Please help by sharing what you do to keep yourself on track

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  • Diatonic12
    Diatonic12 Posts: 32,344 Member
    @Blakey1982 That's exactly the recipe another mentor of mine has used over the years with the same great results.
  • mylittlerainbow
    mylittlerainbow Posts: 822 Member
    Oh, yum, socajam, both your salmon burger sandwich and your green smoothie sound so good!!
  • dianemeredith1072
    dianemeredith1072 Posts: 6 Member
    MadisonMolly2017 wrote: »
    ALG775 wrote: »

    I think the biggest challenge I have is judging myself too harshly-then I give in to all or nothing thinking and give myself permission to eat.

    I know what I have to do-but I need to work on my mindset.

    What thoughts and beliefs have helped you do what you need to do?

    Thanks for your help

    Hi @ALG775,
    First of all, you’ve done the hardest part. Reaching out!

    The affirmation I have repeated frequently at times like your’s is, 🌀“The Past is Passed.” With a deep breath in & a big exhale out, down through my arms, shaking my fingrer tips. I.E. Relaxing. & Realizing that all we can control is THIS MOMENT.

    So, that eliminates the “I’ll begin tomorrow.” “I’ll begin Monday. The 1st of the month, after my birthday, after the New Year.”

    NOW.

    But what if the motivation isn’t there.

    My next affirmation: 🌀 “Beginning is the hard part.” I learned over time it took me 3 days to get back on track. So I sometimes gave myself a no food reward if I made it 3 days. Whatever it takes.

    The other thing I did for motivation is to dig deeply into WHY you want to lose weight?
    The Method that worked for me was to ask myself 🌀“why do you want to lose weight?and answer it and then dig more deeply & ask myself why do I want that thing? and answer that and then dig even more deeply “why do I want that thing?”

    In my case it led to being as active with family members for as LONG as possible.

    Every time I got off track this 🌀 “Big Why” got me back on track because it IS more important to me than any lousy piece of excess food. Definitely.

    Keep going until you find a reason or Big Why that makes you beam, or cry, or begin tossing/giving away the processed food in the cupboard!

    I simplified mine to “HealthFirst” & I also decided to be a tortoise 🐢 not a hare 🐰. I gave myself 3 years to hit my goal. It’s truly not a race.

    Finally, grief & the emotional toll of the pandemic are challenging for all. For the pandemic, I reminded myself that excess food wouldn’t fix it. In fact, I use this one a lot! 🌀”Food won’t fix this; it will just give me TWO problems to deal with.” And then I distract myself, go for a walk, call a friend, make little art pieces, Declutter, etc.

    Which reminds me...the whole time I was dieting I hated it. I’m honestly not very good at it! 🤣 So multiple times Every Day, I told myself 🌀 “I am NEVER doing this again.” That often keeps me from going off the rails. Never again.

    The “Half Size Me” podcast is very wise. And what I’ve seen in here jibes with it.

    She breaks what we have to learn how to handle into a few groups, to be practiced in this order:
    1. Weekdays
    2. Weekends
    3. Holidays/Celebrations
    4. Vacations.

    I see many who get thrown off by the latter 3.

    I’ve figured out the first 3 (so far- over 5-1/3 years.) working on vacations if I ever get to take one again. 🤪 They still scare/intimidate me some. [She has a plan for now to figure out vacations which I plan to do.]

    Sorry for the book, but I hope something might resonate with you.

    You’ve Got This!!

    Maddie

  • dianemeredith1072
    dianemeredith1072 Posts: 6 Member
    Also love Half Size Me podcasts. I have 2.2 to go to goal. I love your two problems quote. So true. But the old adage, Nothing feels as good as thin feels remains true for me. Not scared of dr. visits, or traveling, moving in bed is easier, walking without a cane is better. Best wishes.
  • swim777
    swim777 Posts: 599 Member
    I haven’t gotten this figured out yet, but one thing that helps me is exercising early. When I worked, I got on a treadmill at home before work. One mile twenty min allowed since I had a long commute. Not enough time to think about it just get on in pjs. Now I can walk outside on our quiet road two miles. It sets the pattern of taking care of yourself before you do 100 other things.
  • fitstrongfitlove
    fitstrongfitlove Posts: 58 Member
    @alg775 your question is a deep one:

    What helps me stop judging myself?

