What did you need to learn?
NovusDies
Posts: 8,940 Member
As I mentioned I would like to develop a better resource for new members. To do that more comprehensively I would like to ask for existing members to write SMALL paragraphs for important things you have learned. It can be things you have learned anywhere. Some of what you write may be too specific to you but as I can I will try to adapt it for general use. I will probably try to compile it below then copy and paste it into the final thread.
DRAFT:
Perception of Food:
Food is neither good or evil, junk or healthy, clean or unclean. Depending on the situation any food can be helpful or hurtful. People have gained weight eating a vegan diet and athletes sometime rely on sugar sources for quick energy. Understand that all weight loss comes down to eating slightly less calories than you need each day. They type of food you eat only matters if it causes you a medical problem like an allergy or causes you to eat more of it than you intend.
There is no reason to eliminate any food you can moderate. You may also find that some foods you struggle to moderate now may not be a problem in time so it may be worth trying them again after a few months.
You do not need to lose weight everyday just most days:
Eating more food than you need in a day is no reason to be down on yourself, think you have blown your diet, or worse quit. It is normal to have off days. It is abnormal to lose weight for months and months without making mistakes. Give yourself permission to be human.
Calorie Counting
If you intend to count calories start by counting all of them honestly. It is important to learn what your normal food habits are and how they translate to calories. After time you will learn what shortcuts you can take and still have a calorie count that helps you progress. Choosing to have an open diary is up to you.
Perceptions of Self
Weight gain doesn't mean you were weak, lazy, or bad. It just makes you human in an era of over-abundance. Your weight is one attribute of your total person. It may limit you in some ways but it doesn't define you. As you lose weight you may gain additional freedom and confidence which may may turn up the volume in your life but do not count on it curing unhappiness.
Eat to lose. Exercise to improve fitness.
DRAFT:
1. Don't assign morality to food. Weight loss REALLY DOES come down to a calorie deficit, and you can lose weight eating all of the things that the world tells you are "bad".
2. Learn how to move on from a high-calorie day without beating yourself up. One bad day does not mean you've failed. Get right back on track the next day (or even later the same day!)
3. Track what you eat. You don't have to share with anyone else, but be honest with YOURSELF and track everything.
4. Don't eliminate foods you love. Instead, strive to eat them less often, and eat smaller portions of them.
Perception of Food:
Food is neither good or evil, junk or healthy, clean or unclean. Depending on the situation any food can be helpful or hurtful. People have gained weight eating a vegan diet and athletes sometime rely on sugar sources for quick energy. Understand that all weight loss comes down to eating slightly less calories than you need each day. They type of food you eat only matters if it causes you a medical problem like an allergy or causes you to eat more of it than you intend.
There is no reason to eliminate any food you can moderate. You may also find that some foods you struggle to moderate now may not be a problem in time so it may be worth trying them again after a few months.
You do not need to lose weight everyday just most days:
Eating more food than you need in a day is no reason to be down on yourself, think you have blown your diet, or worse quit. It is normal to have off days. It is abnormal to lose weight for months and months without making mistakes. Give yourself permission to be human.
Calorie Counting
If you intend to count calories start by counting all of them honestly. It is important to learn what your normal food habits are and how they translate to calories. After time you will learn what shortcuts you can take and still have a calorie count that helps you progress. Choosing to have an open diary is up to you.
conniewilkins56 wrote: »I have learned that time is going to pass whether you diet or not...
” Dieting” doesn’t make you a “ good” person....overeating doesnt make you a bad person...
Thin people can be as unhappy as anyone else...being thin doesn’t necessarily mean you will be happy!
Eating healthy and restricting calories makes you lose weight....exercise makes you physically fit...
As you get older everything sags because of the force of gravity!
Perceptions of Self
Weight gain doesn't mean you were weak, lazy, or bad. It just makes you human in an era of over-abundance. Your weight is one attribute of your total person. It may limit you in some ways but it doesn't define you. As you lose weight you may gain additional freedom and confidence which may may turn up the volume in your life but do not count on it curing unhappiness.
Eat to lose. Exercise to improve fitness.
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Replies
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I probably don't have much to say that you won't already include, but here are a few for me. (Re-word and re-work as needed!)
1. Don't assign morality to food. Weight loss REALLY DOES come down to a calorie deficit, and you can lose weight eating all of the things that the world tells you are "bad".
2. Learn how to move on from a high-calorie day without beating yourself up. One bad day does not mean you've failed. Get right back on track the next day (or even later the same day!)
