I started losing weight last November or so and have been doing really well. I was counting calories (cycling between 12-1800), going to the gym most days of the week and just overall felt great about myself and my commitment. This was the first time I tried to lose weight in a SUSTAINABLE way and it was working and I thought it was permanent.

But the last couple weeks I've been waaayy off track. I basically eat anything and everything I'm offered. And seek it out, too. It has nothing to do with hunger, it's like I'm on autopilot and I can't stop myself from shoving yumminess into my mouth. Each night I say, ok enough, I'm going to be good again starting right now. And then the next day I do the same thing.

(I'm still going to the gym regularly, but going more like 3-4/week rather than 6-7.)

The scale is now going in the wrong direction and my pants are getting tighter (they'd been feeling so loose and GOOD). But I'm still lacking the willpower to recommit. I don't know what happened but it's like a switch inside of me switched to "off."

Has this happened to you? How did you get over it and get back on track?

Thanks for any help, I feel so bad that I can't seem to get back my "mojo."

Ugh, did you just reach inside my head and tell MY story or what??

I know where you're at. I've been here since last weekend.

Well, it's nice to know I'm not alone. Though that just makes 2 of us stuck in this crappy place.

I hope someone can share the secret to getting our motivation back...

I did this and I realised I was just pushing myself too hard. I was on a "diet" not a "livet". I just said ok so obviously I'm not ready/motivated enough to go to the gym every day and I cut it down - I just accepted it and said something is better than nothing. I also looked at the food I was eating majorly and realised I wasnt getting enough of the right sorts of foods, too much processed food, high GI and it was leaving me like a food vacuum hoovering up all that food I was trying to cut out. That was another thing, cutting out food was just a wrong step for me, I needed to still have the odd indulgence (so now I buy more expensive chocolate but less of it so I can enjoy it more, or a really good cheese but just a tiny amount so I can savour every morsel and treat myself without blimping myself).

Advice would be just treat this as a detour of your journey, don't let it get you down! See what you can learn from it and hopefully you can find yourself back on track.

Me too! :P EXACT same story/problem!! I've been off track for almost two weeks and gained 4 pds. I've been reading alot of stories and encouragement on this site and it's working on me. I am just trying to tell myself "What are you doing? You are not going to let this go so easy like before! This is my year to feel good!!!" I want this more now than ever! You have been on this for 5 months Transformer--you can do this and you will!! Keep reading on 3FC...there's a great motivational story on here I found. (heck there's alot of them!)

Step away from the chocolate

Seriously, I'm afraid someone very young is trying to drive the car. Let's speak to the adult in charge, shall we?

I assume you still have the ability to say no, you just aren't saying it. Well, practice saying no at least once or twice a day to those yumminesses you suddenly feel you just can't live without. Remember Glory87's mantra, "My hand, my mouth."

I think jitterfish is right that folks can be pushing too hard, and that leads to backlash. Make sure that what you're asking yourself to do is reasonable--that is, you have enough calories, you have variety, you aren't trying to go from zero to Mount Everest in a single bound! Don't make it all or nothin'.

Remember, this has to be something you can do indefinitely. If it's lettuce, canned tuna, and rice crackers all the time, well...

So, make a plan! A reasonable one--and try to follow it as best you can! It's your choice; no one is making you eat anything unless they are literally holding you down and forcing the food between your clenched teeth.

Hang in there!

Jay

P.S. "A diet instead of a livet" I love that!

It definitely makes me feel better knowing someone else is going through the exact same thing as I am! I constantly tell myself before I go to bed that I would not fall under the same routine again the next day, and yet I still do.

However, I gotta admit this week I have been "slightly" better. Not great, but hey at least it's an improvement! :P I think it's because I keep focusing on the fact my birthday is coming up closer and closer and that's the date when I want to reach my goal. I think focusing on the fact that I'm getting closer to the date helps me get even more and more motivated to stay on track. Especially because I'll be flying home and I would REALLY love to hear people comment, "Wow, you look great!" haha. so yea, I guess focusing on that has been my key to slowly get back on track again

Yes, I have been there, done that. I think everyone experiences this from time to time.

I find that sometimes I can't go right back to all my good habits. I have to "baby-step" it back. Rather than trying to be perfect, I focus on saying no to the big stuff, or getting in the exercise. Then the next day or two I add in the next... it helps sometimes.

One thing that helps me - don't know if it might help you too - is quit thinking of it in terms of "I'm being bad" or "I'm being good". I find that if I think "I'm bad" then there's no reason to get back on plan or eat healthily - because I'm just bad and that's that.

