Back in spring/summer I restricted my calories so much I went from 150lbs down to my lowest ever of 124lbs in about 2 months. While I felt lifeless, I was proud of myself for getting to a weight I'd only dreamed of...of course it didn't last and I binged myself back to 150-160. I was out of control.
These days I keep my weight between 140-150. I LOVED that I was able to get down to such a small weight, but my chest bones began popping out, boobs deflated, bingo wings sagged. Even though I still felt like my tummy pooch and thighs were huge so it was never enough.
I think I look my best at 130-135. The thing is getting there because dieting isn't enough. Honestly above everything else -as vain as it sounds- the only thing I want in the world to be thinner.
So if I want it that bad and think about it 24/7 and constantly criticize myself and wish I was someone else, WHY can't I change my lifestyle? If it's so important to me and if I'm that ashamed of my body, why can't I bring myself to fix it?
I want to eat only when HUNGRY and make good choices, lift weights and be active. Being I only work 3 days a week and have weights and know routines that have worked for me in the past when I was seeing a personal trainer and going to the gym -to counter the rapid gain from binge eating- it should be SO EASY to get there!
When I was dieting successfully -before I restricted out of control), I used to weigh daily to track my progress and calorie count. Both drove me absolutely crazy. I think I'm afraid of that the most. I feel like it's never going to be possible because I will always want to slip up and eat cake or borderline starve myself if it fluctuates... but if I don't weigh daily I'm more tempted to go off track. But if I lift how do I even know due to water repair and muscle mass? The tape measure isn't enough!
I don't know what to do. It sounds stupid coming from someone that is a sm for tops and sm-m in bottoms... but I feel like I can do much more for myself. I'm just lazy and lost the willpower to say "no".
I don't know what to do. How can I get on track and what do I do differently so I don't end up binging or starving?
I am no expert...especially at weight loss, but I think you need to take a look at how you are thinking about yourself and getting healthier. If you maybe think more positively about how you're doing, you may find that gives you some motivation. It seems from your post that you can be rather hard on yourself.... If that isn't getting you results, why don't you try the opposite approach and be your own biggest cheerleader?
Yes, I agree, attitude is #1. If you are obsessing about being thinner at any cost, then the task becomes monumental and desperate, so of course your will want to soothe yourself by binging, then punish the binge by starving. If you make a solid plan to gently lose the weight and accept that it'll take a little longer than you might expect, then I think you'll have more success.
Lifting weights/being active and starving doesn't work. Not only will you lack energy, your body will burn out and you'll binge - and possibly leave yourself open to injury, which will stall your desire to be active.
My advice would be to do some research on how many calories your body needs on an average day without activity (that's your BMR, you can find websites to calculate it)...then build your menus based on your caloric needs as an active person (TDEE calculation will tell you how many calories you need to maintain your weight at "x" activity level, again, you can find lots of calculators online). Also, gradually get active (if you aren't), because jumping in too fast, again, leads to burnout too.
Of course another option is the great range of diets out there, lots of different eating plans to choose from, so check them out too. Lots of folks have great success on them.
And of course, take all this with a grain of salt. Our bodies do weird things based on water intake, temperature, if we're sick, lack of sleep, time of day, and for women TOM...
This could motivate you more than the idea of starving yourself. Also posting here is a good idea.
Last edited by Chardonnay; 01-26-2014 at 09:15 PM.
Its hard to be positive. I always see the glass half empty no matter what. I don't think I'll ever like what I see in the mirror.
But going in admitting its going to take a while could help. I might weigh every other day instead of constantly. Maybe if I keep my portions and snacking down it could help as well instead of CUTTING everything out. I've done calorie count.... I've done macros, TDEE, 1200, BMR, cardio, weight training...
I suppose an average day might look like
Breakfast, cup of coffee with 2 sugars and some cream
Lunch-1 piece of toast with 2 scrambled eggs
Dinner- anything from pizza to ramen, sometimes excessive portions AND/OR
Dessert- Cookies... usually like 6 of them T__T cookie addiction.
If I do snack its usually goldfish crackers or nuts. I'm terrible at work though... I work at an adult family home and we get to cook for the ol' folks...and homemade bake and cook stuff for them. Much nomms.
