little changes vs. big changes?

[DivineFidelity]

Well, I'm trying...AGAIN....to get back on track. Good news is that I haven't been gaining....bad news is that I haven't been losing either.

I originally lost 70 pounds doing WW at home without paying for it or anything, just using calculators and recipes I found online. Long story short I gained all that back plus like 7 pounds. A week ago, I was 257. My highest recorded weight. Today I was 254....which is better...but I know I'm only losing because I'm sick and not eating much (my throat hurts and swallowing sucks...it's basically just been broth)


Anyways, here is my question.

Do you think that it's better in the long run to just make little changes here and there, and add more as you go along....or to try and make all the changes at one time?

Last time, I did it all at once...and I did great for a while, until I fell off. I kept looking at the whole thing as a diet, not a lifestyle change, and I got sick of my diet food and my diet plan and got WAY off track.

I'm trying to decide if I should do what worked again, and just hope that I can maintain it this time around...or try something different and more gradual.


A typical day for me involves breakfast at jack in the box, a processed lunch full of tons of unhealthy snacks, and then home cooked dinner (usually chicken and veggies or something like that).

Do you think that I should try changing a few things....
ex:
swap jack in the box for a special K shake or cereal or something
try and bring more fruit and whole grains with lunch and cut the proccessed stuff

Or should I meticulously count everything and measure everything and stress over it?

I feel like I failed last time because I got sick of the diet mentality....so maybe if I thought about it as just making healthier choices and seeing where it got me that would be easier.....but is it enough?

Do you have any experience with this? How effective was just making those few changes? Were you able to lose any weight?



I am determined to make it work this time, I just have to figure out the best way to do it. lol

[danzingurl77]

I didnt have a whole lot to lose- but I made changes slowly. I didnt really think about it too much, or stress about it all the time. I just tried to make better habits and be healthier when I could. Funny enough- when I wasnt stressing about it so much is when I got to my lowest weight... I started to worry that I'd gain it back and started stressing about food all the time and what do you know- I'm up 10 lbs because I was bingeing and restrticting.

When I was making small changes I hardly noticed, I wasn't "suffering" and missing out on my favorite foods- I just felt good about making better choices. Now- looking back at how I used to eat I can hardly believe how different my eating habits are now, its like the change snuck up on me. Like the frog in boiling water story I guess.

So for me, making small LIFESTYLE changes worked the best for me. Its been sustainable and I rarely feel deprived. Just my 2 cents!

[Daki]

The entirety of 2011 was devoted to me making small changes and with each one getting a little bigger. Okay drink more water, now eat more healthy lunches, now try cooking healthier dinners, okay let's go to the gym now, let's try a diet. That's basically how my year went. I failed on at least 3 diets between August and November before I found one that is sustainable for me. I started this diet November 7th and I'm still going. It is the longest I've ever been able to keep up the change and this is also the most weight I've ever lost.

So for me, small changes were better. I recognized that I failed in the past because I'd jump right in and I wasn't ready for it. The thing is I didn't lose any weight when I was incorporating my small changes. It wasn't time for me to worry about my weight, I was focused on the change in my routine.

[Riestrella]

When I was at my heaviest I was eating a lot of takeaway meals, drinking soda and eating junk food in the night when I was staying up late. I also wasn't exercising.

The first change I made was eating 3 meals a day. Breakfast had to be eaten in the MORNING and not skipped for lunch. It also had to be cereal and not toast. Lunch had to be ONE sandwich, not two, with fruit and yoghurt. Dinner had to be whatever I was given but to make sure that I didn't keep eating until it was all gone if I was full. My Mum used to pressure us into eating EVERYTHING so I felt guilty if I left food, but now I'm older I know it's ok to leave food if I'm full.
Soda was banned, chocolate was banned - I had to drink water and snack on fruit if I was desperate.

The second change I made which coincided with the first was exercise. I started running 3 times a week. Eventually when I started 10k training I was working out 6 times a week. The endorphins made me feel so amazing and when I was losing weight I felt so good that I didn't want to snack or overeat or it would erase all the hard work. Because I was training for a race I wanted my performance to be the best, so I did research into nutrition and started making tweaks to my diet. Wholegrain cereal and bread, more veg, more protein etc.

Now I feel like I'm on a plan that I can live with for the rest of my life. The changes came slowly, but there were some dramatic changes to my diet at the beginning that helped me lose 14 lbs quickly. Then when I started to stall the exercise really boosted up the weight loss and I've been dropping ever since.

[sontaikle]

I personally think small changes are what helped me get here. Sure, I started when I was 16 and now I'm nearly 24, but I still got here and it honestly didn't feel like I was changing all that much.

I started exercising regularly for a few years. After that I started eating healthier and making healthier choices. I learned about nutrition and calories, although I didn't watch how much I was eating all that well. In May I started portion control and then eventually calorie counting and here I am

It took me over seven years to get to this point, so some might say that was too long. I don't think so...I would still be here regardless of whether or not I had made those changes, just right now I'm a healthier person!

[runningfromfat]

I am ALL about small changes. Actually, I've lost almost 75lbs now with small changes.

Like you I've yoyoed for years and always in the past it was because I would get into the super big diet mode, go super strict on some stupid diet, lose, then not be able to stick with it.

