seems to be very difficult for me. I would just push through it except for how it affects me mentally and emotionally. It's draining and makes me feel unstable. It's not thirst or boredom.

I think I'm going to have to find the smallest possible deficit and just learn to be ok with very slow weight loss.

cmriverside · April 2020

pink_mint wrote: »

nooshi713 wrote: »

I have given up in the past because it is difficult to constantly be hungry. I maintain around 1500-1700 calories depending on my activity level and eating even maintenance is a struggle because I’m often hungry. It doesn’t matter what combination of foods I eat, the hunger is there and hard to manage. It is like my body senses when it is in a deficit when I try to eat less and increases my hunger. I have tried increasing protein, volume, etc but none of that helps.

I can relate to this. Being in a deficit seems to be very difficult for me. I would just push through it except for how it affects me mentally and emotionally. It's draining and makes me feel unstable. It's not thirst or boredom.

I think I'm going to have to find the smallest possible deficit and just learn to be ok with very slow weight loss.

Are you getting some exercise every day?

I am at maintenance weight, but if I don't get some purposeful exercise nearly every day my moods and hunger levels are way out of whack. That extra 300 calories per day is huge.

I could not have lost weight without exercise. I fought it tooth and nail, but it is truly the One Thing that I feel affects my ability to stay on course emotionally and weight-wise.

pink_mint · April 2020

That's good to hear @cmriverside. I actually do (started back in November) a pretty challenging bodyweight workout most days of the week and wonder what the point is sometimes. I mainly do it bc I want to stay strong with my scoliosis but of course I really want to lose these extra 50 lbs and I don't know if the exercise is doing anything in that regard.

But I'm glad to get any encouragement in staying w exercise because I wonder if it's really helping sometimes.

Edit: I have lost inches. So that's definitely something.

jamloche · April 2020

When I really get going on a diet, I go strong for a few months and drop noticeable amounts of weight. It starts to feel easy. Then I decide to take a day off for whatever reason, and hit the stores to buy all the soda and candy and lasagna and bread and ice cream. I know I'll be able to get right back on the diet, because it was so easy, but at the end of the "Day Off", there's still a ton of goodies left ... So one day off becomes two.

But there's not enough goodies for a second day, so I head back out to the stores to really get all the cheating out of my system.

Then it becomes three days. Then four. Then, [insert holiday] is right around the corner, so we might as well start up again after that.

When it's all said and done, I'm always astonished when the days turn into weeks and how ridiculously fast the weight comes back.

brenn24179 · April 2020

I think I get into the mindset this is not fair I hate to have to watch everything I eat. Well you know what I have to watch everything I eat and will for a lifetime. I now tell myself even wrote it in my phone You cant have it both ways, you will be sorry tomorrow. DO you want to be overweight and not fit in your clothes.

SnifterPug · April 2020

I did the typical lose weight, put more on, rinse, repeat for years. The diet phases would be unsustainable and boring. I didn't change my lifestyle. I never "gave up" as such on any of the diets. I just pushed against the boundaries until all of the diet habits vanished and all of the old lifestyle came back.

Finally loving fitness brought the change for me. I love feeling vigorous, strong and confident. To be able to do more physically meant losing weight and adjusting my diet accordingly. Now it is worth taking the trouble to eat healthily and maintain my weight. Being able to take emotions out on gym equipment has also helped me through the deaths of two darling dogs and now Covid lockdown. Previously I would just have sat on the couch and mainlined chocolate and booze.

nooshi713 · April 2020

pink_mint wrote: »

nooshi713 wrote: »

I have given up in the past because it is difficult to constantly be hungry. I maintain around 1500-1700 calories depending on my activity level and eating even maintenance is a struggle because I’m often hungry. It doesn’t matter what combination of foods I eat, the hunger is there and hard to manage. It is like my body senses when it is in a deficit when I try to eat less and increases my hunger. I have tried increasing protein, volume, etc but none of that helps.

I can relate to this. Being in a deficit seems to be very difficult for me. I would just push through it except for how it affects me mentally and emotionally. It's draining and makes me feel unstable. It's not thirst or boredom.

I think I'm going to have to find the smallest possible deficit and just learn to be ok with very slow weight loss.

I feel you. I’m trying to stay at a small deficit but even half pound a week puts me at 1250 some days. It is hard being small.

beulah81 · April 2020

pink_mint wrote: »

That's good to hear @cmriverside. I actually do (started back in November) a pretty challenging bodyweight workout most days of the week and wonder what the point is sometimes. I mainly do it bc I want to stay strong with my scoliosis but of course I really want to lose these extra 50 lbs and I don't know if the exercise is doing anything in that regard.

But I'm glad to get any encouragement in staying w exercise because I wonder if it's really helping sometimes.

Edit: I have lost inches. So that's definitely something.

