I'm struggling...with everything.

After years and years of yoyo-ing on everything in life, I'm wondering if I even care anymore. Yearly, monthly, weekly, daily I go from super motivated to lose weight and reach other life goals, only to fail to follow through. The time is flying by and I'm no better off than I was a few years ago. I'm exhausted and honestly, am not even sure if any of it even matters anymore. Why keep trying if I'm only going to let myself down once again? What exactly is it I want, anyway? My husband and I are in a complete rut after 25 years of marriage. We're deeply in debt, we're just drudging along day by day, not really healthy, not really motivated to change. We drink beer and eat "bowl snacks" in front of the tv every night. I'm active during the day, working on our horse farm, walking and swimming. No matter how active I am, I never lose any of the 30+ extra pounds I'm holding onto. I know it has to come from diet, but I just can't seem to maintain the dedication to eating healthy. I'm starting a new job this week and am an anxious mess. It's a part-time gig that shouldn't be stressful, but since I'm feeling so *kitten*, weak and have no confidence, it's making my anxiety skyrocket. I'm coming off an injury and haven't been able to swim, walk or ride my horses for 2 weeks so I know I'm depressed. I keep reminding myself that those things will be back to normal soon and the job will be fine once I get started, but deep down I just keep wondering what is it I want and why? I feel like I'm tired of just letting time go by as if I'm counting down the days to death, but am not sure I have it in me to strive for more given my past failings. I feel like I'm at the point where I just can't organize my thoughts to make a plan that I can stick to.
Any advice on how to pull myself together?
I'm very much a checklist kind of person so I'd love to hear from those who have daily/weekly/monthly/yearly checklists.

Replies

  • SERmom3
    SERmom3 Posts: 568 Member
    Sorry things are so difficult right now. One thing that worked when I was getting started was to take baby steps. Previously, I would try to make large lifestyle changes, but would eventually fail. Once I started making one small change at a time, I was able to stick with it.

    Since you like checklists, you might benefit from the “Daily Commitment Thread for 2020” on the Motivation and Support page. Every day you log on and post your goals for the day. The next day you indicate how you did. New people are joining all the time, so feel free to jump right in!

    Best of luck to you!
  • JBanx256
    JBanx256 Posts: 1,479 Member
    "Atomic Habits" by James Clear

    Good luck with the new job too!
  • frontdoorangel
    frontdoorangel Posts: 34 Member
    I'm sorry you're struggling. I know for me personally, the why had to become something along the lines of because I deserve this. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be healthy and I deserve the feeling of accomplishment that comes with achieving a goal. To stay motivated, I set small goals. Very small goals in the beginning. Not just weight goals, but exercise goals. Sometimes I just set a goal to do something nice for myself until it became a habit. This small goal setting carried through to all aspects of my life and I now no longer have credit card debt. I also love making lists and I created a spreadsheet for my debt and did the same thing I was doing for health and fitness, I created goals. Pay this down an extra $5 a month etc. This took a long time but the satisfaction of seeing something moving in my life was incredibly rewarding.

    You deserve to be happy and healthy. I hope you find something that works for you.
  • ChickenKillerPuppy
    ChickenKillerPuppy Posts: 297 Member
    I am also sorry you are struggling. I would echo what others said about not worrying about just diving head long into a diet and then giving up - if you just do the same things you have always done you will get the same results. I second the idea that you should just pick one habit at a time to work on, and you can check it off your list, but just try to work on one small habit at a time. It could be drinking 8 glasses of water a day, or adding a 30 minute walk 3-4 days a week, or one or two days a week snack on veggies instead of whatever is in your snack bowl - but just one or two days a week. SLOW changes that you can maintain, and one change at a time. You have your whole life to get there.

    Quiksylver mentioned the podcast Half Size Me - I listen to that podcast also and find it TREMENDOUSLY helpful. I also listen to a podcast called "We Only Look Thin" which also really helps me, and they recommended "Atomic Habits" which someone else suggested above.

    If there is any way to talk to a professional about your depression I hope you can. Thinking about you lots and hope you get through this.
  • ALZ14
    ALZ14 Posts: 202 Member
    I’m so sorry you are struggling right now. My weight has been up and down (mostly up) my whole adult life. I lose weight, get comfortable and slowly gain it back, I lose weight, got married, had kids and weight went up again. This spring I was furloughed, I was close to my highest weight, not happy with my appearance and I was starting to have joint pain. I decided to start taking daily walks and then a few weeks later I started counting calories and now live lost 22.5 pounds and lost 2 pants sizes. Physically and emotionally I’m doing much better even though I’m still on furlough.

    If an “all in” approach for you has failed in the past or is overwhelming for you now, I suggest trying baby steps to whatever your goals are. Try one small change at a time and then add another and another and before you know it you will be making good progress!

    Good luck!
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    edited August 2020
    I don't know if I read this above or not, but I researched nutrition pretty heavily when I started losing weight in 2007. I started little by little eating much more balanced nutrition. Simple meals, simple whole food ingredients, trying to watch my sugar and caffeine intake, eating more vegetables and whole fruits.

    Losing weight required that I get a little exercise (or be hungry!) so I did that too.

    I don't know which of all those things help the most, but they are all important. Losing weight became a completely life-transforming event. When I started taking better care of ME, it had an exponential factor. The more good I did the better I felt, so the more things I was willing to try. :)


    _____________________
  • DanaDark
    DanaDark Posts: 2,187 Member
    Commitment and long term goals are difficult to do. Sounds like you might benefit from some sort of eating time plane equally as much as lower calorie food choices.

    For me, simply cutting 500 calories a day every day is not right for me. It is difficult to stick to and it also makes me feel pretty bad when I give in. A single fun night out can undue a week's worth of work.

    You may want to try some form of intermittent fasting. The 5:2 day spread is a pretty good one for me.

    Overall, you'll need to come back at this thread with a little extra motivation and some more information about what you have tried exactly, what you're willing to do, etc. and EVERYONE here would be darn excited to help out.