Instead think in terms of this was a good choice or this wasn't a good choice. For example:

I gave in and ate the ice cream in the freezer. That wasn't a good choice, but I'll move forward.

I resisted ordering fries with my sandwich at lunch. That was a good choice, and I'm proud of myself. Yay. I've made a positive step.

This way it's about the CHOICES you make, and not your worth as a person. If I were thinking of myself as "bad" after eating the ice cream, then I'd just give up - I'm bad, might as well continue to be bad.

.

Food Vacuum LOL I like, that sounds sooo much like me. I can just about suck up any sort of food up with this big gob.
There's a add on Tv that says "What did You do today to make you feel good?" I think we sometimes need to focas on the good things and not so much on the bad. Just go back throiugh the posts and have a look at the tickers. You are all doing so well.I myself have not lost anything since dec last year, but i stick around this site and wait to find my mojo again, I can hear it calling in the distance. As long as I maintain, It's all good.
So stick around people I NEED YOU HERE.

PS Jitterfish nice to see another KIwi in here

I've definately had a case of the winter blahs myself...I've had the hardest time getting myself to be motivated about anything..including my school work.
I watched the TLC show "I can make you thin" the other day and the host dude said to ask yourself before you eat are you eating because you are hungry or are you eating to change the way you feel (ie you feel boerd, anxious, depressed, lonely etc) and lately I've been getting the urge to eat in order to change the way I feel. Just recognizing the idea that food wont change my situation has helped me not give into it a number of times I've wanted to.

If your going through a rough patch you may decide you want to maintain for awhile until the mood passes...just don't do anything too crazy like binge alot.

I just crawled out of your situation! For me, I had to look at what I was eating. My problem was that I was occasionally eating chips. I was trying not to ban them because everyone always says it's bad to ban things, that it sets you up for binges etc. What was happening in my case, and I'm not saying this applies to you but it may, was that eating the chips on occasion triggered me to eat bad and want MORE chips and then MORE bad stuff. It eventually became one big binge. The first thing I did was I made the decision that I can no longer eat chips or pretzels or snack mix. Not even baked chips. And I am also staying away from crackers for now too. That has helped me tremendously; it has taken away my cravings (for the most part) and it has also gave me some relief to know that I no longer have to worry about stopping at the proper serving size...my serving size is -0-!

Another thing I did was on Fridays, I planned out my meals for the next week and made my grocery list and then on Saturday, I would shop for the week. I also began using my Fitday software again. I didn't do these things all at once, like someone else said, it was one step at a time.

Another thing was that I started coming here every day again, reading the posts. Then I started posting again. This support here is tremendously helpful to me.

I don't know for sure if the chips were the main problem, but I know that they were part of the problem at the very least, and I feel much more in control avoiding them altogether. Maybe there is something you are eating that is triggering your binges? Good luck and you aren't alone!

You guys are all so awesome!! Seriously, this is the most supportive place ever. I think I'm going to save this thread as a pdf and refer to it.

I don't feel like I was pushing myself to hard, I was allowing myself to eat whatever/whenever I wanted, as long as it fit my calories for the day, and only buying healthy stuff at the store so that treats had to be infrequent. But maybe they were too many changes all at once. I'm a junk-food/suger-addict and I guess I can't expect that to change overnight. But 5 months was such a good run! Oh well.

I think that the making small changes is absolutely what I need to do. I do NOT have the motivation to be gung-ho again, but hopefully I can slowly trick myself into being healthier. (?) Man, I miss that feeling of motivation.

As far as the whole, no one is FORCING you to eat something: intellectually, I understand this (I promise I do), but on a gut level, at that moment, it FEELS like it is completely beyond my control. Like, I NEED it, like it's the innate drive of a wild beast to capture it's prey. Like I'm someone with OCD who NEEDS to wash their hands for the 100th time. Know what I mean? Obviously it's a cycle that CAN be broken because so many of you have been awesomely successful, maybe I'm just not there yet. I want to be...

So for this week (tomorrow and next week) my small goals are going to be:
1. not eating any free food at work (this is hard, cause I'm both a sugar addict and a poor student...)
2. set aside 10 minutes each day to read 3fatchicks and be inspired by you all on a daily basis

WOW! This thread came at a perfect time for me. I've been struggling since Easter. It's nice to know I'm not alone in the "blah"s. I wonder if they sell motivation on Ebay...