I'm 9 pounds away from my first 25 pounds. 9 pounds

So why can't I stick to my diet?

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I have no words of wisdom, just support!

I'm at 172 now and have been holding in this range for 2 months. I decided on Sunday that I was going to bust out - added 15 mins to my cardio at the gym and bumped my calories up a little just to mix it up. I'll eat towards the high end of my range this week and then drop back down ... see where that gets me.

I sympathise with the frustration!

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Altari, why do you think you can't stick with it? Do you have any insights into it?

Jay

Ahhh, but you CAN stick to it. YOU'VE got the power. YOU'VE got the key to do so. YOU'VE got the strength to do so. YOU hold the controls. It's up to YOU. YOU can make it happen. Realize this. Tell yourself this as many times a day as you need to.

How about taking it ONE DAY AT A TIME? Don't look at the BIG picture, that's overwhelming, look at getting through a day eating clean and exercising?

Maybe you can't stick to it, because it's a diet... Let me guess: no cookies or any other yummys? That is very hard to do, you must have the willpower of seven men with guns.

I eat whatever the situation brings, sometimes it's cookies, sometimes a McFlurry, and I never feel deprived now, in this period of weight loss. It is slower than your diet probably, especially if it's a very restrictive one, but much healthier, satisfying and educational for the maintaining life after weight loss. I've done the restrictive dieting and lost 80 pounds, but was unhappy all the time.

No insights. I'll be good all day, then *bang* brownies/pasta/etc. I'm not bored, I'm not hungry. It's like a magic trick - the magical disappearing brownies, now you see um, now you don't (pay no attention to my burgeoning thighs!).

Altari - how do you define "good" all day?

I used to do what you're describing...eat very few calories all day, eat a larger dinner, binge at night. Not productive for weight loss. Turns out that my body is very sensitive to the spacing of its calories...I have to eat a decent breakfast and a lunch at least as big as my dinner, or I get snacky at night. So you may want to add more food to your afternoons, even reduce the size of your dinner and bulk up your lunch, to space it out more.

It may also be just...habit. There are ways to prevent yourself from doing purely on habit eating...one is to keep the foods out of your house (why do you have brownies, cakes, etc. so readily available for the grabbing? Can you make them NOT readily available? Even if it means having others in your household hide them or keep them in their own space?). Another is to do something to physically prevent yourself from eating...like chewing gum. Both will keep you from autopilot-eating if you aren't really hungry.

You might consider coming up with an evening snack that takes a long time to eat without a lot of calorie damage...like popcorn or veggies w/ dip. Big plate to munch on, if munching is what you want to do, without the damage. The choices you mentioned above (brownies/pasta/etc) are pretty calorie dense, particularly the brownies.

Examples...

Breakfast 1/3 c Bran Buds, 1/2 c clueberries and 1/2 c milk (or an Atkin's shake if it's one of those OMGZ is my daughter really supposed to be at school an hour ago?! mornings)

Lunch salad w/ 2tbp dressing, low-carb tortilla with cheese and chicken, some extra veggies for crispiness

Snack almonds/sunflower seeds/berries/string cheese, if I'm desperate with nothing in range an Atkin's bar

Dinner chicken/fish, assorted veggies, maybe a 1/3-1/2 c pasta with sauce and cheese if I'm really hankering for it.

And water, coffee, tea interspersed throughout the day.

I don't know how that compares to what others eat, if it's enough, etc. I really just stopped obsessively measuring - it was driving me insane. I have a history of unhealthy obsessions with food, and stopping, measuring, weighing everything was just causing too much preoccupation.

I just have my "go-to" foods and I eat until I'm satisfied, so I'm never really hungry. And I don't really "crave" things either - I don't get cravings for sweet, or salty, or whatnot anymore. It's like part of my brain says "You must have THOSE chips" and even though I think "NO" and do "YES!"