Support love and encouragement

Your very next meal is your new beginning. You don't need to start over and you don't need to look back over your shoulder. Eating less food and exercising more doesn't make things better. It won't make you happier in the long run.

Many of us have fallen prey to diets in the past. They are a temporary bandaid. No shame, no blame. There's no need to give anyone a list of explanations why it happened in the first place. Shame as a motivation will buck you out of the saddle.

Stress is a driver. It literally makes the weight hold on tighter to the reins. So does negative self-talk. The mirror and the scale are only two data points. Start with a food scale and your measuring cups.

Two words. Portion Control.

I'm going to tell you what I did to get the momentum going a few years ago. I stopped hopping on the scale. I have a doctor's scale and I set it to my dream weight. I would get on from time to time and one day, I was finally at my dream weight. I like to shake things UP with myself.

You need to make this fun and that includes the maintenance phase. I did not take progress photos. I did not want any more Befores and Afters. I did that in the past and it never stuck. I pulled out all of the stops and did everything completely the opposite of my past attempts.

Doing what we've always done will get us what we've always gotten. In my life, that was mostly nothin' but rebound weight gain with friends.

I no longer wanted the focus to be on looking different. I wanted to be different. I want long term weight stability for the rest of my life. No more All or Nothing Thinking and perpetual dieting that leads to rebound weight gain.

No befores and no afters because there's no such thing as the Finish Line. No more constant starts and stops and no more beginnings. Momentum will take you much further down the road than willpower and motivation ever will. They are limited resources that run out and leave you high and dry. Stranded along some long, lonesome stretch of highway without another car in sight.

I did everything, differently. I'm still standing. If you've been chasing weight loss for months and years and decades without every reaching your dream weight, just eat the foods you love and moderate your portions.
You'll get there and you'll be different. Edge your way down slowly. Don't drop it like it's hot and don't make comparisons with anyone else's progress.