Okay I'm just being totally honest here.....What the heck is the matter with me? Why do I not do what I should? I can honestly say I've done a great job in every other area in my life....the one exception is how I take care of myself. Whether it's little things like remembering my daily vitamins or, more importantly, making excuses to overeat or excuses to not excercise?
I have times when this is not always the case, but those times are very few and far between, and of relatively short duration.
And yes, I have been seeing a nutritionist/counsellor to work on this, but we're not coming up with anything concrete so far, other than lack of maturity (but at 49, I have trouble thinking that's the case) I can have the best-laid plans, but don't follow them, so what good is it? I have zero "stick-to-itiveness"
I am hoping for that one thought, one message, to help me break this awful pattern
If anyone else has an opinion or conquered this dilemma, I'd love your feedback......and don't worry about being blunt, if necessary.
I'm a very positive, optimistic, happy person by nature, though not without my daily struggles like everyone else. Why can't I do the most important thing and take care of me??????
I'm optimistic one of my fellow chicks has a suggestion
what are you afraid might happen if you lost weight? if you took care of yourself?
Something things others have come up with:
- if I lose weight and I'm still single/have no friends then it means I'm just an unlikable person, not just that people didn't like me because I was fat.
- What if I thought I was unhappy because I was fat and then i lose weight and I'm still unhappy? Then I might have to make more changes in my life.
- What if I lose weight and still don't get a promotion? Does that mean that I'm not a good employee when all this time I thought it was just discrimination?
- what if I really try my best to lose weight and I still don't? Does that mean that I'm a big failure? At least this way I know I'm not really trying so of course I'm not succeeding.
- Losing weight means admitting that I'm actually fat. If I'm not actively and committedly (I know, not a word) trying to lose weight then I'm not really fat.
Yes, some of these are but have crossed my mind a time or 2.
I feel just like you do! I have already cried about it today and feel like such a failure. I have good intentions when it comes to my weight loss plans but feel like after a couple weeks I am back to my same old ways. Making excuses for not working out and being lazy and not planning my meals on the weekends so during the week I have nothing to take to work. Of course, since I am not eating right or able to really keep track of the calories since I have not planned, what's the use in working out. I know these thoughts are not right but I can't seem to stay motivated. I know this year is going to finally be when I lose the 80 lbs I want to and break this depressing pattern but I need help and fast.....
I had a bit of a breakthough on that front this week. I came to the conclusion that I just dont' want to. I don't want to not eat what I want when I want. And I don't want to track my calories. And I don't want to try to get more vegetables. And I sure as **** don't want to exercise.
somehow just admitting all that to myself made it so much easier to do it. I already do all kinds of stuff I don't want to without even thinking about it. LIke go to work or clean the toilet. This is just another thing.
It was more along the lines of I felt indignant that this part of my life wasn't taken care of.
The only way that I got past it was to admit that this was an area that I had to work at.
For example, the same way that I had to brush my teeth every night, I had to take my vitamins every afternoon. No one was going to brush my teeth every night, right? It's up to me and only me. Sure, I don't like to brush my teeth. I do it because I want to have healthy teeth and not get a root canal. But I don't find pleasure in it. Same thing with weight loss/health.
I may not like to count calories. I may not like to cook. But I have to do it.
I hate to do laundry. But I still do it because I need clean clothes for work. I hate filling up my car with gasoline. But I still do it because otherwise my car won't run.
I had to put my health and diet in the same category of "must dos" even if I hate them. Life would be perfect is someone else could take care of it. But since I don't have anyone washing me in the shower in the morning, I can't have someone preparing my healthy food for me while I sleep in or do something better.
I feel just like you do! I have already cried about it today and feel like such a failure. I have good intentions when it comes to my weight loss plans but feel like after a couple weeks I am back to my same old ways. Making excuses for not working out and being lazy and not planning my meals on the weekends so during the week I have nothing to take to work. Of course, since I am not eating right or able to really keep track of the calories since I have not planned, what's the use in working out. I know these thoughts are not right but I can't seem to stay motivated. I know this year is going to finally be when I lose the 80 lbs I want to and break this depressing pattern but I need help and fast.....
Any suggestions are welcome!!!!
Sounds like you are doing too much at once. Instead of trying to change your whole life around in a day or two and go from one extreme to the next try changing one thing at a time. One week cut out soda and drink more water, the next week start cooking a bit more, the next week add some new vegetables to your routine, then start up some light exercise, etc. The small changes add up, and it doesn't even have to be a new change a week. You can do biweekly or even monthly.
If there's a reachable goal in your life that you're not reaching, and you're frustrated about that fact, there must be some kind of payoff for not reaching it.
What is your payoff for retaining your weight? I think that finding it (and changing it) will set you on the right course and make it easier to stay there.
I had a lot of reasons to stay fat. For one, I like tasty food. For another, it took no effort to keep on as I was. For a third, thinking about my health made me stressed and anxious; if I didn't think about it, I didn't get as stressed out (even though I was far more likely to develop some of the health problems I feared).
You can't "stick to it" if there's more pressure to go off your plan than stay on it. Find out what that pressure is and how to relieve it. Is it imperative to you to eat tasty food? Then make your on-plan food tasty. Do you eat your emotions? Then force yourself to use other coping mechanisms like walking. Do you like the current size and shape of your body and don't want a change? Then focus on your health and stop worrying about losing a specific amount of weight.
Everyone has that pressure to stick with the stuff she knows pays off. Work to overcome that pressure by emphasizing the benefits of change and removing the benefits of staying the same. It won't be comfortable, but it isn't excruciating either, and the discomfort fades.
This issue of doing what you don't want...and not doing what you do want to do...its GLOBAL...it's called IMPERFECTION! And we all have this disease unfortunately.
Listen...sometimes LIFE just gets in the way of a good plan. It happens to the best of us. It kills me that we live in a world where every bad decision we make has to be given some therapeutic diagnosis/name by some money grubbing doctor!
People eat junk BECAUSE IT TASTES GOOD! Much better than the healthy stuff. Let's also not forget that eating healthy is WAY more EXPENSIVE than eating not so healthy to absolute junk food! Lastly, eating healthy AND exercise requiring planning, WHICH require TIME, a luxury many of us just do not have.
So what do we do...we place totally UNREASONABLE and UNATTAINABLE goals, set even more UNREASONABLE and UNATTAINABLE time limits to reach these goals and when we don't reach them...we beat ourselves up further.
So...where do we go from here? From day to day. Do our best to plan ahead...plan your meals right along with the kids. Just maybe sub out the mac & cheese or pasta for some quinoa, brown rice, barley or bulgar. Steam your veggies, and WATCH your sodium. I'm convinced that excess sodium promote cravings along with stall your weight loss, bloat you and a host of other discusting things that I won't talk about here. Bottom line: make small changes you can live with and you'll see results. Place no time limits on success. The more successfully change/conquer...the more you'll be motivated to do. One day at a time.
Hope this helps!
Last edited by joyfulloser; 02-02-2011 at 05:03 PM.
So Frustrated....Why don't I do what I should??
but have crossed my mind a time or 2.
And we all have this disease unfortunately.
