This is my 3rd time loosing weight since 2009. Second time i was losing weight (last year) i was down to 174.4 (from 200) and felt and looked great. People were saying how good I look and such. So I stopped right there. I stopped exercising and stopped eating mindfully. I slowly gained my weight to 200. Now this is my 3rd try to lose weight. I really want to make it lifestyle, but i wanted this to be my lifestyle previous times as well. I am 174 now just like i was when i stopped my weight loss last time. I look good and feel good. I do need to lose 25 more lbs for my healthy range. But how do I make it a lifestyle instead of working hard UNTIL I look good?

I would say that you have to accept that you look good NOW. Focus on living every day as if you are perfect as you are. Having a goal usually means having a stopping point. But living every day as if you are happy can help you get rid of that goal mentality.

It's not important what other people say or whether or not they think you look good. It's more important what you say to yourself. Don't hold out your own love and affection until you reach a certain number on the scale. Also, identify the actions you take now as self love. Exercising, enjoying your food and appreciating your body are acts of love. Appreciate these as being more important than fitting into a certain size and buying a certain pair of pants - that's not love.

You have to enjoy it, period. Everything you eat. And all the exercise you do. You need to enjoy the changes or at least learn to enjoy them.

That's why I don't like branded diets. You have to find customized, sustainable solutions that work for you and your body. Which means lots of trial and error. I eat 7 cans of fish a day. Would you do that? Heck no. But God it works for me and I love the stuff. I also run 5 miles a day. Not to lose weight, but it deals with my life stress.
I lift weights because it makes me feel and look good. So I do these things because I want to. Not because I feel compelled to by the scale or some weightloss goal. And I like boxing because I like kicking the sh!t out of people.

Would I spend my time in a spinning class? No. Because I can't stand it. Same with zumba. And pilates. What a load of cr@p. Would I eat "packets" or calorie count? F@ck no. But some people love this stuff. And good for them.

So play around.

What makes this a lifestyle change for me is that there is nothing different I will eat or do when I reach my goal weight, and that is very different from how I've lost weight in the past. Before I deprived myself and had a whole list of "when I reach my goal I'm going to..." And this time there is nothing on that list. Nothing. If I want a cookie or some ice cream or whatever, I ask myself is it worth running an extra mile? Or if I don't feel like running I know I can't eat as much. Or I decide I'm just not going to lose as much this week. The difference is that I'm very mindful of what I eat, how much I exercise, and how that affects my weight - and I don't plan to stop doing that when I hit goal. I may adjust the parameters, i.e. are those *two* cookies worth running an extra mile? But the basic concept will be the same. Eat more, exercise more. Eat less, don't need to exercise as much. Watch the scale to validate the trade offs I'm making between exercising and eating.

This feels very different from how I've lost weight in the past so I'm hopeful this translates into a lifestyle change.

Great post, Ian!

A healthy lifestyle? Yes, I buy that for sure.

I'm very aware of good nutrition and choose wisely almost all the time. That is for the rest of my life. Occasionally, I will choose to enjoy a special treat that is not necessarily "healthy." but that I enjoy.

I love many ways of moving my body and do so for a reason. I rarely think of it as exercise, it is most often to accomplish something or simply because if feels good. Sometimes I choose NOT to move a lot and read a good book or write a lot. This also give me pleasure. Life should have pleasure in it and not ALL be about achieving a goal that may be healthier according to someone else, but not necessarily according to my way of thinking.

Have to agree, ENJOYMENT also plays a big part in my choices, too.

One thing I must learn is to do what helps me and not rely on a friend, a daughter or my husband joining me in that activity. Sometimes as I wait for another I could have finished and go on to something else. This is my own fault and I'm addressing this now.

thank you guys! its hard for me to keep going when i already look good lol

I think what everyone is trying to say is, you can't stop just because you look good. If you want to continue to look good, you have to keep it up...making it a lifestyle. If you dislike exercise, find something to like to do that could be accepted as exercise, like a dance class, or weight lifting. If you are content at the new weight, you can add some previously forbidden foods back into your diet, but go easy. If you go back to eating the way you did at 200 lbs, you will go back to 200 lbs. It already happened once...don't let it happen again.

thank you! That is a good perspective!