3. Track what you eat. You don't have to share with anyone else, but be honest with YOURSELF and track everything.
4. Don't eliminate foods you love. Instead, strive to eat them less often, and eat smaller portions of them.3 -
bobsburgersfan wrote: »I probably don't have much to say that you won't already include, but here are a few for me. (Re-word and re-work as needed!)
1. Don't assign morality to food. Weight loss REALLY DOES come down to a calorie deficit, and you can lose weight eating all of the things that the world tells you are "bad".
2. Learn how to move on from a high-calorie day without beating yourself up. One bad day does not mean you've failed. Get right back on track the next day (or even later the same day!)
3. Track what you eat. You don't have to share with anyone else, but be honest with YOURSELF and track everything.
4. Don't eliminate foods you love. Instead, strive to eat them less often, and eat smaller portions of them.
These are the kinds of things I am really likely to overlook though. I am always so anxious to get to the entree that I am often bad at dealing with the appetizers. I might have hit all of them or I might have missed something. It is hard to say. I know to say them when I see someone struggling but trying to write up something comprehensive takes me many tries. I really want to get something pretty complete this time around.
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I have learned that time is going to pass whether you diet or not...
” Dieting” doesn’t make you a “ good” person....overeating doesnt make you a bad person...
Thin people can be as unhappy as anyone else...being thin doesn’t necessarily mean you will be happy!
Eating healthy and restricting calories makes you lose weight....exercise makes you physically fit...
As you get older everything sags because of the force of gravity!2 -
Look to the long haul - you didn't put it on overnight and it isn't going to come off overnight.
Find a method that is sustainable and you can see yourself eating like for the rest of your life - short term gimmicks don't work.
Carb's are not evil, sugar is not poison, and everything in moderation.
Water weight stinks big time and can screw with your head, but you don't gain 2 lbs or more overnight, so calm down, breath, and repeat that its water weight; it will come off.
Weight loss isn't linear and sometimes your body just like to mess with you, so you have to be patient and stay the course and wait your body out.2 -
One thing leads to another.
First thing I noticed was that my portions were too big. Then I noticed that I was hungry a lot and that didn’t feel very good. Then I figured out that by making better choices I could get more than enough to eat without blowing up my plan.
It was some time later that I learned that the real important thing was the process.4 -
1. I think it's just as important to count and monitor the days you fall of the wagon (or just decide to stop dieting for a while) as it is to track while your dieting. You can catch yourself sooner if things get wildly off track...
2. Get rid of your too big clothes and things that remind you of the past as soon as you can, if you have to go back out and re buy larger clothing you feel that things are getting off track without stepping on a scale.
This action of monitoring not just your weight but how you feel is for life.
I learned the hard way not stepping on the scale for a few years, and 100lbs later... I know the fact that i kept my larger clothing didn't help, i just kept mindlessly pulling it out. If I was monitoring I wouldn't be so in shock.
Hope this helps someone not regain like I did.
Hugz, Lyn2 -
Ragamuffin14 wrote: »1. I think it's just as important to count and monitor the days you fall of the wagon (or just decide to stop dieting for a while) as it is to track while your dieting. You can catch yourself sooner if things get wildly off track...
2. Get rid of your too big clothes and things that remind you of the past as soon as you can, if you have to go back out and re buy larger clothing you feel that things are getting off track without stepping on a scale.
This action of monitoring not just your weight but how you feel is for life.
I learned the hard way not stepping on the scale for a few years, and 100lbs later... I know the fact that i kept my larger clothing didn't help, i just kept mindlessly pulling it out. If I was monitoring I wouldn't be so in shock.
Hope this helps someone not regain like I did.
Hugz, Lyn
Yup; the first time I lost a bunch of weight 8 years ago, I just put all my big clothes in a tub and shoved them in my closet as a "just in case" - so I was pretty much essentially setting myself up for failure, I suppose. Sure enough, I was digging them back out within 3 years.
This time around I did get rid of almost everything. I kept a top or two and I think a pair of pants to compare with, but everything else went when I had to finally get a new wardrobe. And now I find myself going down a few sizes again, so I'm working through my closet a second time!1 -
I can only think of two at the moment:
Make sure you always have food you like at home. There have been countless times I've been tempted to go through a drive through on the way home but knowing I had something good at the house made it that much easier to resist.
The first law of motion sums it up nicely: a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Exercise and stretching really do go a long way to help stay the course. It's such a good feeling to discover all the new things your body can do.
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An important thing I've learned is that it is ok for me to put my health first in my priorities.
