Consistency how do you all do it???

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Katie43210
Katie43210 Posts: 65 Member
in Motivation and Support
I really struggle with being consistent and it's driving me mad.

I keep starting eating healthy, getting my step count up, not drinking alcohol and feeling really positive and good. Then bam I just go back to drinking and eating takeaway! how does everyone manage to keep it up for more than a few days? I've tried lots of things but I keep Doing it!

Its not even really about weight at this point, yeah I want to lose weight but I mostly want to feel happy and have more energy etc

Any tips welcome! 🤞💕

Replies

  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
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    My "consistency" is weekly rather than daily.

    I cook and pack my lunches and eat tons of veg and swim and basically"save" calories during the week, then "spend" those saved cals on a few beers and maybe an "eat treat" on Friday and Saturday.

  • Katie43210
    Katie43210 Posts: 65 Member
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    rosebarnalice wrote: »
    My "consistency" is weekly rather than daily.

    I cook and pack my lunches and eat tons of veg and swim and basically"save" calories during the week, then "spend" those saved cals on a few beers and maybe an "eat treat" on Friday and Saturday.

    You have a fab routine well done! Not something I could do but get what you mean eat healthy through the week I keep trying to let myself have a treat but gets out of hand especially if I have a drink really need to just quit cold turkey again I managed 1 week not long ago so know I can do it.
  • Katie43210
    Katie43210 Posts: 65 Member
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    swimmchick87 wrote: »
    The biggest thing that helped me was changing my weight loss goal to 1 pound per week so I get more daily calories. It took me a long time to admit that 1200 was just never going to work for me. I could white knuckle it for a bit, but inevitably I'd fall off the wagon and regain the weight I lost plus some. 1 pound per week seemed "too slow," but it's actually a heck of a lot faster actually losing 1 pound per week vs. losing 8-10 pounds the first month, falling off, gaining 15 pounds, eventually getting back to it and losing the same 8-10 pounds, etc.

    If I'm not as hungry to begin with, I'm much less likely to binge. Ditto for being able to fit treats into my normal day, in normal portions. I'm better than I used to be, but I'm still working on breaking the black and white thinking. You don't need to eat 100% "healthy" all of the time. It's okay to fit treats in your day. If you want takeout, figure out a normal serving size and what you can fit into your calorie day, rather than saying, "already ruined it, might as well binge."

    Yes defo me! Ruined it may aswell binge 😆 doesn't help that I'm in a 6 person house hold no one wants to join me on my mission to health if they order takeaway I feel I can't not have some if you know what I mean I try order the healthiest thing on menu. When I do log diary on here I don't really eat that many cals anyway never over 2000 normally around like 1500 and normally have burnt some off walking I just want to feel happy and healthy and crap food makes me feel crap as does drinking it's like I keep self sabotaging myself 🤷‍♀️
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,521 Member
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    Repetition. Like anything else, if you do something enough times over and over again, you get better at it. Doesn't matter if it's playing the piano, throwing a football, dancing, etc.
    Routine that is consistent makes it easier to keep it consistent. Don't even really have to think about it after awhile, you just do it.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
    9285851.png
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,114 Member
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    Perhaps you should focus on one single thing you want to change, instead of trying to create several new habits at the same time?,Once you have one habit well ingrained, you can start working on the next,...
  • lx1x
    lx1x Posts: 38,311 Member
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    Lietchi wrote: »
    Perhaps you should focus on one single thing you want to change, instead of trying to create several new habits at the same time?,Once you have one habit well ingrained, you can start working on the next,...

    This. 👍
  • yweight2020
    yweight2020 Posts: 591 Member
    edited August 2021
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    Katie I'm consistent and then sometimes I fall off sometimes from my goal, but I'm consistent in eating what I want but for the most part staying in a deficit, I limit certain foods because of diabetes but at the end of the day if I want something I eat it such as takeaway as you say it's rare but I'm not going to deprive myself, I like Thai food shrimp, brown rice and veggies delicious and alcohol haven't had any since last year because of my meds but if I could I would have a glass or two of wine. Some people can still feel good and healthy having these things, just not on a regular basis, months may pass without me eating out especially since we've been in covid most of my food has been home prepared and I've even learned to cook other cuisine. It's not about depriving yourself so you feel like your not consistent, you can add anything into your routine and make it part of your consistency, the point is the calories if it's going to be to lose, maintain or gain weight figure that out and go from there and keep coming here to log your calories and or nutrition also. Best of care. :)
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
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    Lietchi wrote: »
    Perhaps you should focus on one single thing you want to change, instead of trying to create several new habits at the same time?,Once you have one habit well ingrained, you can start working on the next,...

