Wagon Jumpers - Anyone Need a Lift?

Okay, maybe there's already a group like this but I didn't find it.

Here is the proposal:

How many times have you started your diet / life style change / healthy eating plan only to let life and all it's varied bumps, twists and turns derail you?

I've lost count.... you too?

I'm great at drafting a plan, and sticking to it anywhere from 3 - 6 months, but then something happens, job change, illness in the family other random crisis and I stop paying attention to my plan. I go take care of what needs to be taken care of and let myself go. Now if I'd just do that and then get back to the plan it may not be so bad, but of course then I'm off the plan, and it's hard to go back and start at the beginning. So I wait, and procrastinate, and put it off (yes these are all synonyms) and wait some more. Until finally here I am back again.

So I see there is a 180's, 190's, 200's etc club, I've been in them all, and generally when I stick to the plan I have very little difficulty loosing the weight, it's sticking to the plan.

I'm inviting any fellow on again off again wagon jumpers to form a group, keep in touch on this thread to begin (and maybe we'll get a bit more sophisticated later on) and try to keep each other on the wagon.

Things we can discuss and help each other with may include (among others):

 

• how we let ourselves get derailed and why
• why do we procrastinate about getting back on track
• how can we balance integrating long term healthy eating habits into our lives while meeting our daily and often suddenly arising special life commitments.
• how can long term planning be facilitated to enable us to stay on track through the hard times.

Cheers,
Sara.

 

I'm definately in, I joined CC just over a year ago, and in that time I have lost 18 pounds, gained back 6, lost 4, gained back 6, lost 7 gained back 5, on and on and on. The good news is that even now I am still a good 8 pounds lighter than I was when I first signed up. So all up I probably have lost the 35 pounds goal I had in the begining, but still don't seem to have gotten anywhere, because I would gain back bits, and bounce around the same point, instead of ever getting lower than 165.

I think I have two major problems, 1) I eat when I am upset or mad (like I want to right now because my boyfriend is a bit of a jerk, who doesn't seem to get the idea that a long distance relationship will only actually work if you communicate, grr). 2) I always blow it whenever I actually start looking pretty good. Even though 165 is still overweight for my height, because of my buxom body type, I carry that pretty well. I hit that point, notice guys start acting nicer, and then I freak out and start eating too much again. I'm working on trying to convince myself I deserve to be thinner, and is okay to be attractive, but somehow, everytime I still do the same thing.

Also I notice I do better when I am part of a group that is posting quite alot, but if posting by others slows down, I start to feel embarrassed if nobody else is posting, so I stop, and then I lose accountability and things start to slip up.

I'm going to be finishing my thesis soon and entering the job market and I know thinner people get better jobs, so this time, I don't want to derail at 165 again.

Jane

I'm a wagon jumper. If I had a dollar for every time I've jumped off and on, I could buy myself a gorgeous outfit!

I really like the points you mentioned, super. I know why I get derailed - usually stress and emotional eating but I have trouble figuring out why I procrastinate so often from getting back on track.

I joined CC a little over a year ago. I lost 20 pounds in the first 6 months (yes, I'm a slow loser) and I haven't gained them back but haven't lost more either. I just gave up the momentum. I really want to lose 15 more (minimum) and maybe 5 more.

I'd appreciate the support and hope to be able to give support as well.

Hi Jane & JCR

Thanks for responding!

Looks like we're starting with why we get derailed. Good place to start. I think I'm weight loss ADD. I don't tend to let emotions trigger more eating, however stress and life in general will make it "too much work" to log calories, and slowly my eating habits move to high sodium high carb convenience food. 

Similarly with the working out when life happens it becomes "too time consuming" to spend that time at the gym and I let if fall off, for a few days at first then I miss a week, and then I'm embarrassed to show my face there again after:

• having been gone for so long
• having gained weight back. 

I actually have to give kudos to my gym, I had stayed away for 4 months most recently and was really nervous about going back. The day I did their wonderful receptionist who has always been really nice to me still remembered my name and just said "hi Sara" as if I hadn't been gone. Not having to answer any questions about where I'd been for so long made it a lot easier to be back. 

To avoid the "life happening" thing this time I'm trying to be easier on myself and take things MUCH slower. I'm great at drafting a plan and sticking to it for 3-6 months but then I crash. Typically when I'm starting back I drop my calories to 1500 right away and start going to the gym every day and try to work in some additional classes.

