I've had a couple bad weeks, and gained some weight. The kind of weeks where I'll work out, but basically eat whatever I want. (I know.) Because I feel fat and all my clothes are tight, I am so unmotivated to eat healthy. I've seriously been eating all day long. It's 3 PM and I've hit about 2500 calories.

Shouldn't it be the opposite? Like since I don't want to get off track permanently, shouldn't I be EXTREMELY motivated to get back ON track?

It's weird, the only times when I'm hardcore gym and eating healthy, is when I've been doing great for a period of time leading up to that day.

Is anyone else like this?

Not for me... lol. I get motivated when I know I've been doing horrible. Except when I'm tired. When I'm tired/sleepy, I just don't care.
I know when I have a good breakfast of a smoothie and some eggs, I'm happier that my breakfast was good, but then I start to slack for the rest of the day, leading up to when I run later in the day.

I definitely am more motivated the better I do -- the more good days I have under my belt, the more the scale and inches are going down, the more I'm progressing, usually means I have more motivation.

I think it's because losing weight, working out, being disciplined, are all hard. When I see results it feels more worth it, when I don't I feel like wallowing in self pity and eating cheesecake and staying home from the gym.

It doesn't really seem to make sense! But I totally get that way.

I guess I am kinda the opposite. When I don't do as well, it really pushes me to change my habits.

i get down after a few bad days/weeks also. i think we just get frustrated that all our hard work is starting to get overwhelming. when you hit goal and you've worked for months/years to get there, you want to think you can be a little lax once in a while without your clothes getting tight again.


in my case.. that idea helped me gain back 50 lbs.

Success is a huge motivator. Being in a positive state of mind works wonders.

Positive reinforcement. A lot of people do well and keep on doing well when they see good results that make them feel encouraged.

I'm the same as you most of the time. Once I've had something "bad" for breakfast, I basically feel like I might as well not diet the rest of the day. But in actual fact, if I had stuck to the diet for the rest of the day it probably wouldn't have been as detrimental as I had imagined. And so the cycle continues, if I have a bad day on Sunday (I weigh on Tuesdays), then I feel like Monday can be a free pass also.

I'm trying my hardest to get out of that pattern now. That's what made my weight loss stall for about five weeks. I'm just keeping my eye on the prize - and if a donut for breakfast is going to make me feel like I can eat whatever for the rest of the day, I wont be having the donut for breakfast.

Hi Goto-

Yep, I so hear you! I am exactly the same way.

When I see I've lost a little, I feel GREAT and stay away from crappy food and beer.

Then I go out with friends, get derailed, feel fat and puffy and tight in my clothes again, realize I've gone up a size, etc... and BAM! It begins a downward spiral.

I read a book once though (yep, I read once, hahaha), seriously, it was Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World, and the author talks about the downward spiral, and how we all too often get caught in that. Instead, we have to immediately stop, be mindful, and break the negative thought pattern.

Anyway, I'm trying to apply this to my eating / bingeing as well.

This... Success breeds more success.

I tend to think I (and many people) tend to do downward and upward spirals in their habits, relationships, etc.

I remember eons ago when my husband and I were having a really rough patch (now when I look back on it, it's totally obvious WHY we had a rough patch - HELLO! - demanding baby, move cross country, income cut in half, me going back to work after staying home with the baby, hating my job, long commute, sick baby from being in daycare, husband in a vigorous PhD program who was basically non-existent in the relationship, our mothers/family visiting us nonstop for about a year, staying in our living room during that time, his mother moving to the country and needing to buy a condo, furniture, get set up during that time, etc. Who WOULDN"T have a rough go of it then?)

Anyway.... I read a book about relationships that basically said we get in these cycles of tearing each other down and it just spirals down, as you feel worse, you behave worse, etc. Someone in the relationship just needs to stop the momentum and do an act of kindness, which then makes the other feel better and they return the act of kindness and then hopefully, you reverse the downward spiral and change the direction to an upward spiral.

I find that many of my life patterns are like this - including fitness. If I'm eating well and exercising well, it pushes me to continue. If the scale is cooperating, it give positive reinforcement to continue. Opposite is true as well - if scale is uncooperative, it's easier to grab that cookie, easier to skip a work out and so on. But just as with the relationship advice, if I do ONE act of 'good' for my body, I can oftentimes switch the bad mojo to good mojo. But you have to take that first step which is always the hardest.

i'm glad you posted this..

i had just a couple days where i tripped up, indulged, however you want to call it. i gained like 3 lbs in a week. i don't know yet if it's water retention from sodium, but geez. it definitely doesn't make me want to get on track. it makes me want to lay in bed all day

i even deleted my september daily weigh in thread cause i'm too embarassed to put down those numbers

I used to be like that. When I was eating badly, I couldn't imagine how I would ever get back to healthy eating again. When I was eating well, I couldn't imagine why I would ever go back to eating badly. Either phase could go for weeks at a time, but I didn't see a path from one to another.

What finally changed was putting enough structures in place that I get back to my healthy lifestyle pretty quickly, before there's time for the downward spiral that Melissa talks about above to get in place. Case in point: yesterday. I had an overeating episode in the afternoon. But I ate my planned supper and reported my exercise on 3FC last night as I normally would. And here I am this morning about to write my morning report in the Beck support thread as I normally do. I've already switched back to the upward spiral.

Once I got those structures in place, I became confident that I would get back to my healthy lifestyle after any slip. It doesn't always happen as quickly as it did yesterday, but I always get there even when it takes a few days. And the path is always clear. I no longer get to places where I can't see my way back to healthier eating -- I always know exactly the steps that I will take and, sooner or later, I take them.

It takes more structure than it seems like it should to support a goal that I claim is more important to me than anything else. But I've ceased being embarrassed about that. It takes what it takes as someone once wrote in the Beck support thread. For me, what it takes is planning my eating the night before, participating daily in multiple threads here at 3FC, hosting a weekly event on Tuesdays called Readers' Workouts on my blog, having strict rules like "no eating in the car," reading several books a year that support my healthy lifestyle, and other things that I'm probably forgetting right now because they have become automatic parts of my life.

Thanks for this thread. All of the advice had been very inspiring.

This really struck me! I totally find this to be true.

I find this to be true for myself as well! It's amazing what a difference one little act of kindness towards yourself can make.