For those who have lost and gained and are losing again (what I've learned)

I really needed to read this. Thank you for taking the time to write it.

I'm right there with you, losing... then gaining.... losing again... then gaining again. The yo-yo isn't good for us, but it happens. I commend you on your strength and resilience, it becomes too easy to say, 'screw the world I'll just live with being fat'... but you end up screwing yourself over.

Congrats on getting back on the program! I'm right there with you!

I weighed my heaviest after gaining 75 pounds over 3 years of dialysis(233). I lost 96 pounds over 2 years and kept it off for 3 before regaining most of it. Reasons not to maintain loss 1) did not cut back eating when was injured for 2 years, 2) focus shifted away from caring for myself to boyfriend and college, 3) used food to punish myself or for emotional regulation.
Since March of 2020, I have lost 80 pounds and have worked on maintenance while healing from injury since May. I no longer use food to punish myself or for emotional regulation. I focus in performing positive actions like logging food, exercising, how good I feel instead of hurts or temporary failures or perceived shortcomings. Made moderate, long term sustainable changes and a major change to my attitude. This feels right and seems to work for me.

363days wrote: »

Satisfiedwithbetter wrote: »

My character affirmations....
I am the kind of person that:

Never

• Never harms myself with food.
• Never eats heavily processed foods, they prevent my body from absorbing vital nutrients, cause inflammation, and increase my risk for heart disease and diabetes.
• Never eats processed or refined sugars, they are nutrient deficient, cause inflammation, and increase my risk for heart disease and diabetes.
• Never eats “Pig Slop.” “Pig Slop” is defined as heavily processed, highly engineered, extremely addictive, “Franken (pseudo) foods,” full of sugar, unhealthy fat, and or salt.
• Never listens to “The Pig” in my brain. “The Pig” is the primal center of the brain commonly referred to as the amygdala. “The Pig” likes to eat pig slop, and pig slop goes in a pig trough, and I don’t eat “Pig Slop” or eat out of a pig trough or listen to “The Pig” because pigs are farm animals and have no idea what is good for me.
• Never listens to “Pig Squeal!” “Pig Squeal” is the negative counterproductive thoughts in my brain, coming from “The Pig.”
• Never buffers my feelings or emotions. Using alternative coping skills such as taking a walk, listening to a podcast, or creating a checklist are much healthier ways of dealing with feelings and emotions.
• Never needs to recover from eating a meal.
• Never eats more than two servings of fruit or nuts per day.
• Never eats more than one teaspoon of Stevia per day.
• Never eats beef more than 3 times in a week.

Always

1. Always uses the present moment to be healthy.
2. Always treats myself with patience and love.
3. Always fails forward by learning and growing from my experiences.
4. Always loves my friends and family unconditionally.
5. Always treats others as I would like them to treat me.
6. Always allows people to judge me, have an opinion about me, and not like me.
7. Always gives myself permission to be vulnerable and trust others.
8. Always allows myself to experience my feelings and emotions without buffering. Buffering is the act of suppressing your feelings by eating or using some other activity to avoid the feelings or emotions.v
9. Always gives myself permission to be hungry and use my excess fat as energy.
10. Always gives myself permission to stop eating and listen for my fullness signal.
11. Always gives myself permission to fast for at least 12 hours daily
12. Always eats as many servings of raw Non-Starchy Vegetables as I desire.
13. Always commits 100% to myself, to my goals, & to my dreams!
14. Always drinks 16 ounces of water and waits 5 minutes before eating snacks or second helpings of food.

Thank you for providing this list. I found that while I was reading through it, I started feeling more comfortable and relaxed. It is helpful to me to have something long like this, rather than just a couple of affirmations, because it mentally pulls me away from my wrong thinking where as a couple will not do that. I am listening to the interview now and learning a lot. Great stuff.

I guess being rigid can work for some people. Not for me. I can't count the times I lost weight doing the never part of this post. It wasn't hard for up to 6 months. Then one day, I wanted to eat a piece of cake or a piece of chocolate and Boom! lost control totally.
I am in a new journey this time. I lost 50 pounds in 7 months and my state of mind is different this time. I didn't forbid myself for enjoying the food I like. I just find out how many calories that food has, I log it and I eat it. I don't need cheat meals because I eat everything I like. If my food budget doesn't allow it today, I plan it for tomorrow (sometimes I even eat it that very same day and go over a few hundred of calories). Tomorrow is close enough that I can wait. I ate everything I cooked this last Thanksgiving in reasonable portions and I am down one pound this week, so it is feasible. At least it is feasible for me. I know myself too well to say I will never do this or that. Never is an overwhelming word and an overwhelming period of time to think of. I know I am not where I would like to be yet. I am 175 ish and I would like to get to 140 but I can tell the difference of my mindset this time and the times before. I'll get there when I get there. I already lost a big chunk of my weight and I can be gentle to myself. I know why a put on weight but now I know how to eat healthy. We all should be gentle to ourselves without losing sight of the cause/s that made us gain weight.

I too have lost-gained-lost-gained, pretty much all of my adult life ... when younger, my weight loss was due to drug use, to be honest, and then the minute I got clean, I would gain again.

I have been clean for good since 1997, and following the pattern, I gained a lot of weight.

2007 was the first time I lost weight without the use of chemicals. I lost 90 pounds through calorie tracking and excessive working out. I kept it off for a couple of years. Over the next 10 years, I gained it all back plus another 7 pounds!

What did I do wrong?

In a nutshell ... I thought, "I got this." and stopped being diligent with tracking what I ate, started putting off the workouts, or just completely blowing them off. A handful of chips here and there became a bag every day. A salad at Jack in the Box became a bacon cheeseburger meal, large-sized. One candy as a treat became a handful every time I passed the candy dish. As I noticed the weight piling back on slowly but surely, I went through phases. IDGAF alternated with "tomorrow I will get back on track..."

Last June, when I went in for a minor medical procedure that I had to be put under for, I had a wake-up call when the anesthesiologist told me I was "moderate risk" for complications. I had always been "low risk." The factors he noted were my age, which I can't do anything about, and my weight ... which I can.

What is Different now?

This time around, I have figured out for once and for all, that I don't "got this." I need to track my calories, my carbs, and my fat intake. I need to make myself get on the treadmill or the exercise bike, no skipping "just for today" allowed. And I have learned that intermittent fasting helps when I use it.

Here's to a lifetime of maintenance! I think the most important thing I have learned is to use what I have learned.