Well, this time I decided NO. Forget that! I was going to tackle one thing at a time and just hope it improved my health from there. So here's what I did and I've been at this for over 1.5 years and I'm still making changes:

-Started exercising
-Few months later gave up all sugar and artificial sweetener
-1-2 months later gave up all white flours
-Eventually started doing weight bearing exercises
-Eventually added sugar back in to try to eat it in limited amounts- sucked at first at this but I seem to have it worked out now.
-Started doing heavy lifting
-Went to see a nutritionist, got some good ideas about changes in my meal plans (added in more fruit, learned never to get anything sweet in the house but only buy single servings at a time, watched portion sizes more etc)
- Started swimming 3x/week +continuing lifting

All that happened since June 2010. I'm not perfect but I figure I'm a work in progress. I still eat pretty much no sugar and never keep anything in the house. That for me is vital because I just can't control myself around it. Beyond that if I get an idea for a small change that sounds reasonable I'll try it. If it doesn't work fine (calorie counting has never worked for me, for instance) if it does, all the better!

I've also made some promises to myself when I started this:
- never go hungry. if I'm hungry something is not working so I need to change it
- size and health matter, not the number on the scale. If my goal weight finds me before 140lbs and as long as I'm at a healthy BMI, I'm not going to stress about it because it's way better for me to maintain my loss than go to a too low goal and gain back more than I would've if I would've picked a higher goal
- throw out any all or nothing attitudes. perfectionism doesn't help anyone
- do this for ME. I wanted DH to join in with me with I started but realizing that I could do this on my own really changed me. Just because he wasn't eating well didn't mean that should affect my eating habits
- i would still eat pizza. I LOVE PIZZA and darn it, I was going to work it into my meal plans once a week.

[sontaikle]

Originally Posted by runningfromfat

- i would still eat pizza. I LOVE PIZZA and darn it, I was going to work it into my meal plans once a week.

Yes!

You can take my pizza from me when I'm dead

[Daki]

Originally Posted by sontaikle

Yes!

You can take my pizza from me when I'm dead

Yes. Absolutely yes. I tell people I still eat pizza once a week and they look at me like I'm some sort of magical being who can eat pizza while losing weight. The difference is I'm ordering a small pizza for $5 and eating some and saving some for the next week instead of ordering a large and eating almost all of it during the course of a night.

[runningfromfat]

Originally Posted by Daki

Yes. Absolutely yes. I tell people I still eat pizza once a week and they look at me like I'm some sort of magical being who can eat pizza while losing weight. The difference is I'm ordering a small pizza for $5 and eating some and saving some for the next week instead of ordering a large and eating almost all of it during the course of a night.

Sounds like us. We get a small frozen pizza (here they're smaller than the standard US sizes and consist of about 1200 calories for the entire thing) and then split it 3 ways plus we add in either soup or salad. It ends up working out to about 300-400 calories for me with about another 100 for the soup or salad. We also found a great pizzeria locally that has diet pizza for 95 calories a slice!!!! And it's incredible!

[DivineFidelity]

Well it seems like small changes have unanimously had good results for all of you...so that's what I'm going to try and do this time.

My first change is no more jack in the box breakfast, and on weekends I HAVE to eat breakfast. I used to just sleep in and wait until lunch to eat.

I'm also cutting out artificial sugars and soda (although i don't drink soda much anyways).

After a couple weeks of sticking to that I'll think about some more changes that I could make.

[RebaRamBam]

I think that I made a lot of little changes all at once. I still eat the same types of foods mostly but i eat a lot less and pick a few healthier options here and there. I have never felt deprived or like I was starving. I think that is important while you make changes. Good luck!!

[Iconised Ghost]

Definitely recommend small changes. I work as a health psychologist intern and often people come to me wanting help with weight, and we always recommend small changes. Often its helpful to start with something small that you can easily do and that will make the most difference. Then you start to see progress and are encouraged and keep going etc etc.

[AnonymouslyYours]

I say big changes, but I am a very results-oriented person, so I just never stuck with small changes for very long. It's easier for me to keep going when I see rapid success.

[ASaladandaDream]

I know exactly what you mean! I know it sounds sucky, but the gradual way is BETTER. It definitely takes longer, but it lasts longer. Because w/ the strict change you have the mentality that "once I lose the weight I can go back to eating whatever I want." And then you gain it back.

That's why I don't really count calories. I mean, I do occasionally look up how many calories are in something, but I don't keep a daily journal. I DO watch what I eat. I try and choose veggies & fruits as often as possible, & lean meats & good whole grains,etc. But if I REALLY REALLY REALLY want a piece of chocolate cake, I have it.

If I counted calories, that chocolate cake would make me feel REALLY guilty & Id probably be depressed, feel like "Im NEVER going to change!" & fall off the wagon for a few days.

Since I DONT count calories, I just think "ehh, it really wasn't worth all the hard work ive been putting in - but tomorrow is another day."

I think this is a good mentality though, because I could really live the rest of my life like this! Have bad stuff sometimes, but mostly eat healthy! And so if I have to live on some type of diet for the REST of my life - it'd be this one ^_^

[Candeka]

Since I decided to lose weight through calorie counting, I didn't have to make any REALLY big changes, like cutting out all carbs or something crazy like that. I still eat pretty much everything I ate before, I just keep my calories between 1300-1500. Last night I had 200 calories left over, so I had brownie ice cream. Today I made cookies and had about 3 of them. The only difference is that I ate 3, not 13 like I would have before. I also try and avoid fast food places but I don't deny myself anything. I've tried that before and it never worked. I do incorporate way more fruits and veggies into my life now, but that's because I've experimented and found ways to enjoy them. I found that if I steam them and put lemon pepper on them that I actually like them. I hate raw vegetables. I could never ever survive on having to cut out foods like pizza, chocolate or icecream. I think I'd rather be fat than cut those things out.