Thoughts, Epiphanies, Insights, & Quotables
Replies
-
“ The only way past is through”................”A goal without a plan is just a wish”
I love these to Larger Loser quotes and I say them many times a day as I continue on this journey I started almost 200 days ago.....i have them both on sticky notes inside my pantry!3 -
Here's one for you, @conniewilkins56 and group!
"There are only two days in the year when nothing can be done.
One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow.
So Today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live."
~ Dalai Lama4 -
hansep0012 wrote: »Here's one for you, @conniewilkins56 and group!
"There are only two days in the year when nothing can be done.
One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow.
So Today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live."
~ Dalai Lama
I love this, thank you!....0 -
WARNING:......Chocolate makes your clothes shrink!
1 -
I am fighting for and to defend my freedom.
As far as epiphanies go this was one of the biggest ones I have had recently. While away for the weekend with my nephew and doing things I have not done ever or not done since I was a teenager it made a profound impact on me. I have talked about being in a prison or a cell of my own fat but I am not sure I even realized how much I had given up.
When I was a teen I loved to just get out and walk. I would willingly walk multiple miles roundtrip to go to a store. It was even better on vacation when I could get out and explore which is something you can do much better on foot than you can in a vehicle. While my nephew napped (he was a week recovered from the flu plus the kid sleeps A LOT) I did this several times. It felt like I was a kid again. Fat made me feel older than my chronological age. I feel younger than I am now. It is amazing.
There are a lot of important things I have done for myself. Losing weight is not the most important but it is at the top of the list.
Even though my remaining weight loss is under 15 percent (I think) I believe there is still more freedom to win. I also believe that I have to work extra hard at preparing for maintenance because this freedom is too valuable to lose again.8 -
There is probably not anything anyone can do to completely escape the neurosis that is weight loss. The only thing we can do is always identify it when it happens and do not do anything radical as a result of it.
As I battle my own irrational feelings at the moment over going too long without my spreadsheet to properly comfort me this has come up. I have said it hear a number of times that we are still human and we can't beat ourselves up over fears, baggage, emotions, etc. We just have to always keep an eye out for them and try to maintain an objective perspective. Obviously the most common problem is the bathroom scale not behaving. You don't have to like it but do not start a 3 day fast trying to force it to move.4 -
I am fighting for and to defend my freedom.
As far as epiphanies go this was one of the biggest ones I have had recently. While away for the weekend with my nephew and doing things I have not done ever or not done since I was a teenager it made a profound impact on me. I have talked about being in a prison or a cell of my own fat but I am not sure I even realized how much I had given up.
When I was a teen I loved to just get out and walk. I would willingly walk multiple miles roundtrip to go to a store. It was even better on vacation when I could get out and explore which is something you can do much better on foot than you can in a vehicle. While my nephew napped (he was a week recovered from the flu plus the kid sleeps A LOT) I did this several times. It felt like I was a kid again. Fat made me feel older than my chronological age. I feel younger than I am now. It is amazing.
There are a lot of important things I have done for myself. Losing weight is not the most important but it is at the top of the list.
Even though my remaining weight loss is under 15 percent (I think) I believe there is still more freedom to win. I also believe that I have to work extra hard at preparing for maintenance because this freedom is too valuable to lose again.
Weight loss is liberation.
1 -
yikes 'hear' should have been 'here' - I find it really weird that I often do a homophone typo when I am talking on the phone.2
-
Ms Google and I have an iffy relationship. Especially when she corrects me without permission and after the fact!
2 -
“We can’t fix weight loss but we can fix dinner.”
Just made that one up on another message board.4 -
Thought of something today when replying to another post:
"As long as I keep trying, there is hope of success. Quitting now only guarantees failure."6 -
Moderate Your Sense of Urgency
I think from the very beginning most of us have a sense of urgency to get the weight off. As it begins to happen and NSVs start to stockpile it can start to have a gravitational pull and it reinforces that sense of urgency. Who doesn't want more of a good thing?
I was thinking about some of the advice I have given recently and throughout as I have tried to help people. I always urge caution on premature reactions to limited data. I still think that is wise because I do not think it is helpful to lose 5 pounds in a week and assume the next week you can eat a lot more just to end up disappointed or worse gaining weight.
