Hello, chicks! Do you know what you might have done in the past that made your diet unsuccessful? Where did you go wrong - did you learn from your mistakes? For instance, I know now that one of my longstanding problems was not counting calories. I really miscalculated what I ate on a daily basis.


We're doing this research for our book, and we'd love your input! You may be quoted, and we'll let you know if we submit your response to our editor.
If you aren't comfortable with posting here, please feel free to email us at 3fcbook@ gmail.com (remove the space) or PM me.

Even if it isn't in the book, there are a lot of people here that would benefit greatly by reading what you have already learned.

Thank you!!

I tried to starve myself in the past, or live on salads alone, and drank diet sodas instead of regular sodas. All the wrong things, because I couldn't live life like that permanently. It's having a soda as a treat instead of daily (diet or not) that I had to learn, and eating enough food and more than just salad, but eating the right foods all along. And I never stuck with exercise before, or tried mixing up the exercise. I did one thing and got bored with it and ended up quitting.

all my mates are either really athletic or slim looking but the drink heavily and smoke like 40 a day. i don't smoke but i do have the odd 7-8pints on a night out with kebab and pizza and well anything really as soon as i start drinking i get the munchies really bad. so i'm now going t total (ish)

I never counted calories until a few days ago, when I started using Fitday.com. Man, no wonder I was always so slow to lose weight! I didn't realize how much I was eating. Also, I forget sometimes to check the serving size on packaged foods. There were times I thought I was eating one serving, and it was actually two or three. And lastly, I've often fallen prey to the "well, I blew it for the week, so I may as well enjoy myself" thinking, and piled on the calories out of disgust with myself.

Since joining WW I've realised that in the past I may not have been eating ENOUGH when dieting. WW always say that if you don't eat your daily points then your body will go into starvation mode and cling onto the fat so you won't lose weight.

Another half a stone and I'll be at my lowest point in years so that'll be the test to see if WW can take me beyond that!

Good luck, Angel!

I tried dieting while in high school and I always ended up restricting myself too much. I thought if i starved myself then i would lose the weight faster. I have found out that starving yourself only makes your body hold on to the fat. This time around I am slowly learning to stay at the calories i have alotted myself. I try to stay between 1200-1400 a a day. Unfortunately old habits die hard, and i am usually barely meeting my 1200, it is an obsession with me. Lately I have started incorporating more snacks like a piece of fruit or some fat free yogurt, anything healthy to add a few more cals. I think a lot of people are the same way, they starve themselves to be thin and only hurt themsleves in the long run.

Like most of the responses before mine- I didn't eat. Now I'm eating 6 meals a day and the weight is falling off!

also I had the belief that I'm exercising- so I can eat whatever I wanted to- never saw results and slacked off from exercising because it wasn't doing anything for me... I've learned it's Diet AND exercise that makes the difference. I love seeing the changes every day!

I think my mistake has been thinking that I had all the time in the world to work on losing weight. I should have done it when I was younger and in better health. Now every time I get serious and get my act together, some health problem crops up and messes everything up (the exercise part of it ~ and for me dieting with out exercise is frustrating because I don't make much progress). In the last couple years, foot problems, then arthritis, now I have injured my knee and have not been able to do my walking. Back in 2000, I was almost half way to my goal, and I fell off the wagon, and have not done as well since then ~ oh how I wish I had not been so stupid, and not messed up, and put off until tomorrow.......

I think the worst mistake I've made is in deciding I'm already fat so I might as well eat like a pig!

No prizes for guessing what happened then!

You have to realise that you CAN get slim. That's where 3fc helps so much.

My biggest mistake is letting life get in the way. A family dinner here, a dinner and movie while I was dating, you know--the little events. I stopped putting my healthy eating and exercise first. The last time I tried losing weight I don't even remember there being a shift from my healthy habits back to the old every day fast food meals. I think it was just allowing one day to turn into the next and they all blended together and I was back up to 292 without so much as realizing it. So now, I don't let a day go by without at least thinking about my health—even if I eat 5,000 calories in one day, I'm still aware that if I don't start eating less the next day or two, I will gain that weight back.

Good question... I looked at losing weight as something short term, so I'd work out for an hour everyday or something as long as I was trying to lose and then stop completely once I'd reached goal because there was no way that I could intergrate it into my life. The whole maintenance thing never really happened. Hopefully, I'll do better this time.

My biggest mistake was not doing enough research and initially trying to eat low fat. For the past year i have seen huge improvemets from weight training and combinding that with calorie counting. On days where i eat out at a restraunt, in the past i would normally weigh more the next day, these days if i have a bad day or even a bad week i still weigh the same, and i have noticed my portion sizes are also much smaller now that i have more energy, compared to my bigger portions i had when my metabolism was sluggish. And i never thought i would actually really enjoy exercising and if i havent exercised for a few days i feel a big urge to rush off to the gym. And everything i have learnt has not only helped me, but others around me are also now living healthier lifestyles and come to me for advice which feels just great! Realising that i can eat the foods i always use to enjoy, as long as i eat smaller amounts for the rest of the day, and as long as my calorie range is around 1500-1600 then i will be fine.

In the past, I would totally avoid foods that were normally thought of as a no-no and get downright testy about it, too. This time, I have eaten any foods I want, but in small portions. In my case, portion control has really been a main factor in staying OP. I keep trigger foods out of the house, except in single servings. Period. If I want Doritos, I buy the 25 cent bag at the Walmart checkout area. One serving at a time - maybe once every two months. Same thing for other trigger foods. If it isn't readily available, I can't overindulge. But as I said, no food is off limits, though, so I haven't felt deprived this time.

The ironic thing is, once I got used to eating healthily, I found that I craved that type of foods more and more, and didn't want to waste my WW points on junk food. Go figure!

My biggest mistake was not realizing what sleep deprivation can do to your weight loss efforts. Not only did I get up in the middle of the night and have a snack to try to fall back to sleep (deadly all by itself) but I did not know that lack of sleep (menopausal related) can mess up your metabolism and make you crave carbs and sweets.

If I had it to do all over again, I would have taken Ambien or asked my doctor for a sleep aid. I am now on bioidentical hormone replacement therapy which has helped me to sleep better.