I'll always be fat.

Jaidyn1023 wrote: »

I have been fat for as long as I can remember. I've tried everything recommended to me, but absolutely nothing works. I would lose about 4-10 lbs but immediately pack it back on. I am so ashamed of myself, I can't seem to figure out how to fix this. I just feel like I'll be like this for the rest of my life. Has anyone else felt like this? If so, how did you overcome it?

Maybe you're going in too hard.

Try for "Lose 1 pound per week" in the Goals settings here. Be honest with your Activity Level setting according to the choices given in the Goals.
If you exercise enter it into the "Exercise" section and eat that extra couple hundred calories.

Keep eating the food you like, just smaller portions. Trying to live on chicken breast and dry broccoli is a recipe for Failure.

Log all food. Even on those days where you [might] eat a whole pizza. Log it. Learn from it, but don't beat yourself up and don't try to "make up for it" tomorrow by starving yourself.

The binge/restrict cycle is the worst thing you can do.

Slow. Like the turtle.

Incrementally you'll make better choices. Sub Greek yogurt for ice cream. Use less butter. Have dessert on the weekend, but fruit after dinner during the week.

Losing weight is hard at first. Being fat is hard forever. Choose your hard.

Instead of looking at weight loss as a “dieting” thing that you’ll do for a short period of time, start to think of it as more of a “doing better forever” kind of thing. It’s pretty common to lose 5 or 10 pounds, then someone orders a pizza and you eat a lot of it and then you feel like you’ve undone all your hard work. You haven’t! And you want to be able to eat pizza sometimes! The people who are successful just go right back to making healthier choices with the next meal.

My approach has been to curate a collection of lower-calorie foods I love, and they make up 80 percent of my meals. There are certain things I LOVE and crave and I don’t want to make them low calorie… like cheeseburgers. Oh how I love a giant cheeseburger! And when I want one, I won’t be happy with less. BUT… I don’t eat them all the time. I log it in my food diary if I do. I might walk more steps that day, or eat lighter the next day, but I am not going to beat myself up or get discouraged for “cheating.”

It’s taken me 6 months of diligent logging to lose 23 pounds. I’ve logged a good number of 3000+ calorie days, and eaten quite a few cheeseburgers. Most of my days are 1600-1800 calories. Sometimes I do 1200 if I’m home, able to cook, and have a fridge full of vegetables.

That said, you need to craft your own plan that works for you. I have a friend who likes the structure of having a plan spelled out for her; I can’t do that. I have another friend who strives to make the healthiest choice possible at all times—she orders grilled fish or chicken and steamed veggies at restaurants. That’s also not my style… I eat a lot of chicken and fish at home! But it works for her. Neither of these friends logs their calories like I do and they think I’m slightly obsessive. Everyone is different.

Find YOUR groove, and commit to consistency. You can do it.

verysilentscarlett wrote: »

Tell yourself it's simple and easy to stop eating bad food even though it feels impossible to resist at times. If you give in, that doesn't mean you give up your belief. Eat natural food that agrees with your body and digests easily; whole wheat digests easily, whereas white flour digests much slower.

Furthermore, sugar makes your blood sticky, and the mosquitos LOVE that. I really will eat like a whole package of chocolate, but then I imagine how all of that chocolate would look melted if someone smeared it all over the kitchen floor. Imagine whatever guilty pleasure that keeps setting you back as a mess embedded into different types of floors-your body is one of those floors. What will be the easiest to clean up? I'd rather clean up peaches than melted chocolate.


P.S. I'm terrible at food logging.

Please don't do any of this, OP. Setting up unhealthy relationships with food will only exacerbate a problem. There aren't "bad foods." There are only neuroses surrounding different foods. Foods in packages are not the devil. Guilt is overrated.

Logging your food accurately is going to get you moving in the right direction. Keep all your favorite foods and eat less of them. If you find it difficult to enjoy favorites moderately, keep them out of the house for a while. But don't demonize any foods -- it's counterproductive. Listen to the folks who say to lose slowly... because you want your new & improved habits to become part of your life.

Every day does not have to be perfect.

There's no race. There's no rush. There's no finish line. But there are remarkable payoffs to shedding excess weight and proving (maybe only to yourself) that you CAN take control.