I mean I know enough about diets, fads, why you gain and lose weight slow or fast that you'd think I wouldn't feel defeated if there was a pound gain in a day. I guess it seems like you try hard all day and struggle not eating stuff that when your efforts aren't numerically reflected you feel like a failure.
I feel also like calorie tracking works....but for me it drives me up the wall frustrated. Perhaps I should make a food log and just experiment instead of making a set plan and calorie quota? Removing the cookies and questionable dinner I think I do alright..? Cept I sit on my *** all day if i'm not at work or out walking about.
Everyone's different, but my success came from logging everything. I did all the calculations and stuck to my plan. I log all the calories I eat and expend each day. When it's right in front of you in black and white, it's hard to justify overeating when you want to shed pounds, at least for me that works. I am very sedentary as I work from home, so I have to work that much harder at the gym to make sure I qualify as active, i.e. I spend a good 2+ hours a day working out, otherwise I'd be a bump on a log 24/7. I actually wore a pedometer 3 years ago before I started the weight loss program...on a GOOD day I took about 350 steps! Yikes.
As for the diets, I never really followed one, but lately I've been eating foods along the Mediterranean diet guidelines, just more fresh fruits, veggies, fish and good oils/nuts. It's mainly starting to improve my digestion and helping not crave high fat foods like lots of cheese. Tomorrow my bf and I are starting the 5:2 diet...I hate that word "diet", but anyway, the 5:2 eating plan. We eat normally 5 days a week, then 2 days a week we "fast" on 500-600 calories. He's not an exerciser so it should help him lose his 9 pounds, and help (hopefully) boost my little plateau so I can lose the last 15.
Last edited by Chardonnay; 01-26-2014 at 09:52 PM.
Hi Iixi, I hear you. But what you don't realise is that the next time you go on a diet, you will modify what you did last time so that its more sustainable and less difficult. And more satisfying.
Firstly don't restrict your calories so much. Be willing to go a bit more slowly while you work out a a healthy eating style. Figure out how many calories you should eat to sustain your current weight. Don't force yourself to exercise if you do not feel like it and when you make your daily sustaining calculation, say you lead a sedentary life and do no exercise so that the calories you can eat are not so high forcing you to do more and more exercise. Unless you have a daily routine you can't change which involves a fair bit of activity and so include that in the calculation. For example, when i put my numbers in, i said i did no exercise and i wanted to lose only 2 pounds a month. So i can eat 1650 calories per day for my height and weight. That's a lot easier to maintain than 1200 or 1300. And i enjoy my mood and don't miss anything.
At first i had to apply mental RESOLVE to resist small amounts of hunger but its instinctive now and i feel i don't need to send my myself strong messages. Though i found the word resolve very helpful. Its like a positive affirmation. It helps with your commitment. I don't continually send myself negative messages about how fat and gross i am although i did register feelings of disgust before i decided to go on a diet. And the DISGUST word helped to start again.
It sounds like you lost your weight so fast that you lost quite a bit of muscle mass as well. That's why you went bony in the chest. I can get that too when i am right down at the bottom of my healthy weight range.
if you only reduce your calories a little bit, you won't feel hungry so much. And you should be able to resist giving in to bad food choices. Make sure what you do eat is filling healthy and low calorie. I prefer a high carb diet to a high protein diet but it can probably work well enough eating meat instead of pasta and rice and beans. So i eat pasta, basmati rice, and legumes and beans which are all filling, low GI. Look into the meaning of LOW GI. Its interesting and i believe it is useful on a diet.
Make sure your food is delicious but healthy. Largish portions of low calorie foods.
I plan to eat only three meals a day but if i feel hungry i will eat something extra depending on the situation, i will eat a vegemite sandwich on wholegrain bread, a piece of fruit or more than one or a glass of wine. None of these things make my appetite grow.
I time my meals so that breakfast and lunch are quite close together and dinner is early in the evening, preferably between six and seven o'clock.
