How do you tell yourself no to bad foods that sound oh so good to you at the time? This seems to be where I'm faltering. I have absolutely no problem making myself workout - I'm sore and miserable, but I tell myself one hour and it'll be over - and I do it. No problem.
Water? Again, no problem. I've been downing it like crazy.
But avoiding bad foods? Not so much. I somehow managed to stay in my calorie range today - but I ate McDonalds. . . I have such a hard time saying no because if I say no I keep thinking about it until I cave. I find it's easier to make myself do something than to make myself not do something.
So how do you motivate yourself in situations where you keep seeing/thinking about the bad things to tell yourself no?
(P.S., allowing myself a small amount of it does not seem to work well. I have a bite of the bad thing and then it's all over! I MUST finish it!)
I'm still trying to learn this, and I still fail a lot, but I've managed to lose more than 60 lbs, so I must be doing something right. So basically, you don't have to succeed all of the time, you just have to continue to make progress.
I'm not saying my goal isn't to give some foods up for good, but I don't beat myself up to badly either when I fail to do something or fail to refrain from doing something. I succeed in both more often than I used to, as I expect to continue to suceed even more in the future.
Like has been said many, many times around here - it doesn't have much to do with motivation, it's COMMITMENT that is needed. When you make that commitment - to become a healthier person, you then go on to make the right choices, regardless of what you "feel" like. Motivaton comes and goes & isn't around when those bad choices are staring you in the face. But that commitment, MUCH more lasting.
Also keep in mind, that longterm weight loss simply can't occur until your desire to be fit, trim and healthy OUTWEIGHS the desire for the "bad" food. That desire needs to be really stong, IMO, in order for this to "work". It was certainly the case with me. I needed to want to be that fit, trim, healthy person badly enough.
I also can't have one bite. ESPECIALLY in the beginning. I needed to go cold turkey. It was much easier to say no altogether, then to just stop at one bite.
I would also make sure that you've got a good plan in place. With DELICIOUS healthy, low calorie foods. Eat often, every 2 1/2 hours or so. Keep yourself from getting hungry. Fill up on healthy, satisfying foods. Low fat proteins, veggies, whole grains and some fruits. This way you won't want to veer off track. If what you're eating is enjoyable, well then, you won't have as much of a desire for the bad stuff. It won't happen right away. But your tastes will change. You just must stick with your healthy eating plan for a bit until it does.
And again, really, don't rely on motivation. Make a commitment. You owe it yourself. You will never regret doing so. I promise you.
Last edited by rockinrobin; 02-12-2009 at 07:11 PM.
that has been one of the hardest things for me because I use food as a crutch. at this point I have substituted good foods for the ones that I usually crave. for example if I want something sweet I have SF jello with cool whip...if that not gonna cut it then I warm up some chocolate almond breeze ot soy slender and top with 2 tbsp of cool whip. thats my current fave.
today I made another fave. cauliflower bisque....I cook 1 1lb bag of frozen cauliflower in 32 oz of chicken broth with 3 stalks of chopped celery and 1/2 onion chopped season and cook for 20 min. then I puree it with the stick blender and add 1/2 cup of Hood Calorie Countdown milk . Voila! cream soup! it's delish but its really just a bowl of veggies.
I find that these substitutions really help me feel less deprived. so when I think of fatty calorie laden foods I can replace the thought with something better.
in the mean time, it is a good idea to log these cravings and when they occur and start to recognise some of your food triggers so that you can learn how better to deal with daily pressures. it helps to be able to differentiate between REAL hunger and emotional eating.
ugh i know!!! people would offer advice like "eat just one bite of rich delicious cheesecake and really savour it" um yah ok. Or go to mcdonalds but get the happy meal with apple slices instead of fries. oh for sure, i'll do that. NOT. hahahha i'm a cold turkey person - i just had to make that choice to walk away from it. Some people love to snack at night, have to snack to succeed, but me? no way. Once i start snacking - even on healthy stuff - it leads to just a teeeeeny bit more...then a scoooch more and then boom! game over!
all i can say is as crappy as it feels to walk away from something tempting, it's weirdly empowering and it does get easier..hang in there!
ugh i know!!! people would offer advice like "eat just one bite of rich delicious cheesecake and really savour it" um yah ok. Or go to mcdonalds but get the happy meal with apple slices instead of fries. oh for sure, i'll do that. NOT. hahahha i'm a cold turkey person - i just had to make that choice to walk away from it. Some people love to snack at night, have to snack to succeed, but me? no way. Once i start snacking - even on healthy stuff - it leads to just a teeeeeny bit more...then a scoooch more and then boom! game over!
all i can say is as crappy as it feels to walk away from something tempting, it's weirdly empowering and it does get easier..hang in there!