I am in maintenance as well. Like for @cmriverside exercise is essential to keep me on track. After years of experimenting, the only exercise that doesn't dramatically increase my hunger is walking. Walking is also great for my mental state as well. It's a very useful tool for "out of nowhere munchies". Play around with that and see if there is an exercise that doesn't significantly drive up your hunger.

pink_mint · April 2020

Thanks, @beulah81 !

I will keep that in mind. I like walking. My situation (even before the pandemic) is that I am with my kids at all times (homeschool) so it's hard to get out for the kind of walks I'd like and they can be whiney about coming with me.

I started the bodyweight workout bc it's short, intense and can be done at home for free. But the days I don't do it I am noticeably less hungry 😕

spiriteagle99 · April 2020

For me it was impatience. I wanted instant results, when they didn't happen, or didn't continue as long as I needed, then I'd give up. I tried a lot of fairly extreme diets - 900 calories a day, Stillmans, fruit only, etc. On some I lost a lot of weight initially (water weight) but I was so hungry and felt so deprived I couldn't continue very long. On most I didn't last 3 days. I did well on Atkins, but needed cheat days to get through the months because I was missing so many different foods. As soon as I got to goal, I went back to my old way of eating and gained it back - twice. Eventually I hit upon a modified low carb way of eating that reduced my sugar intake but didn't eliminate it completely. I lost 50 lbs.

Not doing an extreme diet that eliminates food groups allowed me to lose steadily (though not necessarily consistently.) Increasing my exercise meant that I had enough calories to allow me to enjoy some of the treats that I always missed so much when i was trying to lose weight before. thus when I reached my goal, I didn't completely change my way of eating again, I just added a few calories and kept on eating the way I was eating while losing. I've maintained that loss for about 6 years.

niniundlapin · April 2020

For me the best combo for successful weight loss (& fat loss) is a balanced lifestyle- being able to eat in moderation, workout in a structured routine (cardio, weights, “fun ones” for rest day, etc), and sleep enough. The last one is the hardest since I had my daughter... those sleepless nights just translated into exhaustion and aggressive snacking behavior. Now she’s a bit older (1.5 yo) so I get to adapt into a new daily routine. Not sure how things will go later on though since I’m in maintenance and trying to gain muscle mass.

MeganD1704 · April 2020

What made me want to:
Back in...2012(?), my roommate took a photo of me on my birthday and when I seen it I couldn't believe it was me. My face was so puffy and swollen, it didn't look like me. It was weird how the photo provided me some sort of clarity change of mind.

I did really well- 2012-2014 I worked out and used MFP consistently. Lost all the weight I wanted and was working on lifting heavy and finding the body I wanted.
2015- rough rough year emotionally, lost a lot of family and people I cared for due to illness- brain switched to emotional eating and triggers.
2016- got it together, went back to working out but not using MFP. weight came off until I switched careers.
2016-2017- worked 80+ hrs a week starting my day at 4:30 am and on call 24/7/365- loved my job but lost my 5:00am workout- without logging or workouts weight came back.
2017-2018- still at my dream job working like a maniac.
2018- we get married- I do keto for a year and shed 45 lbs. Honeymoon in Hawaii- slide off track and didn't get back on keto. Couldn't do it- still some foods I cant eat. Felt so restrictive and hard to go back to.
2018-2019 - dream job still working like a maniac.
End of 2019- dream job closes.
2019-2020 so far- new job working a regular work week. Resumed working out and tracking on MFP- have the time to get up at 5 to workout, meal plan and prep. Realizing I have food triggers but realizing I can still eat what I want but smarter. Giving up fads to finally fuel my body properly.

I guess for me it was more so lack of time, some depression and just not caring that would cause me to give up.
I am glad I am back on track- yes its taking forever vs when I did Keto- but I do not care- I want to do this right and build lifelong habits.

pink_mint · April 2020

MeganD1704 wrote: »

I am glad I am back on track- yes its taking forever vs when I did Keto- but I do not care- I want to do this right and build lifelong habits.

Same here. I was on keto for quite a while and yes it worked for weight loss but I cannot bear the thought of doing it again. I guess I thought I was going to lead my whole life doing keto but I just can't.

MeganD1704 · April 2020

pink_mint wrote: »

MeganD1704 wrote: »

I am glad I am back on track- yes its taking forever vs when I did Keto- but I do not care- I want to do this right and build lifelong habits.

Same here. I was on keto for quite a while and yes it worked for weight loss but I cannot bear the thought of doing it again. I guess I thought I was going to lead my whole life doing keto but I just can't.

Yesss! Its weird- I did well on it but it just feels so restrictive now. Hated pre planning where we could/couldnt eat based on my diet. We went to Vegas and I fear my hubby missed out on my expense. We travel a lot when we can do I need to be able to have flexibility but still be healthy!

beaglady · April 2020

I logged here for over 3 years. During that time I lost around 50 pounds. Wasn’t exactly sure of start weight, within a couple pounds.