The thing is some, maybe most, of the time I am more concerned with a person wasting time. It is true this is a dangerous thing at the beginning of a weight loss effort but not so much for a person who is fairly stable. I also realize that I am STILL afraid of wasting my own time even though I am not actually that invested in these final pounds. I have more I can lose and I can still lose pretty easily so I should press on but these are mostly vanity pounds now. I am a little too hardwired to think that if I am trying to lose weight I need to be losing the amount I am targeting.
I have been able to moderate my sense of urgency and take time off for holidays, vacations, breaks, etc. but I think I need to work on it a little more.1 -
Everything is Part of the Plan/Process
This is something that I have been saying for quite some time. It is part of my decision that I would change my "normal." Since my normal has never been perfect I have no reason to expect that the process of losing weight would be perfect either. This mindset is important to me because it reminds me there is never a reason to quit and as long as I never quit I am progressing towards something better. Notice I didn't say progressing towards a goal even though that may happen too. Goals can be unrealistic though. They can also be modified. I have never known my goal weight. I still don't. My plan is to improve my situation. I can often make a small improvement in a day. Those small improvements add up to moderate ones and moderate ones add up to major ones.
4 -
This is great! This reminded me of something. Back in 2012 I had planned a trip to Europe with my sister, and for 4 months I had the goal of losing as much weight as possible before the trip. After the trip I felt a bit lost and was worried that I would give up because I didn't have that trip motivation anymore. An online weight watcher friend at the time said to just tell myself "this is who I am now" or "this is what I do now". I have always found that helpful. I think it fits right in with "changing my normal", even if that's not how she worded it. This same woman was adamantly against setting scale goals (especially timed scale goals.) I learned a lot from her. Anyway, I just appreciated the reminder that this is about changing my normal and it's not about working toward a goal.Everything is Part of the Plan/Process
This is something that I have been saying for quite some time. It is part of my decision that I would change my "normal." Since my normal has never been perfect I have no reason to expect that the process of losing weight would be perfect either. This mindset is important to me because it reminds me there is never a reason to quit and as long as I never quit I am progressing towards something better. Notice I didn't say progressing towards a goal even though that may happen too. Goals can be unrealistic though. They can also be modified. I have never known my goal weight. I still don't. My plan is to improve my situation. I can often make a small improvement in a day. Those small improvements add up to moderate ones and moderate ones add up to major ones.2 -
bobsburgersfan wrote: »
This is great! This reminded me of something. Back in 2012 I had planned a trip to Europe with my sister, and for 4 months I had the goal of losing as much weight as possible before the trip. After the trip I felt a bit lost and was worried that I would give up because I didn't have that trip motivation anymore. An online weight watcher friend at the time said to just tell myself "this is who I am now" or "this is what I do now". I have always found that helpful. I think it fits right in with "changing my normal", even if that's not how she worded it. This same woman was adamantly against setting scale goals (especially timed scale goals.) I learned a lot from her. Anyway, I just appreciated the reminder that this is about changing my normal and it's not about working toward a goal.Everything is Part of the Plan/Process
This is something that I have been saying for quite some time. It is part of my decision that I would change my "normal." Since my normal has never been perfect I have no reason to expect that the process of losing weight would be perfect either. This mindset is important to me because it reminds me there is never a reason to quit and as long as I never quit I am progressing towards something better. Notice I didn't say progressing towards a goal even though that may happen too. Goals can be unrealistic though. They can also be modified. I have never known my goal weight. I still don't. My plan is to improve my situation. I can often make a small improvement in a day. Those small improvements add up to moderate ones and moderate ones add up to major ones.
And here I thought I was the first person to ever think this way.
Kidding of course.
Sometimes we are lucky to find people like that by happenstance. Most of the time we have to be looking for them though. The internet and world are full of wise people but it is all full of unwise and not-yet-wise all sharing their thoughts too.2 -
Your Life Doesn't Stop Because You Have Chosen to Lose Weight
I actually thought I had already put this one in here.
This one is hitting home for me at the moment. I have been asked to step up and in a couple of weeks I will go through another small period of time when I will have to adapt to being in a different place and having less control of my food again.
In the past I would make a plan with no regard for flexibility. In fact, I would see flexibility as a weakness. Ask an oak tree in a hurricane how well that works. Ask a palm tree the same question.
This is why a flexibility in the plan is important. Sometimes progress means less progress and sometimes the best thing you can do is not regress much.