I've lost and regained about 60 pounds five or six times in recent years and now I seem to have reached the point where I can't get started at all because I know it will come back after I reach my goal, if not sooner. I go from about 200 to 140. ( Right now I'm 203 after two weeks of giving up all sugar and losing nothing.)

Yes, after sticking to a diet for about a year, I do go back to the way I was eating before. What is the alternative? Stay on the diet, counting calories for every meal, going to bed slightly hungry and never enjoying cake and ice cream for the rest of my life? Is that what a "lifestyle change" means?

I can tell my husband doesn't want to go through this with me yet again. He gets tired of hearing, "I can't eat there because they don't have their calories posted online and it's too risky to estimate." When I'm on a diet, I dread holidays and visiting people. I don't bake for the family. It's just dreary all around.

Sorry this is so negative, I know there are many positive reasons to diet, I'm just not feeling them lately.

This is exactly the reason I do IE. Diets don't work, I don't know anyone who's done a big diet and kept it off. I also avoid the word life style change because it doesn't really mean life style change anymore, it's code for "diet." You don't have to get used to being miserable in order to lose weight. I truly believe that. There is room for cheese and bread and chocolate, as long as food takes its rightful place in our lives. That's why it's so important to me to hone my skills of hunger-directed eating and working on my coping skills so that I don't eat for reasons other than hunger. I don't blame your husband for not wanting to go through this again and I don't blame you for not wanting to put yourself through it either.

Losing it is not easy, but keeping it off is even harder. That's why it's important to make peace with food and learn to find a way to live in harmony with chocolate rather than battling cravings all the time. Losing weight and gaining it back was a terrible cycle. I dieted myself all the way to 215lbs. I've been at a stall for a long time, a year almost, but at least I've never gone back up to 215 again and I never will get to 215 again. I credit IE for that.

I can really relate to this post, I recently started dieting again after regaining almost 30 of the 50 lbs I lost (our stats are very similar too). A couple months ago I was in the same frame of mind as you- absolutely exhausted by even just thinking the word diet.

I've realized that it's because I'm typically a very strict dieter- I used to weigh/measure every single piece of food I put in my mouth, charted every calorie, completely cut out all processed foods, no treats/indulgences, forced myself to do workouts I hated and to eat food I didn't like, etc. I don't know if you're like that too but if so, no wonder the idea of dieting is awful! I also think that my approach was a part of the reason I encountered such tough plateaus.

I'm trying things a little differently this time. I've been focusing on making small adjustments like paying attention to my portion sizes/hunger cues, drinking more water, and trying to incorporate more veggies I actually like in my meals. I haven't been denying myself the foods I want. The weigh is coming off more slowly this time around (about 10 pounds in 2 months) but it IS coming off and I don't feel exhausted and drained by the process.

I think this relates to what another poster was saying above, that dieting is NOT "one size fits all" If the way you've been dieting is effective in the short term but unmaintainable, it could be worth trying a different approach of you feel ready

itsjustpeachy I completely empathise with this 'strict' mentality. The logic in my brain is that the stricter I am, the quicker the weight will come off and then the quicker I can start bringing in more treat foods to my diet as I wont need to have any kind of deficit! Your attitude is much more sensible and you are clearly still getting results

For me, trying low carb for the first time has been absolutely life-changing. I've lost 30lb since the end of May almost effortlessly, without counting calories or increasing my level of activity. I'm never hungry, have no cravings and don't feel the need to binge eat any more. My skin is also much clearer, my periods are lighter and I have so much more energy, which is all just an added bonus.

I realise this way of eating might not work for everyone, but I've been really amazed by how easy and intuitive it feels for me. I've had two 5-day holidays during my time eating low carb – both times I chose to go off plan and eat whatever I wanted, then picked up where I'd left off as soon as I came back.

As someone who used to diet and then binge, it's incredible to feel so in control, and know that there's no rush to try to lose the weight before I inevitably give up and go back to where I started. I'm finally confident that, no matter how slowly I take it, I'm still moving in the right direction

Best of luck!

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who posted after I did. You've all been very encouraging -- and wise!