I feel so lost with weight loss

Well i feel so completely lost and always feel like i want to give up. I knew it was going to be hard, heck it took me years to put the weight on so i get it should take long to get it off, but why is it so hard just to get a little glimmer of hope?

I have been working out in the gym since sept. 3-4 days a week, before i was working directly with a trainer, now i do a class with 2 trainers which is awesome and it changes every 2 weeks so its a great workout.

My issue is the eating, i have had so many bad habits it is so hard to break. I feel everytime i do good, i also have a cheat day/meal and it makes my weight go back up and i feel like i am starting all over again every week.

I know when i count my calories and try to eat better, i feel good and i do notice some lose on the scale, but man, i have a hard time living like that. Too much temptation and it is hard to break the trend of eating bad. I guess this is more of a vent, but i just feel so lost and just like giving up....I know/hope the answer is my eating, but getting there is such a huge battle, i just dont know what to do....

I figured adding some good exercise after my weight maintaining for a long time i would notice things soon, but so far nothing.....what can i do to make this work for me?

I know how you feel... My isue is snacking.. so what I did was buy things that I could snack on that I knew were good for me, like whole wheat snacks and the 100 calorie packs are great. Also try substituting the things that are bad and that you like to eat with a healthier alternative. If you feel like a hamburger.. try a chicken or turkey burger. I started substituting turkey meat in a lot of dishes that require beef.. and I can't tell the difference.

You can still eat things that are good, just twist them a little so that they are healthier for you.

Hope that helped a little.

#1 Recommendation I have.  Place a mark erase board in your kitchen and write down everything you eat with pertinent information (cals, fat, etc.) and record totals on a separate sheet daily.

It holds you accountable for "drive by snacking" and keeps things in perspective - while educating you about what is "bad" or "worse" to eat.  Since I have been doing this I have literally thrown stuff away b/c I didn't want to eat it and put it up on the board.

Seriously, I won't "sneak" something since I know that it has to go on the board and will shoot my day's efforts all to hell.

Also, it motivates you to "save up" for your favorite food item in a given day.

can't you just eat the foods you love, but in moderation? that's what i do :D

just always think 1st! do you really want them calories?! i've been thinking ALL day about these 100 calorie snack packs of cupcakes. i even walked off over 800 calories on the treadmill today, but i'm still not sure i want those 100 calories :(

and it's after 8pm now, so maybe i'll just have them tomorrow... BUT i WILL have my nightly tiny piece of dark chocolate :D

and i want chips & pretzels & triscuits & DQ & well, the list goes on & on... but just work it into your daily calorie allowance & try to still get an "A"

also, think of it this way... if you cheat, you are only cheating yourself :(

by the way, i started on 9/4 weighing 218 and today i weigh 166!!! that's 52 pounds!!!

hopefully, 165 by tomorrow after all that walking & NOT eating them cupcakes :D

Hi there!

I read a great article on line, and the information may assist you.  The premise of the article was basically, overtime, if you burn more calories than you consume... you will lose weight. The article noted that there are 3500 calories in a pound. So if you burn 3500 more calories than you consume... you will lose a pound. The article suggested that you first have to figure out how many calories you are consuming to maintain your current weight. That is where the food log on this site can be very helpful. If you log or journal your intake for a week and your weight stays the same, this is the amount of calories on average that you need to maintain your weight. Once you have figured out this number, then start reducing it. Remember the whole burning more than you consume thing. The article suggested consuming 500 calories less a day. This could be achieved through reducing your intake, or better yet a combination of intake reduction and increased activity. So eating 250 less, and burning and extra 250 calories for a total of 500 calories less being consumed ( is this making sense... I hope so). If you were to reduce your calories by 500 for 7 days, this would equate to one pound lost.

I realize that we can not believe all that we read, but I have been speaking to a nutrition counselor through my job, and the concepts are very similar. 