This time I figured out how many calories I was eating on average a day (3000 OMG!) and have dropped it by 100 calories a week. Currently I'm at 2500. I also started back at the gym slowly. Instead of going 2 hours a day 7 days a week I started with 30 min a day 1 day / week. And each week increased the days until I was at 4 days a week, then each subsequent week raised the time. Currently I'm going 4 days per week for 1.5 hours per day. I'm working my way towards 4 days per week 2 hours per day. 

Also for the first time I am not looking at my scale. I was an obsessive weigh in, checking at least once per day. I know I've gained weight since I originally joined so the plan is to get to 1500 cal / day average, with the 2 hours, 4 days / week exercise and maintain that for 12 weeks before I pull out the scale. Hopefully that way when I do weigh in I'm actually under what I was originally when I started here. 

My challenge is sticking with this. I've been going for 7 weeks now. Obviously I haven't been consistent all 7 weeks (there was a vacation in there), but I've been close to on plan. If I stay completely consistent it will be 10 weeks before I reach where I want to be for an actual plan and additional 12 weeks before I can check the scale so 22 weeks before I can numerically measure the results.

On one hand I'm very excited about this, on the other I'm already feeling a bit frustrated by how far away it seems. Although it seems much shorter when I realize I've already completed 7 weeks. 

I would encourage everyone who wants to try to stay on the wagon to check in at least 1 time per week.

If we know that we are wagon jumpers it may be more appropriate to congratulate people for staying on track for amounts of time, instead of focusing on the actual weight loss (there's lots of groups out there to give motivation for meeting the weight loss goals). 

I'll try to check in when I see there are new responses, or at least one time per week. 

If we get to be a fairly close group it may be an idea to exchange some contact information in a more secure forum and ask people in the group to contact us if they haven't seen us after a certain period of time. 

Cheers,
Sara.

 

If I'm upset or tired, I tend to also think I'm "hungry" and that eating something will make me feel better. And the problem is, it usually does - very temporarily!! And since it worked once, I go back to munching again a few hours later, just so I "feel better" again. It's a vicious cycle.

Taking it slower is a great plan. I honestly don't care how many pounds I lose in a week/month as long as I can get my eating under control and the scale keeps moving downward. It's the yo-yo syndrome that has me so discouraged.

So, let's focus on how long we can go without derailing. And if/when the inevitable derailing happens, how soon we can climb back on the wagon. I'll check in as often as I can. I appreciate the support.

Don't forget that we have the PM option available to us here at CC for things we'd rather not post in the open forum.

Good luck to us all. We can do this!

I'll join up! My details will follow...

Hey super, jcr and shrinkingcaro,

I completely know what you mean about stopping doing something like exercise and then becoming too embarrassed to show up again. I'm glad that you have started going back to the gym though, and I'm sure nobody really judges you.

I love your idea of taking things slowly and making slow improvements, I'm going to try and think about ways that I can incorporate those ideas into my life.

For me being off the wagon isn't really a gradual fall, but more like a great big flying jump into food, where I eat way too much for way too long. I also just want to stop this on again off again habit. (somehow I don't think eating good food half the time, makes up for eating junk the rest of the time, and I suspect it might even be worse for me, healthwise, than if I just ate medium all the time).

Anyway I hope you are all having good days, Thanks for starting this group, I hope it will be very helpful, and that we can all move forward together

HI everyone :-)

I'd like to join, if that's ok with you!  I'm a queen of wagon-jumping.. I was on here about a year and a half ago.. lost 20 lbs.. then so many things--a new job (well, since then 2! both great opportunities in my career but..), a bad relationship, the end of a bad relationship, moving across the country etc...so many excuses to let the progress I had made fall by by the wayside.. and in turn, I gained back every pound plus 3 :-(  I've since managed to lost about 8 of them.. but have a long way to go.  This is the 3rd time i think in the past several years that Im in this boat...and somehow need to find a way to stick with it even during those moments of change/stress.  Great idea for a group, btw!  Glad Im not the only one...

First, welcome to shrinking_caro & newsjunkie1 glad to have you on board. 

Like newsjunkie1 I have a change/stress trigger. Although I have taken the ocassional flying leap off the wagon into chocolate ice cream country generally it's a slow process of getting to busy and letting myself de-prioritize weight loss & eating better in favour of career goals or personal life crises.