I have an office job and commute that required me to be away from home for 11 hours a day. It was hard to find time to get much exercise on weekdays. I also spent several evenings after work helping my elderly dad avoid a nursing home, and then several evenings a week clearing out his home after he passed, This was for almost 2 years.

As I lost weight, my calorie needs dropped to fewer than I found satisfying, around 1350. Due to the things mentioned above, it wasn’t easy to find time to exercise enough to earn extra calories.

Clearing out my dads house was stressful, eating brings comfort. I was sick of having to be so careful about every bite that went into my mouth. Once you quit tracking and caring, it’s hard to get back into it.

lgfrie · April 2020

jamloche wrote: »

When I really get going on a diet, I go strong for a few months and drop noticeable amounts of weight. It starts to feel easy. Then I decide to take a day off for whatever reason, and hit the stores to buy all the soda and candy and lasagna and bread and ice cream. I know I'll be able to get right back on the diet, because it was so easy, but at the end of the "Day Off", there's still a ton of goodies left ... So one day off becomes two.

But there's not enough goodies for a second day, so I head back out to the stores to really get all the cheating out of my system.

Then it becomes three days. Then four. Then, [insert holiday] is right around the corner, so we might as well start up again after that.

When it's all said and done, I'm always astonished when the days turn into weeks and how ridiculously fast the weight comes back.

This encapsulates perfectly my own past experience with diet failures.

The only difference between my so-far-successful 10 month weight loss journey now versus all the clusterf****s of my past is that no matter what happens now, I get back on the scale, exercise machine, and diet first thing the next morning, no exceptions. That is the only significant change I've made. I still occasionally binge, and a few of those have been insane. In the past I did all the calorie counting, logging, exercise, all of the same things I do now, except I didn't pull the plug on the binging the next morning. I got into the exact traip @jamloche described, right down to heading back to the store on the 2nd day to top off the junk food supply, at which point the diet was over because I couldn't regroup - I needed just one more day after that to complete my reset and then there was a holiday coming up in a week, and then there was the first of the month coming up in 4 more days, and so on. Now I do a hard stop on the binging when I go to sleep, get back on the horse first thing in the morning, and everything has fallen pretty well into place. It's literally the only difference for me this time around, but it's been everything.

New_Heavens_Earth · April 2020

My reasons:

People pleasing. I followed plans I hated because my friends did them or they were popular and I wanted camaraderie and their approval. When I didn't get any results or their results I quit.

Getting religious with plans. Each diet or exercise plan was The Solution, The Way. And I'd burn out and quit when I couldn't or didn't want to follow anymore.

Impatience. I'd run numbers with the Fitbit, Tdee calculators, and Libra. And if I didn't lose at the expected rate, knowing full well that I lose slowly no matter what I do, I'd quit.

Why I'm not quitting now? I'm uncomfortable. I literally looked in the mirror at the start of the quarantine and asked myself how I want to walk out of this. I was already unhappy. Most of my summer dresses (I live for my dresses) are on the edge of snug. I refuse to go into a size 10. I know that's someone's goal, but I was once a comfortable 4 and totally happy. I want that feeling back. I just turned 44 and entered perimenopause. I want to age gracefully and be healthy and active.

ReenieHJ · April 2020

I've come to realize stress and depression are huge reasons in why I overeat(and/or binge), always has been and evidently according to recent events/reactions, always will be.

When I get stressed, do I take a walk or listen to music, clean a closet or call a friend, to curb my anxiety? No, eating is my drug of choice. Not good by any means and I've had a difficult time controlling that, especially lately. I've been as much as 85# over my ideal weight throughout my life and am finally down to where I want to be, low end of my BMI. But staying there is a real daily battle because the urge to binge is so real right now.

I realize it's up to me to find my control button and click it back on but right now, it seems impossible to do.

ninerbuff · April 2020

My short answer: Because it's EASIER to be able to eat what you want in any amount and be fat than it is to be disciplined and eat what you NEED, to be healthy.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

LeiLaura · May 2020

cmriverside wrote: »

My story is a lot shorter.

I needed to lose weight, I knew it was ultimately about calories. I found a free website to help me track my calories. (This one.)

I logged food, and I planned and paid for a vacation that was in the Bahamas, which meant a bathing suit for a week. I had nine months to get the weight off. That worked! I got really close to my goal by the time I took off.

It wasn't until I got back and still had 15 pounds to lose that I had to really buckle down. The first 65 weren't nearly as hard to lose as the last 15. It required sticking to macros and calories and getting enough of all the nutrients. I had to make most of my own meals so I could control it. I weighed in daily. I used a food scale for food - all food. I walked on hilly trails for an hour 4-6 times per week. I had to be disciplined for those last 15 pounds and I had to live with quite a lot of hunger. I think that must be when people give up...the home stretch.

Totally this. Well done, you're very inspiring.

Why do people give up?

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