Starting to struggle

katanak9
katanak9 Posts: 42 Member
in Motivation and Support
Hi lovely MFP people. I think I've reached the point now where I'm going to start needing some help and encouragement. Although these early results have been good, the initial novelty factor has worn off, the weather here in NZ is starting to change from summer into Autumn and I'm about to head into a difficult month. April is full of family birthdays (including my own and my baby son's), so lots of tricky days to negotiate. It feels like the hard slog is just starting now.

Would love some more accountability buddies to help me to stay focused.

How have people stayed focused and on track when you know this is going to be a long road before you reach goal weight?

Replies

  • FitByFifty1970
    FitByFifty1970 Posts: 127 Member
    Do you have a lot to lose? I lost a bunch Sept 2019-Feb 2020, then had hip surgery just before the pandemic, maintained my loss but it started to come back after Halloween 2020, 6 pounds. Anyway, early Jan I felt I had to get going for real, I still had a lot to lose and seeing how fast 6 pounds came on I talked to my boyfriend.
    He wanted to lose weight too so we hijacked an online game where you bet on yourself to lose to win money. We made our own challenge, set our own goals. Starting Jan 21st and ending May 28th we would lose our goal, his 30, mine 25.
    Big deal.
    Well, the trick motivation I built in was (non food) reward. Every 5 pounds, at half way, and at final, you get a reward. Think fun socks, new jeans, a movie rental, etc.
    It broke it down into manageable pieces and made it less focused on the long term.
    Good luck!
    P.S.- he lost 30 already, 9 weeks. I'm stuck at 22.2 after 10 weeks. Sigh. I have another 40 to go after this challenge too.
  • Jezzieso18
    Jezzieso18 Posts: 11 Member
    Hi I’m also from nz would love to motivate each other! Feel free to add me :)
  • purplestuff101
    purplestuff101 Posts: 3 Member
    Jezzieso18 wrote: »
    Hi I’m also from nz would love to motivate each other! Feel free to add me :)

    I’m no creep just need to be with like minded people who need support
  • 88olds
    88olds Posts: 4,539 Member
    There’s something you can change right now that will help you. Change your mind. Forget about the long road to goal and the hard slog. Truth is not much changes at goal weight. Not if you want to stay there.

    Weight loss has 2 parts- eating in a calorie deficit and living with it. Folks tend to go all in on the deficit and try to beat themselves into living with it. Doesn’t work for long. What works? Embrace the process.

    Consider this- eating just 100 extra calories per day will get us gaining about 10 lbs per year. That’s using the 3500 cal per lb rule of thumb. Likewise, a 100 calorie deficit per day will result in a about a 10 lb loss in a year. If we can find our way to a livable downward trend, time can actually be on our side in this.

    Give your plan another look and try to see yourself living with it for the rest of your life. Can you do it? Why not? What would it take to get there?

    Special occasions. Here’s a thing about special occasions, they are meant to be special. But we live in a world that try’s to make everything special. Usually so someone can sell us something. Every Friday is not special. But birthdays are.

    What do you need to celebrate a birthday? Make a plan. It’s likely that adding birthday cake if that’s what’s needed (btw I found ice cream easier to work with) is going to be a challenge to fit with your number. But crunch the number. Then try this. If you need to, up your calorie target for that day. It’s ok. It’s not written anywhere that you can’t. You don’t need to run for 2 hrs or go without eating all day to fit in a birthday party. Just ease up for the occasion. I found that better than just taking a whole day off. I’d eat 1000s of extra calories doing that.

    It’s not just that it’s ok to modify your plan to make it livable. To get to goal and stay there it has to be done. Good luck.
  • kelMee2
    kelMee2 Posts: 203 Member
    I started using MFP again after being away for around 2 years and regaining the weight I lost. I started the week of my sons birthday, I still had a tiny piece of cake and party food but I was just more cautious with what I ate to make sure I stayed within my calories. My youngest sons birthday was last week and I did the same again. I honestly believe you have to be in the right mindset and plan ahead to stay on track, eat under calories for a couple of days and use those calories on the special days, exercise indoors when the weather's bad. Remember your goal and why you want to do this and find the determination to do it.
  • GrizzledSquirrel
    GrizzledSquirrel Posts: 120 Member
    ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
    YESSSSSSS!
    We could all take a lesson from how you have responded to your doubts! Well done you!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    katanak9 wrote: »
    Hi lovely MFP people. I think I've reached the point now where I'm going to start needing some help and encouragement. Although these early results have been good, the initial novelty factor has worn off, the weather here in NZ is starting to change from summer into Autumn and I'm about to head into a difficult month. April is full of family birthdays (including my own and my baby son's), so lots of tricky days to negotiate. It feels like the hard slog is just starting now.

    Would love some more accountability buddies to help me to stay focused.

    How have people stayed focused and on track when you know this is going to be a long road before you reach goal weight?

    Big picture...just arriving at some arbitrary weight on the scale isn't end game...it's actually just the starting line of the real race. Everything leading up to that has just been practice. Losing weight IMO is actually the easy part...there's that little rush from seeing the scale go down yet another pound or whatever. There's none of that in maintenance and at the same time, you have to maintain relatively good eating habits and exercise habits (which have their own rewards/benefits, but they're not quite as tangible as when you are losing weight).

    Ultimately life happens...birthdays happen...holidays happen...celebrations happen. These are joyous occasions and in the grand scheme of things, nobody became overweight because of occasions, and they're not going away this year or next year or the year after that, etc. Also, it is quite normal for things to change somewhat seasonally. I'm not much of a "workout" guy, but I'm pretty active. Unfortunately, a great deal of that activity is outdoors active recreation and that takes a big hit in the winter. I compensate somewhat with more structured workouts and training, but it doesn't typically make up for the large drop in general recreational activity and my eating habits tend to remain fairly static...after years of doing this (more or less maintenance since spring 2013) I count maintaining or a small winter gain a win. I'm not "on" all of the time...nobody is that I know.

  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,053 Member
    Enjoy all the celebrations, especially your birthday! Have you had a "maintenance break" recently? If not, would it help you reframe and recharge? Practicing maintenance for a month is good practice for everyone, but it would give you just a few more calories to celebrate with and would change things up. I start getting deficit weary after 10 weeks, even with a small 250cal deficit, and just that small increase to maintenance is enough to recharge my energy a bit. Give it a try if you think it could help!
  • katanak9
    katanak9 Posts: 42 Member
    Hi again folks.

    Just thought I'd report in on how it's going so far. My birthday and my son's birthday have now passed. Just my daughter's birthday to go in 3 weeks.

    I have walked most days and I had one day when I went over my calorie goal (which is still set to loss) by about 200 calories, I think. Oddly, the day I went over was neither birthday, haha.

    I'm continuing to just slog through. If I can walk each day, the food side normally is all good.

    A couple of people have pointed out that, after all, once I get to goal weight, there's maintenance and that's really just the same thing. Obviously, it's not like you can get to goal weight, say "yay me" and then eat anything at all and expect to stay at goal weight. This has made me really start to think about that. I've struggled with maintenance, which is why this is the THIRD time I've had to lose a significant amount of weight. It seems life events throw me easily and I need more resilience and to learn more about balance.

    Thanks so much for all your comments. I have much to think about and learn, but I've felt supported during this tricky period and so far, it's going ok and I'm feeling more positive. 😊

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