[proudmommy09]

Weightloss, wanting to be on plan everyday and being on plan everyday. Not letting all kinds of things to get me off plan like yesterday- hubby came home from out of town, and today- went to waterpark. Im feeling beat down right now.

[kellost]

I think, honestly, it's really about changing your thoughts on food. For a lot of us, everything used to revolve around food. Every celebration, every sad thing in our lives, and even just our weekend plans were mainly about the food. Which restaurant would we go to? What's for dinner? Where should we stop for ice cream? It's only when you focus more on events...like going to the movies, but not focusing just on popcorn and candy. Or go to a theme park or pool, but forget the fatty snacks. Or go out to eat, but make a healthy choice and still enjoy the experience of dining out. It can still be fun, it really can! I never thought it was possible, but there are other fun things besides food. For me, food was my form of entertainment. If I wasn't dining out, I was cooking or watching the Food Network, or shoving snacks in my mouth.

I still do struggle with food, and I probably always will. I just need to keep on believing that I matter, I'm worth it, I can do this, and food is not the most important thing in my life. I hope this helps!

[fatmad]

It will stick when you are ready for it.
read my post from a day or so ago about the one year diet.
No matter how much weight you lose, or what diet you are on, things are gonna happen, life is gonna happen. There will always be a reason (excuse) for you not to be on plan. So, you have to get to the point where you are ready to learn to be on plan, even when those great reasons not to be on plan come up. Even when you are stressed. Yes, even when you choose to be out of plan. (yes, it doesn't mean perfection!, there will be times when you choose to have something not on plan, like a piece of cake for your birthday, but you will plan your calories around it so it doesn't undo all your efforts).
I am coming to the belief that you need to do it all for about a year, to go through a whole seasonal cycle, to learn how to eat for all occasions, all seasons, etc.
YOu will be able to do it when it becomes the right thing and you are really ready.

[Fat in Hong Kong]

I couldn't agree more with the above posts. For far too long, I've let my social activities, family celebrations, and life in general get in the way of me achieving any kind of success when it comes to losing the weight that I've gained over the years. I always had some excuse as to why I couldn't stay on plan.

Well, I've just started the 2 weeks Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. People advised me to wait until I had a clear run, with no social engagements or such like, to get in the way of staying on plan. But when I looked ahead, there was always something to get in the way, and if I'd carried on waiting for a 'clear run', I'd would never have started. This weekend for instance, my family are having dinner out with my son on Friday, who will be returning to the UK on Saturday, and we won't see him again until Christmas. Then, on Saturday evening, we are out for dinner with a group of friends, who have all returned to Hong Kong after their summer holdiays. If I'd waited another week to begin SBD, next week I have a friends birthday dinner to attend, and come September it's my own birthday, and another friends birthday. And so the list goes on ...........

Consequently, I decided that it was now or never. I never seem to have a 'clear run', and at the end of the day, whether or not we are 'on a diet', we still have to live our lives. We just need to adapt our eating plans to fit in around whatever we are doing. I'm going out this weekend, on Phase 1 of the SBD, and I will choose very wisely from the menus. It may not be perfect, but things in life never are. And I know that this time I'm going to stick with it, because this time I'm changing my eating habits for life, not just for a few weeks.

[Eliana]

Originally Posted by fatmad

read my post from a day or so ago about the one year diet.

I love that title! That sounds like a real diet!!

It's what I'm on..."The One Year Diet". For one year I am on plan, no matter what. I just really want to see where I'll be one year from where I started. And if I can get through one Thanksgiving, one holiday season, one Fourth of July, and a year's worth of birthdays and barbecues...I know I can not only lose the weight but also maintain that loss. The year's going to go by whether I'm losing weight or not. I can choose to either be happy with my effort a year from now or I can be bitter and angry with my lack of effort. For me, I've always felt better when I was trying even if I wasn't quite succeeding. But since having figured all that out...I have succeeded.

You can too!

[Shmead]

It's all about the planning, for me. Every single time something unusual happens, my first thought is 'how am I going to manage my eating?". It's not as bad as it sounds-I don't have to obsess, I just have to be aware and find a reasonable solution before it happens.

Sometimes it means things are inconvenient: at a waterpark, if they didn't allow me to bring food in, I would have left a cooler in my trunk with a healthy lunch and just gone out to the parking lot to eat. Yes, it would have been a hike (but that's healthy) and a bit of a pain, but not terrible. It wouldn't ruin the day. But the important thing is knowing exactly what you are going to do about food before you leave the house. And then there's no thinking, no fighting temptation--you just follow the plan.

This place is a great resource for finding solutions to situations where you tend to overeat. Before those events happen, post here and people will be happy to give you advice on ways you can stay on plan and still get the experience you want.