    Acceptance. Acceptance is not easy. I push things away that are uncomfortable. This doesn't change the past or change my actions. It's done. I made those mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Every single person. I am allowed to make major mistakes too. I am also allowed to turn around from those mistakes and make better choices.

    Self-Compassion. In regard to the mistakes, whatever I was going through at the time was both/either subjectively/objectively very very difficult. It was hard for me and I did the best I could do. I treat myself with extra tenderness because to me that's the opposite of self judgement.

    None of this is easy. It's a process. Having a NARM based therapist has helped me with these goals.

    In the long run, I believe taking time to learn these skills will produce life changing results. Learning self-love will ease the arduous process of weight loss. At some point, I believe it can more or less flow. Maybe it won't ever be super easy but it can flow. You, @alg775, can move forward. We all can.
  • ALG775
    ALG775 Posts: 247 Member
    Thanks for your thoughts @swim777 and @fitstrongfitlove . I love the reminder to take care of ourselves first. So important. And I agree that love and compassion is key- and takes time to develop.
  • xblosh
    xblosh Posts: 146 Member
    I personally use my social media to always find a positive content. This is really help me to stay on track and get motivated.
  • ExpressoLove11
    ExpressoLove11 Posts: 337 Member
    koalathebear wrote: »
    I have fallen off the wagon and am trying to get back on again.

    I lost 32 kg in 2019 going from 86kg down to 54kg. Alas, I've put 8kg back on as I'm currently 62kg. This is frustrating to me because I know precisely why it's happening as I still diligently log all my calories in and out on MPF.

    I've been able to maintain the discipline of moving / exercising every day - which is lucky because otherwise I'd weigh a lot more.

    My main issue is that I'm just eating too much for my body type because I love high calorie food (cheese, pasta, rice, cake, bread, chocolate, biscuits) too much. I cut fast foods, deep fried things and as much processed food as possible out of my diet ages ago and I do as much of my own baking/cooking as possible, but I just eat too much of it.

    I'm a five foot tall female and my maintenance calorie budget for the day without exercise is around 1300. I typically do around 600 - 900 calories of exercise a day through cardio and walking my dogs but it's mental weakness on my part.
    - exercising gives me a false sense of budget so I feel like I can eat more and do. I find that no matter how much I exercise, if I eat more than eg 1600 calories a day, I will put on weight. There seems to come a point beyond which I can't really offset food with exercise
    - I KNOW that eg if I stuck religiously to eating only 1,200 to 1300 calories a day for several weeks, I would lose the weight
    - I am very good earlier in the day and manage to maintain a good nutritional calorie intake with a healthy deficit.
    - post dinner though is when I lose self control and get the munchies. I buy / make the food and munchies in the house so I have only myself to blame
    - I find it hard to have just one biscuit. One homemade biscuit only 100 - 120 calories a biscuit (or less if I make them smaller) easily leads to 5 or 6.

    I'm very frustrated with myself because rationally I know what to do. I'm an adult and I've done this before - but my self control can be so crap and I really love food. At present I'm trying to fill myself up on soda water and snack on apples and low calorie raspberry jelly so that I'm less inclined to snack on biscuits and other junk food in between meals... I saw a photo of myself pre-weight loss and I know I never want to go back to that again given how uncomfortable I felt and how unhealthy I was but clearly food is my Achilles heel :P

    I resonate with your post and can certainly empathise with the feeling of frustration you mention. I just wanted to recommend to you a book called The Binge Code by Alison C Kerr which I have found immensely useful from a strategic point of view. I am not suggesting in any sense that you have an ED by the way, it is just a book I came across and found really useful in overcoming certain behaviour patterns around food.
  • Fatgonegirl
    Fatgonegirl Posts: 126 Member
    Hi, I empathise with you. I am the same, I can not have just a single biscuit or chocolate no matter how much I consciously want to stop at one. The result is that I don't buy this type of food. I think my willpower will never be higher than when I am in the shop or working past the bakery. My willpower will only be lower on an evening so I don't put it to the test.

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