    +1. Make one small, sustainable change until it's second nature. Then make another one. Keep going until you're living as the person you're trying to become. You don't have to wake up one day and decide to completely discard every routine and script you've ever learned for how to live as a human person and rebuild yourself from scratch, you can do it piecemeal, ship-of-Theseus style. Let go of the concept of "dieting" - weight loss is not something you force yourself to suffer through until your body is an acceptable size. You hear this refrain a lot, but it is a lifestyle change. If you want to change your body you have to change the way you live, and if you want those changes to stick you need to find a way to make it easy.

    For alcohol in particular, if you struggle to limit your consumption, quitting may be the correct course of action for you - you may find it helpful to get support in that effort, from a professional or from a community of likeminded individuals. This is a calorie-counting community, and plenty of us (myself included) are able to include sensible amounts of alcohol in our lives. There are some sober groups (go to the Groups tab under Community and search for them), but you may also want to look for that community support elsewhere, since abstaining from alcohol is not the primary goal of most users of this site.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
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    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10837914/slow-is-fast#latest

    Maybe you'll find the above helpful. Trying to change everything at once doesn't work for MOST people. Pick a thing and turn it into a habit.
  • ehju0901
    ehju0901 Posts: 353 Member
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    Remember that consistency does not need to be perfect. Not meeting your goals one day or one meal does not mean the long-term goal is lost.

    I recently went on an overnight trip where all I ate was McDonald's, pizza and beer. The next day I got back into my routine and continued working on my long-term goal. I used to let this deter me, but I realized I can't strive toward perfection, just better habits overall.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    Trying to make wholesale changes to everything overnight generally doesn't work out all that well...it's just too much all at once. As others have said, focus on one or two things you want to work on and change and create good habits there. Once something becomes habit, it starts to really get ingrained. Then you work on the next thing and then the next thing. I've been at this for going on 9 years and betterment of self is a constant work in progress...you don't just flip a switch.
  • Mr_Healthy_Habits
    Mr_Healthy_Habits Posts: 12,588 Member
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    Practice...
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,127 Member
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    Pretty much what others have said: Don't be extreme at the start, think in terms of gradually changing in ways that are practical, achievable, sustainable long-term.

    Then, recognize that there's consistency, and consistency. 😉

    I'm in year 5+ at a healthy weight after several previous decades of overweight/obesity. Some days I eat less than my calorie goal, sometimes over it, sometimes *way* over it (like thousands of calories over maintenance, literally). Sometimes I work out every day, long/hard enough to burn several hundred calories, up to a third of my basic calorie needs. Sometimes I'm barely active (exercise or daily life) for a week or more at a time, like 3k steps around the house and no intentional exercise at all.

    Inconsistent, right?

    Well, not exactly. In between extremes, which aren't that frequent, I go back to something much closer to a basic routine that I know will keep my bodyweight around where I want it; and I pay attention to the scale (and clothes' fit) so things don't get out of hand. I have habits that make the pseudo-inconsistency work, for example, eating slightly under my calorie goal most days ("calorie banking", but not by a huge amount) in order to indulge occasionally.

    The majority of our days determines the majority of our outcome. Consistency on that on-average level is important. Being exactly perfect every single day (whatever the heck "perfect" is)? That's optional.

    Find your own personalized, practical route. I'd pretty much guarantee it exists, if you pursue it thoughtfully, in a wily way.

    Best wishes!
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    i think the reason a lot of people fail, or give up, is because they try to do too much, all at once. they try to make these huge life changes all in one go and its just WAY too much to maintain and sustain.

    start small.

    ive lost a total of 150 pounds.

    the changes i made, were not made in a day. or a week, or a month. it was over a period of MONTHS. it took 2 years to lose that weight. i maintained for several, working on slowly losing the rest now, but im in no rush.

    and when i STARTED making those changes, weight loss was not my goal. simply being healthier was.

    i started with taking a (very short) walk once or twice a week. 20 minutes. truly, that was ALL i could do. and it was NOT a fast walk. more of a slow ramble. i eventually added in more. started going further. started logging my food. not CHANGING anything. just logging what i DID eat. learning how to log properly. that was eye opening. eventually changing how i ate, and making substitutions I was happy with. changing how much i ate. found out i enjoyed my walks. started going to the gym with my neighbor on occasion. wanted to go more often than she did. got my own membership. all of this happened SLOWLY. over a period of months.

    if i had tried to from where i began (2015?), to where i am today.... i never would have made it. the first day at the gym, i could barely do 10 minutes on the elliptical. when i began walking, a 20 minute SLOW walk was ALL i could do. We wont talk about how MUCH i ate (even though most of it would be considered 'healthy').

    start small.

    build from there.

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