Hi! I'm pretty new here - and have a question... Does anyone else have trouble being happy with how much weight they have lost without bemoaning how much more they have left to lose?? It upsets me that I can't enjoy having lost 80 lbs without thinking "But you still need to lose another 120" or "But you're still 268 lbs!" Not sure how to adjust my thinking on this one...
I think you gotta focus on what you have done. You are doing so great! And I'm sure you have noticed a difference in how your clothes fit, how much stronger you are, etc.
And you do not think about numbers like 120 to go. Focus on your next mini goal of 10 pounds to lose, or how many you want to lose this month, or the next 5%, or whatever very small goal you have going. Focus on the small goal that you CAN do. You CAN do 10 more pounds, right?
The first 80 is proof that you can do the next 80. And then the last 40 you know you can do 'cause you've already done it TWICE.
Yes, sometimes it is hard to embrace progress without focusing on the road ahead. But isn't 120 a heckofa lot better sounding than 200? Keep up the fabulous work!
as trite as it sounds, on 'those days' i'd pick up a few giant bags of dog food and know that was only about THIRTY pounds and i'd lost twice that and more! woohoo! or my other trick was to come in ladened down with grocery bags and step on the scales holding it all hahaha and see my OLD weight and have a heart attack, then drop the bags and voila! instant HUGE loss! hahaha it's all mind games, but they're important so you don't say "bah what's the point i'm still fat" it could be WORSE right, you could have NOT lost 80.
I get like this a lot too. I'm within 20lbs of my first goal and everyone who seems me is like "wow, you've lost so much weight, well done!" but many times I'm like very meh, and just think wow there's still a lot to be done. It's sometimes hard to stay motivated or just pat yourself on the back and give yourself credit for your accomplishments.
I think there's a balance and your brain knows it. Give yourself some credit -- by being aware of what you still have to lose, you don't become satisfied with what you've already done! You could just stop and say, "Heck! I lost 80 pounds. That's enough!" But your brain knows it's not enough so it keeps pushing you.
I think the key is turning it from "I've still got so far to go." to "I've already lost 80 pounds so I KNOW I can do this. Those 80 pounds prove how driven I am to accomplish this goal. And every pound I lose is just a testament to my new mentality."
as trite as it sounds, on 'those days' i'd pick up a few giant bags of dog food and know that was only about THIRTY pounds and i'd lost twice that and more! woohoo! or my other trick was to come in ladened down with grocery bags and step on the scales holding it all hahaha and see my OLD weight and have a heart attack, then drop the bags and voila! instant HUGE loss! hahaha it's all mind games, but they're important so you don't say "bah what's the point i'm still fat" it could be WORSE right, you could have NOT lost 80.
I file that kind of thinking under negative self talk. It is one of the things I am working on. I am trying to do more positive self talk. I think for a lot of us, the weight loss journey involves changing not only eating and physical habits, but also mental and emotional habits. When you start thinking like this - you should come up with some positive things to tell yourself.
When i think 40 down, 40 to go, I get a little overwhelmed. I am trying to just focus on getting back below 210 (I was 211.2 this morning) and then I will focus on below 200. Smaller things to focus on at a time - like the PP said above.
Thanks all... hoping that as I get smaller I will feel better about it...
The funny thing is that it doesn't make me less motivated - I've basically made some changes that I never expect to reverse and I'm confident that I will lose the weight. And, honestly, it's not even about feeling unattractive - even at my top weight I felt pretty good about myself...
It comes into play the most when people comment to me that I look like I've lost weight - what I hear is "You are somewhat less fat than you used to be." And when they ask how much weight I've lost, I hear it as "How the heck much does a person who looks like you weigh, anyway?? And my g-d - what did you weigh before..."
Working on thinking more positively - and giving other people more credit
The vast majority of people who ask, "How much weight have you lost?" are asking not because they want to know how much you currently weigh, but because they want a chance to say, "Whoaaaa, that's AWESOME!"
And 80 pounds? That definitely deserves a whoaaaa, that's AWESOME!
About a week ago, I overheard some women talking in the changing room at the Y about their weight. They were talking about how much they had to lose, how much time it'd take, how rough it can be--the usual stuff--and one told the other about a friend of hers who'd dropped fifty pounds. "You should see her, she looks like a new person!" I don't know them or the friend they were discussing, but I kind of wanted to hang around and thank them both for actually talking nicely about someone behind her back (I didn't, but I wanted to).
That's the kind of thing people really think about a big weight loss--not what a person has left to lose, but how amazing it is that she's already lost as much as she has. It's a rare person who doesn't know how tough it can be to lose weight; when they see someone who's lost a significant amount of it, they are justifiably impressed.
Plate half full?