I weigh myself everyday but don't get upset if the scales don't show a content downward motion or seem to get stuck. If they get stuck i think about adjusting something in my diet or consider a one day water fast. Which i did on the second day of my diet and will do again if needs be. I don't do much exercise at the moment but down the track i want to take up running and get more active but i don't want my weight loss to depend on a lot of exercise because i can't sustain it.
if you want have a look at what i eat on my food diary in the vegetarian section. I post my recipes as well as quantities. I'm 5"4.5
Also if you want to go higher protein, have a look at the CSIRO total wellbeing diets. Although i don't restrict quite as much as they do. Their meal plans are tailored to lose 2 pounds a week. I find that this makes me hungry. But they tell you how to adjust your meal plans in an easy way and you don't have to count calories either as they have a more simple system.
If you slip, you have to be willing to make small mistakes and get back on the wagon without going crazy worrying about it. You know that that style of thinking is self-defeating. So don't do it. Take a more functional perspective. Forgive yourself when you slip up. Force yourself not to compensate by calorie restricting if you slip up, just return to your meal plan or program and you will lose any added weight.
Its hard to be positive. I always see the glass half empty no matter what. I don't think I'll ever like what I see in the mirror.
But going in admitting its going to take a while could help. I might weigh every other day instead of constantly. Maybe if I keep my portions and snacking down it could help as well instead of CUTTING everything out. I've done calorie count.... I've done macros, TDEE, 1200, BMR, cardio, weight training...
I suppose an average day might look like
Breakfast, cup of coffee with 2 sugars and some cream
Lunch-1 piece of toast with 2 scrambled eggs
Dinner- anything from pizza to ramen, sometimes excessive portions AND/OR
Dessert- Cookies... usually like 6 of them T__T cookie addiction.
If I do snack its usually goldfish crackers or nuts. I'm terrible at work though... I work at an adult family home and we get to cook for the ol' folks...and homemade bake and cook stuff for them. Much nomms.
I don't see one fruit or veggie, you should have 5 servings a day, if you do you might be more satisfied and not binge
I don't see one fruit or veggie, you should have 5 servings a day, if you do you might be more satisfied and not binge
I used to eat all fruits and some veg. My favorite "diet" foods were local fresh plums, apples, pineapples, cantaloupes, melon. They made up a big part of my breakfast and snacks. Here and there I'll eat a banana but lately I haven't really had any fruit in the house. I do eat veg every day, but not as a main serving, maybe included in a recipe. I had rice with broccoli and carrots yesterday. I stopped buying fruits because around the muscle head communities they basically slam you for eating fruit because it's all "bad sugery carbs". My old personal trainer even told me not to eat an apple before work outs.
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Aside from that, I think I'll just try things slowly. Maybe substitute this for that and attempt to eat clean, whole foods. I might take starchy carbs down a little. I noticed I bloat like **** if I have too much bready foods or too much salty food.
Ideally I'd like to keep a window of eating open from first initial hunger to about 8pm. I'll keep my breakfast and lunch the same but maybe in between have some greek yogurt or a fruit. I'll try to replace cookies with a couple pieces of dark chocolate. Seemed to help me last time I had a cookie addiction. If I get the need for sweets I'll have a fruit or a decaf coffee perhaps? One step at a time? And stay on here on the daily so I'm motivated?
I don't see one fruit or veggie, you should have 5 servings a day, if you do you might be more satisfied and not binge
+ agree with Bellamack. Also the poster who said you need to make it a lifestyle change. In the long run you are going to want to be healthy.
I lose weight eating fruit. I have 2 in my smoothie every morning, including a banana. Then I'll have sometimes have another piece for a snack. I cut out as much processed food as possible... bread, cookies and crackers are the bad carbs with no nutritional value or fiber.
I feel also like calorie tracking works....but for me it drives me up the wall frustrated. Perhaps I should make a food log and just experiment instead of making a set plan and calorie quota? Removing the cookies and questionable dinner I think I do alright..? Cept I sit on my *** all day if i'm not at work or out walking about.
Hi iixi!
Great that you are posting -- a good way to work on motivation. Obviously the great majority of people on 3FC that lost weight had a plan that worked for them and stuck with it. The most important thing is to develop a plan that will work for YOU. Calorie counting is a super great way to lose weight, but doesn't work for everyone. I, for one, hit a wall on a previous calorie counting diet. My plan now involves estimating calories for breakfast & lunch, portion control for dinner, regular exercise, and a few set rules (like no caloric snacks, drinks or desserts). Find a plan that will work. Make a plan that is sustainable for you and stick with it.
Why can't I get motivated again!? HALP