As far as your bad habits, maybe you can make a list of the reasons why you are wanting to lose weight. You know, like kids, health, smokin' hot body :o), then use those reasons as support for making a life change. Not a diet.. but a true life change. I don't mean to go all Dr. Phil on you, but I do believe this to be effective. This is how I moved away from processed foods and toward natural and organics. I wanted to move for overall health reasons. Do I have slip-ups? FOR SURE, but it is not the end of the world.. and they are relatively minor because I have made a true change in the types of things I was eating.

I am working on losing weight also. I realize it is always easier said than done. Keep at it, we can do it!!!

Thank you everyone for your replies. It really helps.

 Matched.... I actually wrote a list as to why i want to do this and why i am doing this. Just havent used it yet :(

I have tried to lose weight before and i know i cant just go eating good it doesnt work for me. I do have to still be able to enjoy the foods i like...

I guess i just have to like a previous poster wrote, change the foods i like into better foods (turkey meat etc) and do things in moderation. Its just a lot easier then done.

I do write down what i eat and count calories (well i try to, usually do a few days that it drifts off)

I find i am good for a few days -5 days, then it gets bad, and doesnt stop...

I know food makes a huge difference and i hope that is the reason why i havent lost yet because my exercise is good....could be more, but its good.

Anyways thanks again for all your advice...it truly helps me see what i should start with....

 

For me, the easiest way (and sometimes the hardest way) to stop eating junk is just to ban it from what I eat for a long time. It sounds a bit stupid, and you can't do it all at once (because you'd go crazy), but try just eliminating one thing that you don't need from your diet. You'll find that after a while you don't even want it anymore. I don't eat chips anymore, or McD's or any other fast food, mostly because I stopped eating it, and now I don't have the cravings for it. It takes a while, and the first week is killer (I did it with chocolate as well, but that's the one thing that somehow keeps getting back into my diet, sneaky sneaky chocolate), but after that you stop thinking about it.

I also found that when I gave up one thing, if I thought about it the right way, it made me more focussed on healthy eating generally. For example, when I wasn't eating chocolate, and I thought about eating something else fatty or full of sugar, then I just thought about how hard it was not to eat the chocolate, and that I didn't want to spoil it by replacing it with other unhealthy foods.

Maybe try to think about it that way with your workouts as well. If you take the time out of your day to go to the gym and workout, why bother if you just eat all the calories that you're burning. You could have just stayed at home. Granted it's healthier to workout than not, but if you're working out to lose weight then that might be the attitude to take with yourself. 

Good luck, stay positive and remember to tell yourself that you're strong enough to do this, and not that you're going to do it, but that you're doing it right now. 

 

Thank you for your encouraging words jakinkale. You are completely right about thinking about food the way i do working out.

My husband and i have actually decided to stop eating fast food for at least a month(starting today) to see how that works. Doesnt mean i am going to deprive myself, as we have junk here. But at least we wont be eating at mcdonalds.

If we are out and have to eat out, we will choose subway, which is my absolute favorite.

So we are going to try that and see how it works. Plus i have been going to the gym 3-4 days but will be going 5 days for at least a month... Hopefully these changes will help. I still will treat myself but in moderation. Heres to hoping things work.

I was a terrible eater. Two things that majorly helped me:

1- giving up only one bad thing at a time until i didnt notice it was gone. Starting with the stuff I really didnt like too much anyway.

2- taking a multivitamin. Your body is craving nutients when its hungry more than calories. Most OW persons are malnourished from eating empty cals. So your body is going to try to make you eat to restore it.

Short term goals like you are doing are a great way to do it too!

:)

Original Post by cynthia334:

My husband and i have actually decided to stop eating fast food for at least a month(starting today) to see how that works. Doesnt mean i am going to deprive myself, as we have junk here. But at least we wont be eating at mcdonalds.

If we are out and have to eat out, we will choose subway, which is my absolute favorite.

