hanging by a thread...

I don't know what "completely clean" is. What I do know is that all foods are on the table, in moderation. What I also know is that your eating plan needs to be a doable lifestyle. Life is too short to beat oneself up.

Sure, eat more fruits and veggies, but live your life! Home made pancakes sound wonderful. I eat them with fresh fruit!

Feel free to "friend" me - I'm happy to provide support. I know that whole - if I can't do it perfectly I have a hard time doing it at all - thing. So my suggestion is pick ONE THING at a time you can focus on doing really well, don't try to change everything all at once. Once that becomes easy, move on to the next thing to change.

Here's a post I made on someone else's thread that might apply for you as well. (But maybe your Step 1 would be just start tracking your food - whatever it is - to get in that habit first. You can keep your diary private if you want.)

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Put together a *plan* for change. Don't try to do everything at once or you will set yourself up to fail.
The plan that works is the one you can STICK TO!

Here's how I've found success. Perhaps something similar can work for you since you really only change 1 thing at a time, so less chance of getting frustrated and giving up:

1) WHAT YOU EAT: I first changed my way of eating to eliminate "junk", but don't really worry about calories. In this phase you are trying to get used to eating in a new way, reintoduce fiber into your system, break your sugar addiction, etc. You don't need to go crazy about eating "clean" like you hear a lot of people here talk about, but for me this means eliminating most processed foods, eating mostly vegetables and lean protein, and select complex carbs (beans, legumes, etc.). Learn what shops have really good produce. Learn about new spices you can add to your food to keep things interesting. Get used to having your morning coffee with skim (or almond or whatever) milk instead of cream. Start drinking more water. Eliminate fake sweeteners, "diet" food. Start using Stevia (won't affect blood sugar). Find a protein powder you like. Take a probiotic if you think it will help. Track (write down) *everything* you eat (be honest! set your MFP food diary to private so no-one but you can see it if that makes it easier to be totally honest) so you can start learning about what the food you're eating really contains, and what you like and what you don't. Learn how to set your target numbers (BMR, target calories, etc.) using MFP. This stage would be a couple weeks. Added, unexpected benefit for me: MUCH clearer and even younger looking skin and my hair loss has really slowed.

2) HOW MUCH YOU EAT: Once you're comfortable with your new palate, (and hopefully eliminated a lot of cravings and gotten your body working better, cleaner), NOW you can start working on meeting your calorie and macronutrient (protein, carb, fat) targets. You probably already started reducing your calories intake during stage 1 without really trying since you're now eating more nutrient-dense food and drinking more water, so it shouldn't be TOO big a leap to start meeting calorie goals. In this phase you're learning about portion control. And also if you're carb-sensitive (I am: 50 years old and possibly insulin resistant. So I eat pretty low carb. That's just me.) Exercise when it feels good or when you can, but don't worry about a fixed schedule - YET. But you're feeling better and starting to lose, so you WANT to move more. For me, this phase was more than a month..

3) EXERCISE: Once you've conquered the "diet" part, now start an exercise regimen. I'm still in the early phase of this stage, so mostly I'm just walking for now, building endurance, letting my joints get acclimated. I plan to step it up to walk/running (and eventually just running) and add weights in the next weeks. A lot of people recommend the C25K and 30-day shred, but again, find what works for you. Don't feel you have to go "whole hog" from day 1. You're here for the long haul and for long term success, not to break any olympic records or compete with anyone else.

Now this is what worked for me - 44 pounds and counting. Only you can decide whether something similar will work for you.
I hope this helps. And good luck with your journey whatever you decide to do.

Cheers!

Oh hon, you didn't do anything wrong by having homemade pancakes - except that you didn't come make them at my house!

Seriously though, you can lose weight eating whatever you please but in smaller portions. You can have sugar, carbs, etc. Just log what you do eat even eating what you are eating now. My first week on MFP all I did was track what I ate normally. I made changes from there.

This does NOT have to be an all or nothing approach. For me, it is much easier mentally and physically to take babysteps in the correct direction I need to go and it's been working well for me.

I don't know what "completely clean" is. What I do know is that all foods are on the table, in moderation. What I also know is that your eating plan needs to be a doable lifestyle. Life is too short to beat oneself up.

Sure, eat more fruits and veggies, but live your life! Home made pancakes sound wonderful. I eat them with fresh fruit!

yes!

Why don't you start with one thing at a time... just do the logging for a week or so, then start adding in healthy choices one by one. Once you get the snowball rolling, you'll find that it gets easier to put together a healthier day.

I have the same problem as you do with housecleaning of all things... because I can't do it half way, I end up putting it off until it's at an absolutely critical state and it takes ALL day to do.

Since that's not really an option for you (can't lose all the weight you want in one day), I think you're going to have to take it one step at a time.

Best of luck!
Jen

Don't shoot for perfection, that is why you are having such a hard time. We are all human and we all make mistakes (although homemade pancakes are not a mistake). Don't try to cut out your favorite food, just restrict them to one serving.

This perspective has really help me sort things out, my intention is to lose 1 pound a week, that's 52 pounds in a years time. I stopped looking at the short term goals and started looking at the big picture. Even if I don't make the one pound mark, I know that it will be made up in the coming weeks when I suddenly lose 2-3 pounds. Take it slow, you didn't become overweight overnight and you won't lose it overnight either. Hang in there, once you see success you'll be home free.
Habits bad or good are easily acquired. Take it from me a person who was resistant to any form of exercise, now does some form of exercise everyday, now it's a habit. You're habits will develop too, give it time.
Wishing you success on your journey, count me as your friend!!!

I could have written this post! For me it isn't about food, drink, calories, friends, motivation or anything else it is about how I feel about myself! I'm not without days where I don't still feel the same way as you do but I think I have made progress in this area on my journey.

I have realized that I am way to hard on myself instead of rewarding myself for what I accomplish when I am eating the way I want to and working out I spend time beating myself up because I am not always able to fulfill my unrealistic expectations that I have for myself 100% of the time. This isn't what I want for myself - I want to be able to have a healthy lifestyle and every once in a while without feeling bad or guilty about it, I want to eat something that isn't part of my 'healthly lifestyle' but just a part of life!

Having some time away for your normal routine is good for you mentally and physically in all areas of your life, not just what you eat and I needed to find a way to make it apply to food without having to make myself feel like a failure for eating a pancake!

Good luck with your journey!

I think anyone who's struggled with their weight at some point has fallen into that mentality of "well, the day's blown anyway, so what the heck?". One of the advisors in my weight loss group made an analogy that I thought was insightful and put things in perspective: "If you spend a lot of your money (or all of it) shopping at the mall in the morning, do you say "well, the day's blown and I'll just borrow more money to spend it as well"? No, you'll probably stop spending money you don't have. So think of calories as money, you can indulge yourself but don't let that indulgence bring down all your efforts.

Hang in there, you're definitely not alone ;-)