However it is not just the plan that needs to be flexible. We have to be mentally flexible too. All or nothing thinking held me back for too long. I may not like periods of time where I have less control but I also can't allow those periods to create another massive setback. I have to accept that I may not handle everything perfectly and it might equal a few pounds of regain but that doesn't mean I can shut down... not anymore.
Your life will keep happening and it will be messy at times. Good days, bad days, family barbecues, business lunches, holidays, vacations, and everything else. Your way of adapting to these will probably not be exactly the same as the next person. That doesn't matter. What matters is that you do not allow the mess to throw you - at least not too far.
7 -
Continuous Excess Food is a Depressant
Physically and to different degrees mentally food that keeps adding to our fat levels depresses our lives. The very thing that gives us energy to live and move in continuous excess does the exact opposite. It robs us of years and given enough time and fat it takes more and more of our ability to move easily and possibly at all. The thing that seems to give us joy when we eat it, in continuous excess, then becomes one of the few joys we have left. It is insidious.
There is a grief period as you come to grips with the realization that you can no longer eat whatever you want whenever you want if you wish to have long term results. We think we are giving something important up. I guess it did become important to me because it forced out so much of the other pleasures of my life it was one of the few remaining. I don't miss those days as much as I did in the first year of loss. I compromise by allowing shadows of those kinds of days on special occasions but even then it is not really the same because I am being a responsible adult and the control is in offsetting days. It may be too much food but I pay for it before or eventually after. The days I have given up were parts of my childhood that lingered well into my 40's. That story will be different for other people.
Awareness is part of our defense. We need to see food as the asset to life it is with the pitfalls it also represents if not managed correctly. The NSVs that I have accumulated can all be forfeited if I choose to stop paying attention. I need to hold on to them tightly when any old urges surface.3 -
What are you Sacrificing that you Need so much Motivation?
What are you giving up that you need the scale to go down or other motivation to keep you going? You are eating less food. You are possibly moving more. You are gaining better health and fitness. You are losing more food than you need to be eating and a shorter and poorer quality life. You are gaining freedom and a higher quality of life. You are exchanging a fleeting moment of pleasure for more possibilities of lasting pleasure.
I am not being preachy here. I have to be reminded of this pretty often myself.2 -
3 -
3 -
Sometimes it is crazy how your body works or reacts to different situations.....after two strenuous swimming workouts Thurs. Fri. And Sat., I had a short swim Sun. and a rest day Mon....I kept holding the same weight and then after doing nothing yesterday, I was down 1.2 lbs this morning!...I am still up 2 lbs from my two week break but at least it is going down...and I am averaging about one pound a week the last 15 months...88 lb loss total...my husband also had his spinal procedure yesterday and that relieved some stress I was feeling...every day brings a new challenge !3
-
@conniewilkins56 - stress, both physical and mental, causes us to retain water. It's no wonder that once a major source of stress was gone your weight dropped too. I bet you'll continue to see a drop over this week. I'm so happy for you and your husband that his procedure went well. And congratulations on an 88 pound loss. A HUGE accomplishment!2
-
I just saw this. This is something I need to be reminded of, too! The momentary, instant gratification type of desires have a much stronger pull most of the time than the long-term rewards that you are talking about. It's hard to really envision how not eating a piece of pie affects my future, but I know exactly how much I'll enjoy it right now. It's easy to justify that it's just one piece of pie and it's only going to set me back a tiny bit in the long term. But then it's easy to keep justifying more and more things that are only setting me back a tiny bit and it can easily spiral into a backward slide.What are you Sacrificing that you Need so much Motivation?
What are you giving up that you need the scale to go down or other motivation to keep you going? You are eating less food. You are possibly moving more. You are gaining better health and fitness. You are losing more food than you need to be eating and a shorter and poorer quality life. You are gaining freedom and a higher quality of life. You are exchanging a fleeting moment of pleasure for more possibilities of lasting pleasure.
I am not being preachy here. I have to be reminded of this pretty often myself.