HA!! one bite of cheesecake.....yea, right...THAT'L happen!
If you can't eat a small amount and you can't go cold turkey, maybe you could modify how often you eat junk. Could you limit your trips to McD's to once a week? Whatever you can do, if you're taking steps in the right direction it will make a difference. Also, it helps me if I look up the calories before I go. 1000 calories for nachos? No thanks.
Also you might think of it as reversing your work outs. You work so hard, and then undo it by eating junk. That would work for me because I hate working out
Like has been said many, many times around here - it doesn't have much to do with motivation, it's COMMITMENT that is needed. When you make that commitment - to become a healthier person, you then go on to make the right choices, regardless of what you "feel" like. Motivaton comes and goes & isn't around when those bad choices are staring you in the face. But that commitment, MUCH more lasting.
Also keep in mind, that longterm weight loss simply can't occur until your desire to be fit, trim and healthy OUTWEIGHS the desire for the "bad" food. That desire needs to be really stong, IMO, in order for this to "work". It was certainly the case with me. I needed to want to be that fit, trim, healthy person badly enough.
I also can't have one bite. ESPECIALLY in the beginning. I needed to go cold turkey. It was much easier to say no altogether, then to just stop at one bite.
I would also make sure that you've got a good plan in place. With DELICIOUS healthy, low calorie foods. Eat often, every 2 1/2 hours or so. Keep yourself from getting hungry. Fill up on healthy, satisfying foods. Low fat proteins, veggies, whole grains and some fruits. This way you won't want to veer off track. If what you're eating is enjoyable, well then, you won't have as much of a desire for the bad stuff. It won't happen right away. But your tastes will change. You just must stick with your healthy eating plan for a bit until it does.
And again, really, don't rely on motivation. Make a commitment. You owe it yourself. You will never regret doing so. I promise you.
oh yea...and what she said....
but seriously....you have to sit down and really think about "commitment" vs. "motivation"
it is way to hard to be motivated to NOT EAT yummy food....you have to be able to remind yourself that this is NOT on your food plan.
NEVER be hungry....NEVER be too tired....and NEVER be both at the same time. it's much easier to stop yourself from making bad choices BEFORE you get there. why try and make a good choice in the McD's drive thru? JUST DON'T GO THERE.
always have healthy food with you...and water. (we don't need to DRINK our calories either) if you ARE going out to eat...decide what you are having b4 you go...don't look at the menu.
but above all...DECIDE what you want...to be fit and healthy? or to eat junk? then stick with that decision....nothing to think about after the decision ismade. you'll be surprised how freeing it is.
I agree on commitment being important, but I don't believe that failures (big or small) necessarily reflect a lack of commitment. Changing habits is incredibly difficult, and some people struggle more than others even after they make the commitment. It isn't so much sometimes in how many times you fall, but in how many times (and how quickly) you pick yourself up.
For me, motivation and commitment are important, but it also boils down to strategy (which you call commitment if you want to), but finding ways to make willpower less important. Finding ways to take advantage of my laziness (if I don't keep certain trigger foods in the house, if I want them I have to go out of my way to get them, and usually deciding it's not worth the effort). Grocery shopping with a list and after a meal. Planning and having back up plans. Treating myself as both scientist and lab rat.
I personally cringe when I hear commitment as the bottom line, because for so many years I wanted weight loss much more than I do now, and was willing to suffer for it to a much larger degree, so I feel like my motivation and commitment are almost at a lifetime low, and yet I am still succeeding. More out of stubbornness than by effort - but also by learning and addressing three physiological factors in my weight gain. One being a hormonal one, and changing my birth control accordingly. Another being insulin resistance, treated with metformin. And the third (which may be a result of the second) that I do best on a lower carb diet, and carbs trigger a crazy increase in appetite, hunger, and cravings.
There is no one solution for everyone. Trial and error is all you're ultimately stuck with, but if you keep at it, eventually you learn about what works for you. Sometimes it means trying a lot of things, you might not think would work (I dismissed low carb diets for three decased, and it took me nearly as long to find a doctor comfortable with helping me address the birth control issue by stacking bc - much like Seasonique).
For me, I really believe the only secret to my success this time was a little bit of luck, and the decision not to ever give up, no matter how low my motivation or commitment are at any single moment.
For me, I really believe the only secret to my success this time was a little bit of luck, and the decision not to ever give up, no matter how low my motivation or commitment are at any single moment.
