Gaining back, depressed
 

I hit a rough spot for being on plan, ate things such as pizza and chips. I expected to gain a pound or two, but the scale went up 10 pounds in two weeks. It has really depressed and discouraged me. All the work to lose the weight, and then it came back so easily. Help?

Sorry about that!

Some of it is water from all the salt--but not all of it. Off plan for two weeks can easily throw a spanner in the works, especially if you weren't counting. Drink your water and stay on plan for a week and see where the scale settles out.

This is why it's better to stay on plan... It always comes on easier than it comes off.

:hug:
Jay

I haved gained back about 7 lbs since late Feb. I am going to have to start working and get back down. I hate re-losing the same lbs. If anything it is motivation not to see those #'s again =)

Too have regained weight, but I have found that a few things help.
1. Drinking all my water.
2. strickly staying on plan. Eat nothing but lean protein, veggies, fruit, f/f dairy healthy fats (almonds, etc.) I'll do this for two weeks then start adding in a cheat meal if I feel like I'm back in control.
3. Don't dwell on it. It's not gonna help.
4. Look forward.

I agree that *some* of that weight is water.

The best thing to do though - is get back on plan. Pronto. Every day spent being discouraged and depressed is a day that could be spent moving forward and making progress. Leave the past 2 weeks behind. They are history. Move forward. Re-commit to getting healthy. Make a healthy eating schedule and stick with it. Take it one day at a time. Get yourself into a new groove and before you know it, you'll have 2 on-plan weeks under your belt. Then you can string together another 2 weeks. You'll have those 10 lbs off and and more.

Do not let depression/frustration derail your efforts! Get back on plan right now and work it hard!!

I was below my goal and let myself slack off a bit (didn't journal primarily). I went up 5 pounds in 2 weeks. It was a wake up call. I started negative self talk and thinking that I would gain 10 pounds a month and be right back to where I started in 4 months-- not healthy thinking!! I got my journal out, started journaling, exercising like crazy, and had my weigh in this morning-- down 3.2 pounds (in 2 weeks). Felt great to see some results!!

oh honey. I know how you feel. I thought i was doing so good last year when i stopped going to the gym. and for awhile i was. I only gained like 2 or 3 pounds...but then somewhere i just stopped getting on the scale and weeks turned into months and then it was a year and oh my gosh....I gained 30 pounds!!!! WTH????? What did i do??? I am soooo upset with myself for not being able to fit into any of my skinny clothes. But you know what i did??? I got back on the horse. I have re-joined the gym (because that's what works for me) and now i am working out twice a day and watching what i eat. I am trying to get back to the foods that helped me to lose the weight the first time. And i can lose the weight because i've done it before. We just have to get back on that horse and do what we know works. You can do it. But being angry with ourselves is just not going to get anything accomplished. I hate having to be in the 150's and working my way down...but the alternative is not any better (going up). Come on girl...we can do this....again!! lol

Lots of good advise here but this here above I just wanted to say...

I got similar advise 6 weeks ago from Robin and several other wise chicks and this is exactly what you have to do. Forget about the 2 weeks. FORGET IT. That's what I did (except I had to forget about a longer period of time). Move forward, plan, re-commit. This is what I did and my one week period of being on-plan became 2, which became 4, which is now 6. 6 weeks on plan. 6 weeks of consistently losing. 6 weeks of re-commitment. If *I* can do this, you can too!!!

Thanks for the encouragement. I lost a pound this past week. I guess right now I'm just finding the idea of being eternally and constantly vigilant to be exhausting and discouraging.

I think it can be a bit exhausting having to watch yourself all the time, but I'm sure the benefits of being healthy and well will outweight the frustration in the end. You've done great so far, keep it up! Be kind to yourself, you're doing your best.

Awesome work getting back to your plan - 1 pound off already - another couple of weeks and it will be like that that 2 week slip-up never even happened!

I can't add much to Robin's excellent advice except -
This IS a journey. There will be twists and turns and detours. The real question is - what will you do when you find yourself off course?
GET BACK AT IT CHICKIE! A year from now, you won't even remember this diversion from your goal - that is - as long as you get back on the path NOW.

Forgive what is past, learn from your journey, and kick that plan into high gear!

You CAN do this! Keep us posted on your progress :D

I know EXACTLY how you feel. It does seem overwhelming at times to think..."oh great, I'll never get to just eat what I want when I want to again." Sometimes I get over it by thinking about how many years of my life I DID eat what I want when I wanted it. I got plenty of time in to "treat" myself, day in and day out. Though the reward wasn't a sence of fulfilment the reward was a huge blob of fat that made it very difficult to do even the simplest of chores. So do I want to eat for the love of eating, or treat my body with respect and be able to live like the human body was intended to function? I have got a taste of freedom, and it is a miracle. There is no food, function, or person who can make me go back to miserable. Sure I have a treat now and then, but that is what it is...a treat, not a cheat meal, or a cheat day or a cheat week of treats. Just a treat.

Sometimes I want to just scream out to everyone who just can't seem to make it work and tell them what they are missing out on. I really can't convey my thoughts as eloquently as many others on 3FC, I'm just a county girl with bad grammar and a hard head, but I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that you have just got to except that this is forever, like a recovering alcoholic or a junkie trying to clean up, you can't take time off and just decide to go out on a binge and think it won't hurt just this once. It messes with you. Not only mentally, but physically and emotionally. I sure hope that you get back into the groove and get the weight off once and for all. It really is worth the effort.

ok, Lori Bell, looked at your pics and WOW! WOW! and WOW!