I think avoiding fast food is a good idea, but I think getting the junk food out of your house is an even better idea. It requires effort to drive to McDonald's. It requires pretty much no effort to pull a bag of chips or cookies out of the pantry. Also there are healthy choices at McDonald's (I like the grilled snack wrap and yogurt parfait) whereas a bag of Doritos is never going to have anything of value to offer. I think it's good for your mental well-being to not deprive yourself of the things you like but it seems to me much easier to manage them if they're not under your roof.

I had some terrible eating habits when I started out here, too. It took deliberate changes in my life (and kitchen) but I accomplished what I set out to: I changed my taste in foods, and my idea of portion sizes. Here are some thing that helped me accomplish this lifestyle change. I'm on the path to fitness now with no chance of a relapse into my old ways. I just know too much now. Habits are hard to change but it can be done. Just takes time and a resolute mind.

• buy individual sized packages of things
• buy 100 calorie packs of stuff
• Make healthy choices more convenient than unhealthy ones! keep water in individual sized bottles and soda and juice in a big bottle that you have to pour into a glass. Water is easier to grab so you will do that more often.
  
• I stopped buying junk food that I liked for the family
• I bought low-fat versions of things that I liked (mayo, cheese, milk, crackers, etc)
• I had 3 or 4 different breakfast and lunch meals that I ate every day, not too much variety. I had variety at dinner. This made it easy to think of what to eat without giving up and grabbing something fattening.
  
• I measured everything. Still do most things.
• I took weekends off of logging - DON'T DO THIS. This was a big mistake. Count every day, and don't take days off and pig out. Log everything, every day. Use the Eat Meter you can download to give you a visual reminder of how many calories you have eaten so far.
  
• If you have a "cheat day", still count your calories. You may go over your weight loss goal for the day, but you're still aware of what you're putting in your mouth so you don't get out of control (and subsequently have a hard time going back to logging the next day)
• Try eating Lean Cuisine or other frozen meals like that to get your stomach used to the proper portion sizes at first.
• Buy lots of fresh foods... lots of fruits and vegetables that you like. Eat salad! I love baby greens with cherry tomatoes (cut in 4s) with a dash of salt and some low-fat fetta cheese! MMM! Or sauteed snow peas using just 1/2tbsp of butter (sometimes with minced garlic) and a dash of salt.
  
• Tilapia filets panfried in a tiny bit of oil with lemonpepper are pretty yummy. Fish is low cal! Salmon is great, also. And trout.
  
• Figure out which things you enjoy that are easy to incorporate into your diet. Figure out which ones just aren't worth it. I cut out peanutbutter for the most part, all chips, cut way back on bread, cut out french fries, most fried things, and cut back on cheese. Knowledge is power. This is why logging everything is important. You need to know how many calories are in the foods you eat.
• Eat protein at breakfast! This really helps!
  
• Take smaller bites and eat slower. Your tongue can only taste the food that is actually in contact with it directly, so why have all this extra food in your mouth that you can't even taste?

I  hope this list will help you accomplish your goals. This really is a lifestyle change. A life-long change, so take steps to make it practical for you to maintain long-term. I've come to terms with the fact that I will probably need to count calories on some level, and continue to workout for the rest of my life. That's ok, though. This is normal for me and has become my routine. You can do it! Just set yourself  up to succeed!

I am a confirmed and diagnoised food addict so I know where you are coming from trust me.  I am trying and it is hard dont think it isn't.

Stop trying to change it all at once, choose one habit, for me it was buying really unessasry sweets (like candy bars and bags of cookies) and keep it up for 4 weeks faithfully while doing your best to keep the rest of it on an even keel.  Now at the end of four weeks look back and see if it was that hard, give yourself a special treat, maybe not even a food one, and choose another habit (like fast food, these are mine) and work on it.

I think you will realize it becomes SOOO much easier if you put most of your energy behind one trait at a time.  Dont let the other traits get out of hand but spend the month figuring out why the trait you are working on being most dedicated to is so hard for you.