You can plan ahead. If you eat out often then pick items before hand, It's often easier to be strong if you have made the decision ahead of time. Someone was making fun of ordering a Happy Meal but if you order the kid's meal you probably can have your fries and eat them too) : ) No need to substitute them with apple slices.
I think it's more about addiction. Sugary foods. Fast food. High carbs. Those types of foods are addictive. It's beyond commitment or telling yourself no. I've struggled with that. Now that I've gone sugar free, I crave it so much less. I'm working on going gluten free. It sounds boring, but it's actually great once you get used to it. No more cravings. Lots of energy. Lots of weight loss!
I look at the goals I have and when I want to achieve them. I also try to go for the healthy alternatives to the bad food I'm craving rather than going all out and not being nearly as satisfied and kicking myself for it later.
I'm not saying that I am not commited, or that commitment isn't a factor, but in all of the 36 years I've spent on the dieting rollercoaster there were many times that I wanted to lose the weight far more than I do now, and was willing to do far more to lose the weight than I'm willing to do now, and I still failed.
In large part, luck played the most important role in my even being willing to try to lose the weight "this time," because of failures in the past. I was pretty much convinced that trying to lose weight only made me fatter, not thinner, so I had vowed never to diet again, and to in fact, never get on a scale in my own home again (I was tempted to even refuse to let doctors weigh me).
When I had to stop working because of health problems and we moved to WI where my husband found work, at my first doctor's appointment about 6 months after that I had lost 20 lbs without trying. I've never accidentally, or unintentionally lost weight in my life. I'd been on a CPAP machine for a couple months before the move and the pulmonologist prescribing it had predicted that I might lose some weight without even trying because of the increase in sleep quality. I didn't have much hope of that, but I suppose it helped (along with more time for mealplanning and not having a vending machine handy or having to work unexpected overtime and sometimes having to choose between the vending machine and not eating).
My new doctor recommended low carb for the insulin resistance, but I was so skeptical of low-carb diets it took another year, and another doctor recommending it (one who had lost nearly a hundred pounds herself, doing so) for me to give it a try. She also was the first doctor to give me a positive response when I suggested stacking my bc to prevent periods, since I had such difficulty controling my hunger during the placebo week (I'd been suggesting it to doctors for decades, but I was always talked out of it).
I really feel like I've been drug along, almost kicking and screaming this time - and I'm still losing. I sometimes get so angry that I didn't have this information in my 20's, when I really had the physical strength and stamina to run with it, instead of crawl. I'd probably still be working, and most of my health problems would have never developed; but then I remind myself that I would have never met my husband, and my life would be different in many other bad ways as well as good.
This journey isn't always simple, it's almost never easy, and there can be a lot of twists and turns. I had to unlearn a lot to make progress, and one of the things I had to unlearn was judging myself for failing. Accusing myself of not trying hard enough, or not being commited enough wasn't true and wasn't working.
Seeing commitment as part of the puzzle isn't wrong, but seeing it as the only piece of the puzzle, and especially judging yourself or others because of some perceived lack of it can do more harm than good to some folks.
Seeing commitment as part of the puzzle isn't wrong, but seeing it as the only piece of the puzzle, and especially judging yourself or others because of some perceived lack of it can do more harm than good to some folks.
I'm def. NOT thinking in terms of judgements...
I think of it more as something deeply personal.....a decision that comes from deep within , when something inside turns a corner and says "hey, I just don't want to do this anymore and I feel ready and able to do what it takes to bring myself to another place."
I feel like that is what is happening with me, and thats why I feel more able to stay with my decision to eat the way I need to to lose weight. it's being ready and able to commit to MYSELF. that can be hard for a lot of women, probably because we are taught to be nurturing others b4 ourselves.
it's how I quit smoking after 30 years. at soem point I said "I just can't live this way anymore" and I made the decision. it stopped being a thing where I would "see if I could go without cigs" for a day or 1/2 a day. I hadn't gone 1/2 a day without a cig in 30 years! why would I do it now? so I made a decision and was committed to abiding by it. I announced it and said this is how it will be. it still wasn't EASY.....I did everything I could to make it easy. patches, SF gum, SF lollipops, even an occasional herbal cig.....evrything I COULD do to make it easier EXCEPT SMOKE.
and I have that same feeling now....I made the decision.
there is no judgement...we make it when we are ready....because we can only be successful at this if we do it for OURSELVES, because it's what we really want. even then, it STILL won't be easy.
thats why I have a houseful of almond breeze and I make "creamy" soups with veggies....anything I can do to make it easier without eating food that makes me fat.
Telling yourself no?