I get so frustrated with myself for not working harder and losing this weight. Thanks for that post, was good for me to read it.

Well, think about it as laundry. If you do a little bit of it every day then it doesn't get overwhelming, you can keep up. If you let it go for a few days or a week or so, then you have this huge mountain and it's hard to get caught back up.

Right now I'm working on getting back on top of my "laundry"/weight loss after a month or so of not really keeping track of my points and having my weight loss slow to a crawl.

I think maybe you need to work on your mental state and get a little tough love going. You have *got* to be honest with yourself and think about what sets you off and away from your goal. If it's a certain food, for now ban that food. Maybe forever ban that food. If you find yourself in social situations and you are eating too much, then either plan some coping strategies, stay out of those situations until you are feeling good and strong, or bring along your own food. If you're anything like me, it's just too easy to let one day's bad eating slide into a week...a month...and you've gained it all back. You really do have to re-train your thinking and habits and it's hard...really hard. But it's so worth it. Put on those gloves and come out slugging!

I think what started it off is feeling like I was doing well (I was down to 204), and I decided it would be OK to have some pizza. The next day, I have the leftover pizza. I did OK the rest of the week, I thought, but then I saw that I'd gained three pounds. It depressed me because I'd been working to lose weight, and it was back in a flash. I didn't do well the following week, which was an especially bad week because I was dealing with a variety of stress factors, including some sexual harassment issues. I was stunned to gain seven pounds in one week.

I have to look at this as an opportunity to really dig into why I'm not making faster progress. Yes, it is hard to lose weight because of the PCOS, but it is also realistic that I can be losing it faster. I DO want to be thin, to move more easily, to be able to buy what clothes I want to buy. So it seems like I really should be doing this ... but then, I'm not. At least not to the extent I could. I puzzle myself.

I totally relate to the feeling you're describing. I think for me part of it is I eat from stress, so when I'm in the moment to eat extra calories, I make the wrong decision. part of it is habit, needing to get into the zone where I'm eating the right foods and right portions.

plus, I look at food as a treat. even though I know it would feel much more like I was getting a good treat to see the scale numbers go down!

I love this thread so much.

I've been good in some ways (giving up fast food) and bad in others (not counting calories and skipping the gym) and so it's no surprise that I'm gaining all the weight back!!! Good to know that there's people going through the same thing as I am. Weight loss can be the loneliest journey in the world, but here I feel like I'm a part of something. Thanks for all the great advice!

Tha laundry analysis is GENIUS! :carrot:

It's too bad I can't just buy a whole new body like a new wardrobe instead of having to catch up on all that dirty laundry. Sigh.

No, you can't buy a whole new body. There's no need to. But you most certainly CAN alter, change and improve the one that you've got. It's your body. The only one that you'll ever be given. It's yours to do with it whatever you choose. :hug:

Well, in a sense you CAN buy a new body! Through, as rockinrobin says, altering and changing what your habits, your body continually replaces your cells. So with enough time, discipline, good diet and exercise choices, you WILL have a new body with new cells built on the effort and time that you put into it...
:)
Kira

Eat Less Junk
 

One idea is to just eat a little less of any junk food whether it be pizza, hot dogs, or whatever.

Ah, the "just" method. "Just" do this, "just" do that. Especially when speaking of junk food. It's not so easy to stop at "just" a little. If it were - I'm pretty much thinking this web site would not exist.

That sucks, and no offence, but if you think about it, wouldnt you agree that you almost deserve that 10lb weight gain? Thats how I look at it at least. Don't mean to be so blunt.

You can look at it two different ways. You can either use that as motivation to get back on track and start to lose again. Or you can let the 10lb win, keep eatting pizza and chips, and start to gain again, getting more and more depressed with each pound.

Good luck! :D

We just talked about the cycle of motivation in my last WW meeting. We all start with HIGH motivation -- noone in the world at that time could force-feed you a cookie! Then things get routine, and we have MODERATE motivation -- where we maybe don't account for what we eat with the same vigilence and our food choices aren't the best, and weight loss slows. Then the honeymoon is OVER and we slip into LOW to NO motivation -- we stop accounting for what we eat, we think it is OK to have a few slices of cake or pizza and slide into our old habits...and we start to regain our weight...

The trick is to recognize this and to act quickly to get back into a higher level of motivation. We have to take care of the problem when it is small BEFORE it becomes a mountain that we have to move again...

And HOW to regain your motivation is often simply the understanding that unless we get a grip on the small gains, we will be right back where we started, or worse. This is no different that what "normal eaters" do -- they get a grip on the small bumps UP in weight in order to maintain a healthy weight in the long term. This is the key to maintenance, I think...

And you need to understand that there isn't a whole lot of difference between the caloric intake needed to maintain a higher weight vs a lower weight. Think of it this way -- if you need, say, 2000 calories to maintain your weight, an extra apple a day at 80 calories over your intake will mean an extra 560 calories a week, for a total weight GAIN of over 8 lbs in a year. Not much, but if you do this for 5 years, you now carry an extra 40 lbs on your frame. From one apple extra a day...

Enough! You'll make it! Hang in there, and forgive yourself the small slip-ups. Get back on track and you'll be fine...

:hug:

Kira