For me to achieve greater health I need to eat at a calorie deficit each day, move my body with deliberation, and be kind to myself.1 -
Another thought I just had is that when you are figuring out what works for you, don't be afraid to challenge your own preconceived ideas. We pick up beliefs from all over the place (family members or friends, the internet, media, etc) about what is the "correct" way to lose weight, and they might not be the best plan for us.
If that doesn't make sense an example is that my mom was a perpetual dieter my whole life, and I picked up a lot of things from her. Quite a few years ago, I realized that I had a couple of food rules that I had picked up from her, and when I thought about it and told myself it was okay not to follow those rules, it made losing weight seem so much more sustainable to me.
I'm not sure if this is a new thought or just expounding on the perception of food. I'll let you decide if there's anything worth adding.
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I learned this week that things do get easier on the body!!!!
From January to March I said I would go to the gym because walks outside hurt my knees and I ended up overdoing it and not exercising at all for 4 weeks.
April I bought an elliptical and it took me until the end of May not to almost pass out after 15 minutes of exercise every 2 days. Now it's mid June and I try to get on the elliptical almost every day and i can do 30 minutes pretty easily and my knees are feeling good!!!
I am glad i increased steadily and slowly, I can't wait to see where I am come December.
Wohooooo!
Lyn6 -
A lot of what I learned I already kind of detailed, when I was blogging on my website, if any of it is any use to you, feel free. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite after piling all the weight back on after a year of maintaining, so I would also add that if dealing with emotional issues around food, they should be tackled before or as well as the physical act of weight loss because it's easy to slip back into old coping habits, if you haven't tackled them.
Some stuff here: https://blackwellange.wixsite.com/exercisenoextrafries/myfitnesspal-tips
https://blackwellange.wixsite.com/exercisenoextrafries/single-post/2016/12/27/The-Start-of-My-Journey
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bobsburgersfan wrote: »Another thought I just had is that when you are figuring out what works for you, don't be afraid to challenge your own preconceived ideas. We pick up beliefs from all over the place (family members or friends, the internet, media, etc) about what is the "correct" way to lose weight, and they might not be the best plan for us.
If that doesn't make sense an example is that my mom was a perpetual dieter my whole life, and I picked up a lot of things from her. Quite a few years ago, I realized that I had a couple of food rules that I had picked up from her, and when I thought about it and told myself it was okay not to follow those rules, it made losing weight seem so much more sustainable to me.
I'm not sure if this is a new thought or just expounding on the perception of food. I'll let you decide if there's anything worth adding.
I don't think it's a learning but more of a realization or a confidence that what I'm doing and the choices I'm making are right for me. We have all gotten tons of advice about how to lose weight and what to eat/not eat that it makes the head spin. If I didn't have aspecific plan of what I was doing it would have been very easy to be swayed or strayed off path. On the flip side having the awarness to change up things that aren't working.1 -
1. Planning ahead helps you to make good decisions and takes the guesswork out of what to eat.
2. Batch cooking/ having quick healthy meals or snacks on hand can help you to stay the course when you are otherwise too busy or stressed to cook.
3. Weight loss is not linear. There will be ups and downs, plateaus and setbacks, but if you stay the course you will get there.
4. When you fail (not if-we all do some days) be kind to yourself and get back on track the next day. One meal or day is not going to wreck your success.1 -
I needed to learn that I am still a strong confident and attractive woman!...I am doing things I could not do a year ago!....I am losing weight but I am gaining so much more....I love my pool workout, I like putting on make up and getting dressed every day instead of living in a night gown...I enjoy being able to shop without sitting in an electrical cart....all of these little things mean so much....7
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Right now I am learning patience!1
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I am learning patience right now too!1
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Thanks for this thread, it's really helpful. I think I needed and still need to learn that just to have a good day is enough, then repeat. Also that I don't need maximum willpower all the time, but I do need maximum willpower when I'm doing the supermarket shop.2
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Time goes by whether I’m working towards my goals or not. Every day piles up. Like each drop fills a bucket.1
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This is a great thread. So many things here that I did learn along the way - probably would have learned much quicker had I read about them (not right away, because I don't learn that fast.)
One activity/thought that I hold onto is that I can't control the day-to-day or week-to-week scale numbers, some days I don't even feel like I have full control over what I eat. But I do have full control of logging everything I eat and any exercise I do. So I am 100% committed to that - no matter how good or bad it is. I think that keeps me coming back and reduces the danger of falling off the weight-loss wagon. Because logging is manageable and I can always feel good about at least having done that, even if what I am logging isn't so great, even if I have to go back a day (or two) to complete my food or exercise diary.3