Fast food kills me cause 1 I am in the car a lot, and 2 my friend I drive around with always wants to stop and it is hard to not get something.  My answer is to buy the heathiest, smallest item I can, which at some places (BK) is not easy or just get a tea or something, sometimes I even dont get anything and then treat myself to a 100 calorie snack pack when I get home to celebrate.

 Make it harder to get to the snacks, oh my you should see the food I gave away to get it out of my house, I am not starving, I have non fat yogurt, sugarfree pudding packs and 100 calorie peaunt butter cookies and I give myself one yogurt and one snack a day no matter what.  Not to mention fruit.

 

In the long run you are the only one who can do it for you, you are the one who has to make it work, take your time, examine why some foods effect you the way they do and when and why you give in to other foods.

I believe you can do it.

too add a few more hints to Cynthias great post I would suggest that even if you have low cal snacks like the 100 cal packs put them in a drawer so you dont see them all the time.

Those crystal light on the go drink mixes, they make an amazingly sweet 16 oz drink and a perfect 32 oz one.  That is only 10 cals

One of my goals is to retrain my tastebuds, slowly I am changing from sugar in things to sweetner and accepting that it will never taste like sugar but it is ok.  I am making things less sweet to train myself to taste sweetness in lower quanties like making the crystal light in 32 oz instead of 16. 

Brush your teeth often, I thought this one was silly but now everytime I eat dairy or sweet tasting things I brush my teeth if I can and I notice I dont crave so bad.  it also makes the food I eat taste better.

 

Will these help you, I dont know but none of them will hurt you.

I'm a max for the minimum girl. Find your maintenance calories, right. Only restrict 350 consumption calories, exercise the rest.  You won't feel as deprived, nor will you be as hungry, and its a great motivator to exercise.  If I don't exercise I know I have to cut back the entire 750-1000 cals.  Not only that, you don't have to worry about the whole eating back thing and if your not getting enough.  I also read that you should never consume below your body weight times ten.  Exercise should take care of the rest.  Not absolute calorie restriction.  Mine is 2020 if I exercise 400, and usually I do, thats 1620 which puts me where I need to be.

Wow many great suggestions...This makes me feel so much better about it.

As a previous poster also said, you are right junk food in my house doesnt help either. Thank god i dont have any chips...

I have low fat yogurt,crystal light, pudding as well as the 100 calorie packs...so that is all in my house too...

I am glad to know i am not alone and that there are so many suggestions out there to help me out...

I dont really crave fast food like mcd's its more fried foods like appetizer style. But i have no problem giving up fast food.... fried food, well i am going to try my hardest. Giving up one thing at a time is a great idea.

I am going to try and see how long i can go without eating out and i am hoping after seeing some results i will not want to eat out....but it will happen once in a while, but i will hope i can make better choices.

Thanks everyone

For myself, I don't buy it at all because if it's in the house I know I'll eat it.  So hard to do when my 2 kids are used to having one night a week to eat chips, pizza and pop.  Worse still is that they like the same kinds that I love.  The pop isn't a problem, they always want rootbeer, which isn't a fave of mine (unless we're at A&W of course).  Getting the willpower is hard.  I sometimes just grab my belly or inner thighs and tell myself - "NO!  If you don't put it in, it can't make you fatter!  Do you want more of this?" (yes I am hard on myself).  I don't want you to feel so down.  But give yourself some credit too:

1. you are working out
2. you are aware of you eating issues, now you must own them, not them own you.
3. you've reached out for support!!!

I heard a saying on tv the other day and it's kinda my new motto

"Inch by inch, life's a cinch.  Yard by yard, much too hard"

One  moment at a time, sweetie.  We're here for you!

Man!! Do I know how you feel. Somebody brought 3 dozen doughnuts to the office and they are just sitting there, calling my name. Any way, I think that it is very important to exercise, especially to make up for those days that you slip. I am a total snacker, so I try to find snacks that have lower calories so that I don't feel so guilty after I have a snack attack. I really like light buttered microwave popcorn because it's relatively low in calories and it still gives you crunchy, salty, and buttery.