I'm hoping taking things slower will allow me to integrate healthy eating and weight loss into my day to day routine so that when job changes, family issues, friends meltdowns happen I don't feel overwhelmed by everything and decide the gym can wait for a few days, those calories don't actually need to be logged... frozen pizza.... that's healthy .... right?

One of the big signs I notice in myself when I am loosing touch with eating properly is that I move to convenience food, canned soups, frozen pizza, take away, delivery etc... When I'm eating properly I do actually tend to cook, I've got a fairly wide range of simple to make, little time to prepare meals, but even those suddenly feel like too much energy.

The gym is the other challenge. It's not only bad changes that derail me, but also good ones. Once I've been going to the gym for awhile I have a lot more energy and I feel better so then I start to think that it's more interesting to do other stuff. I don't want to spend the 2 hours at the gym I want to spend it hanging out with friends, reading in the park, going out for some entertainment. Of course once I've thrown the gym over for a week or so for the other things then I'm tired again, and I don't feel like going out or going to the gym.

I'm thinking that one way to keep this group motivated would be to set some sort of task or goal.... something to give people a sense of accomplishment without burning them out. I'm trying to think of something in the next week that could work towards long term commitment, which is what we all struggle with. Any ideas are appreciated.

JCR's PM point is also a good one, for anyone who is interested I'd be happy to exchange contact info or even set challenges that way so we don't have to search through the forum message board.  

Hey all,

I spent last night, and the night before, "under" the wagon - dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Thursday, and a delicious dinner party at my friend's last night (I got kinda tipsy too).

I have a philosophy that is quite gentle at these times - which is that I get to live life too, I get to overindulge at times, and that doesn't mean I've sinned or screwed everything up. So today, though the scale says I'm 3 lbs heavier than Thursday morning (I think 2 of that is water), I'm gonna relax, eat normally, focus on the fun times I had, and slip back into my eating plan like a stream flowing back into the river.

Anxiety is the worst thing to have after a maintenance day or a splurge, after all. And I've had lots of splurges on this journey, and will continue to have them throughout my life, and it's not going to derail my overall progress because it doesn't negate the positive, sustainable changes I've made.

Hugs to everyone.

I think everyone can relate to the tumble, stumble and fall of a couple of fun yet way over cal nights on the town / at friends. 

I think that's an interesting question for the folks here. I've never had too much trouble recovering from the "bad night out" I can recover and move on from a 3000+ calorie day as long as I log the calories and am still planning to be on plan.

The difficulty for me comes more gradually. It's when I don't log for a few days, not because I'm eating poorly, but because I get "too busy" and don't prioritize it. Slowly but surely not logging for a few days turns into a few weeks, and then I'm estimating everything, letting convenience food sneak in and by the time I get back to it a few months later I'm blow away by how many calories are in that convenience food I've been eating. Sodium is the bane of my existence when I'm eating packaged foods. 

I think the general message is the same though, if it's a day or a week or a month or a year finding a coping mechanism to either keep going or get started again. 

I'm in too, if that's okay with all of you.  I can relate to just about everything mentioned by you all.  Most of my wagon jumping is the same as super's, stress/change related.  Every time it happens, it's gradual, and looking back I know nothing is an excuse, but I just need to get back on track.  I'm a good planner as well, and usually do amazingly well for a few months.  Then I skip logging 'because I'm too busy', or don't make it to the gym a day or two.  It seems that once I miss 3 or more, it's impossible to get back on track without hardcore effort.  After three days not going to the gym, I'll go sporatically for a while, then miss a week or more, and get embarrassed.  I go on vacation and act like getting back to the gym I need to let them know so they don't think that I'm just lazy.  If I haven't been on vacation, but just fell off the wagon again, I'll think of excuses just in case someone asks where I've been, though no one ever has, why would they? 

Most recently I've jumped off because fabulous company I worked for suddenly closed it's doors, with no warning.  I started slacking off because I was 'dedicating so much time to my job search'.  Can someone really be actively searching for a job all day everyday for two weeks and not even have time to count calories or work out?  Seems illogical once it's in writing, but that's what I felt at the time.  It was the stress.  Time to get back on the wagon.  I love this group because this is exactly what I needed.

I have an idea, as long as this group stays relatively small, we should keep track of each other.  I would love for someone to PM me to nag me about not posting enough if I start to slack off.  Just a quick "where the hell have you been?"  would be perfect.  If you're all not game, no worries.  My suggestion would be that we each at least post weekly, even if it's brief to say whether or not we're on.

