For me, I had to put everything on the line. And I mean, freaking everything, because I quit my job.
It sounds like a really dumb idea. Maybe it was. But I know me, and I knew that as long as I had a single excuse, I would
never lose the weight. I'd blame my bad decisions on work stress, or not having enough time, or on being too beat down by answering telephones to have any energy or willpower left to stick to a plan. And maybe it was the job's fault, as much as it was anything's fault, but it didn't change the fact that
I was the one facing the consequences.
So, yeah, I got rid of the excuse, and got rid of my net. That way, my success or failure was all on me. I was lucky in that my mom was willing to support me during this--I couldn't have done it without her. But I had to make it so that failure simply wasn't an option.
This is probably not the best route for anyone else, though, so I'll focus on how I face the day-to-day grind. Some of it is that I don't have anything that's forbidden to me--if I want ice cream and popcorn for lunch, I can have ice cream and popcorn for lunch, so long as I'm at or slightly under 1200 calories for the day. Also in this vein, I refused to eat anything that I didn't really like. It's a lot easier for me to stay on plan if what I'm eating is delicious.
I go clothes shopping a lot. I don't particularly love clothes shopping, but it provides me with a metric for success. Nothing quite matches the rush of fitting into the next smallest size. I don't have to buy the clothes; I just have to try them on.
I don't let anyone else tell me what to do. Every so often, I have someone tell me that I should eat more protein/fewer carbs/more vegetables/different vegetables/different fruits/no diet soda/water/whatever. Yeah. No. If I try to use someone else's plan to lose my own weight, then I'm doomed to failure. For instance, my dad was constantly pushing the South Beach Diet on me a few years back. It worked wonders for him. I wouldn't have made it past the induction phase, and I'd've been miserable the whole time.
This flows in to my next tactic, which was absolutely necessary for me: KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. (Stupid being me here, of course
). I chose calorie counting because the idea of keeping track of fifty billion different numbers made me feel like crawling back under my rock with a bag of McDonalds. One number, I could deal with, though. For me, calorie counting was simpler, and the healthier choices came as a natural outgrowth of that. Other people find the lack of structure in calorie counting to be challenging, and prefer a stricter system. Some people need to regulate their carbs (I'm lucky in that they don't trigger mad hunger or binges for me, but I accept that that isn't the case for everyone). The goal is to find the plan that involves the least amount of effort for you, whatever it is. If you're finding the task to be herculean, then maybe you need a different approach.
Speaking of numbers, I found comfort in knowing that, as long as I followed my plan, I
would lose weight. It might not be as steady or at exactly the pace I imagined, but it would happen as surely as the sun rises in the east.
Finally, I have one cheat day a month. Some people don't find them helpful, but I do for one reason: if I really want something that's bad for me, I can tell myself that I'll have it on my cheat day. Now, realistically, I'm not going to have every single thing I crave crammed into one day; that would make me sick. However, if I can tell myself that I'll have it soon, then the craving isn't nearly as bad. This works even if it's kind of a lie--I have the option of having it, and if I
choose not to, it's a lot easier for me to deal with than if I'm just not allowed to have it.