Lately, this is exactly what I've been struggling with. I've been giving in to far too many of those fleeting moments of pleasure. I think I've lost a lot of that long-term perspective and need to get that back in my head.5 -
Bobs burgers one thing that keeps me motivated is my age....most of you that are in your 30s and 40s hopefully have many more years of your life to live...at 69 I realistically am in the last 1/3 of my life....I wasted 40 years playing with my health and my weight....I was fortunate not to really let my weight hold me back but looking back now I could have done so much more!...and my weight did take its toll on me....back surgery,2 knees replaced, shoulder surgery, and high blood pressure to name a few health issues...I am extremely lucky that I am as mobile as I am!...now I want the last 1/3 of my life to be healthy,thinner and as easy as possible!...being overweight is hard...think about all of the possibilities you will be open to if you continue losing weight!...and you will have many years to enjoy your rewards!4
-
"Temporary failure becomes permanent defeat only when you say so" (unknown author)4
-
conniewilkins56 Amen! You said exactly what I was thinking.....when I looked at my medical records with my doctor and realized that everything wrong with me was directly related to my obesity....and that it would just keep getting worse if the trend continued, I had to acknowledge the 800 lb gorilla in the room. The idea of being completely disabled was a jolt! Hence here I am.2
-
3 -
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement" - my dad.
I've always liked this one - he always throws this out when I'm feeling bad about messing something up. As I struggle a lot with perfectionism, I think it has been a particularly useful way to frame my weight loss mentality - mistakes are totally fine, perhaps even desirable, because you have the opportunity to learn from them. Did I go way over my calories at a party? That's okay, figure out what I learned from it, and move on. Sometimes the lesson is "This is great, I can allow myself to do this a few times a year and enjoy it." Or it could be "Wow this feels awful, what can I do differently next time? Maybe take smaller helpings, focusing on the food items that I really want and skipping the ones I'm less excited about." Without having made the error in judgement, I might have still been on track calorie-wise, but would be less prepared for when a similar situation arises in the future.4 -
conniewilkins56 wrote: »Sometimes it is crazy how your body works or reacts to different situations.....after two strenuous swimming workouts Thurs. Fri. And Sat., I had a short swim Sun. and a rest day Mon....I kept holding the same weight and then after doing nothing yesterday, I was down 1.2 lbs this morning!...I am still up 2 lbs from my two week break but at least it is going down...and I am averaging about one pound a week the last 15 months...88 lb loss total...my husband also had his spinal procedure yesterday and that relieved some stress I was feeling...every day brings a new challenge !
Connie, I caught a post by you on the main boards, but it sounds to me that you're doing ok mostly?
88+ lbs in a year is certainly far from slow starting and ending weight matters but I went a touch slower and still, in retrospect, can tell you it was as fast as it should have if not a touch more than that--for me. So not slow.
Becoming more active, especially as a larger person can cause large swings in weight.
Do I think you burn 1000 Cal swimming 90 minutes? I would have to know your current info and work abilities to venture an opinion. You burn calories by swimming, for sure. And quite a few of them during the event. But they are hard to quantify. Breaststroke or butterfly... 25m laps with 1 minute rests, or 20*50m non stop flip turns at a time?
For myself, since I don't swim laps, I usually use a reduced leisurely swimming time to account for pool activity. It's not common for me and I would say I probably underestimate slightly when I do that (based on post activity hunger), but it's generally been in the context of a vacation with looser logging for me, and weight wise the logging discrepancy is minor in my case.
Your experience of losing scale weight on a rest day is fairly common: you reduce water weight retention for muscle repair when you're less sore.
Anyway, i will look for any other post you've written on the subject... but it does sound as if you're on an ok track especially since you've already dropped any weight you regained during your recent break
https://exrx.net/Calculators/Calories would give you an idea about net calories burned during the time you are engaged in the actual exercise activitym
Because of how MFP accounts for calories during the day (sedentary is set to 1.25*BMR calories), out of your net calories burned you would eat back all of them except for 0.25*BMR/1440*minutes of activity if MFP is set to sedentary.
0 -
Thanks, I think....I do not do numbers well....give me a spelling test!...
I am not an Olympic swimmer by any means....I do a few free style laps but I also do water aerobics,tread water continuously for 30 minutes and jog at a slow pace back and forth across the pool for 30 minutes non stop....
I started out at 350 May 28, 2019 and I am now 260... I am 5’9” ( I am shrinking in height I might be 5’ 8” )...I am set at sedentary and 1 1/2 lbs a week loss...I usually get between 3000 and 4000 steps a day not counting my pool activity...I rarely hit my protein levels....
I just need some help sorting things out if I am doing what I should be and eating enough or too much....I am usually not hungry but I do have stuff going on in my life such as my husbands health that is causing me anxiety...
I am not quitting...only a stumble in the road and a woe is me week....
Thanks again1