NewsJunkie8 : you are just like me. I lost about 70 pounds then gained 30 back because of jobs, a bad relationship and other things. that is what happened to me exactly. I am just having a hard time trying to get back on track. May I join??

Safina-of course! and i hear ya...Originally, I lost 70 as well.. then got off the wagon (again) gained back 30.. got back on the wagon and lost 20.. now.. as I mentioned above lol.. here I am again.. it's good to know we are not alone out there though... I was feeling so frustrated with this process.. still.. it can't be healthy right? even if it is gradual.. somehow gotta figure out how to make it permanent lol

Hi Guys,

Its really amazing this thread started the very day I decided to join the band wagon again!

I have a long a weary relationship with my weight. When I moved out on my own about 5 months ago I decided my relationship with food had to change. I decided that there are no taboos. I didnt take a scale and everything seemed alright. I stuck to the same weight  range with a flux of 1 or 2 pounds for about 3 months with cookies and icecream as friends and not as enemies. I actually struck a balance of eating and enjoying life and not eating all the time for any reason.

Then from mid march work got crazy. I didnt invest in myself as much - trying new exercise classes or sticking to the ones I already liked. Instead of working off my tension or anger or discontent from my job working out I did that with a pint of hagen dazs.

So although I havent weighed in yet I know I gained about 8-10 pounds. Now I want to get into gear. I want to looooose weight. I will not be happy sticking with my current weight even though I was trying to make peace with my weight 2 months ago my new high wont cut it.

So about 15-20 pounds to lose - I can do it. I want to reach that goal of having a healthy relationship with food. Like having 1 slice of pizza and that being enough to satisfy my craving, or not thinking about dessert before I finish dinner.

Sorry for the long post...It sounds like this place is just what I need.

 

I am so glad that I am not a daft lunatic for starting this thread. It took me awhile to realize what was going on with my weight loss / healthy eating change. I mean I know I can do it, I do well when I stick to plan, I can stick to the plan for upwards of 6 months.... but then..... bye bye wagon. 

Welcome to Juicer 17, Safina1, and Tamarbee!

I think Juicer17 is right the way that we can best encourage each other is to keep track of each other. I'll send each of you a PM to check and see if you want to be PM'd. If you don't that's cool. This needs to remain fun, friendly, positive and encouraging. 

I'm also thinking I'll start a week 1 thread. I tend to find once threads start going 10, 20 pages long I don't read them, and it becomes intimidating for any new people who would like to join. It's also a Sunday, so I always feel good starting something at the beginning of a week / month (btw that is a great non-excuse for procrastinating getting back on the wagon.... well it's the middle of the week / month now.... I'll just wait until the beginning of next week / month). 

I'll post a link here to the week 1 thread as soon as I have it up, put a roll call up and we'll hopefully have everyone post at least one time (or as many times as you like) before the end of Saturday. 

Sound like a plan? I'm sure we'll make adjustments as we go. 

Okay people, lets do this!

I've sent everyone who has indicated some interest a PM to check and see if they like the idea of being contacted by group members if they have not checked in, in a week's time. Anyone who does not want that I will remove them from the weekly threads. 

I've started weekly threads because I figure it's the easiest way to get a week to week head count of who is participating so that anyone can check the first post in the week see who is supposed to check in by the end of the week and if there is a name on the first post who has not responded by the end of the week we're all encouraged to go give that person some positive encouragement to come back and keep going. 

Here is the week 1 thread:

Wagon Jumpers - Week 1

I will continue to check this thread for any new people or new comments but will try to move discussion into the weekly threads. 

I can totally relate to wagon jumping!  count me in.  I lost 50 lbs and then gained 39 back.  I am back on board but somehow the momentum isnt there that was there before.

 

 

Karenie - you are one of the most compassionate and strongest people I have ever met (in a virtual capacity) so glad you're up for the challenge!

Bit belatedly -- is there room for one more? :) I'm finding that the last ten pounds are a royal pain in the butt to lose, and over the past month or so, my weight is starting to slowly creep up again. I could probably use some group accountability!

Hi Kaydeefalls!

Of course there is always room for more!

I'll send you a PM with a couple of details (most of which are here, but just in case you want to save them).

We are just staring our first week.

Here is the link to the weekly thread, please check in by Saturday or we'll be encouraging the members of the group to contact you!

Wagon Jumpers - Week 1