Am I ever going to lose this weight?
 

It feels like I am always struggling to lose weight. Ill lose 10 pounds and fall off the wagon. Then when I get back on I fall off that day. Like today I did very good til lunch then I went to wendys. And i had a salad at work I just didnt want to eat it. Its pathetic I know. Why cant I do it? Why am I always so quick to eat garbage. I dont understand. I am now upset and depressed. Is there someone who I can talk to, like a professional that deals just with weight issues? Ughhh That just ruined my day. And I was so pumped. Guess ill have to not bring my debit card to work then I have to eat what I brought. The thing is I loveeee salad even when I wasnt dieting. Its just like I love to ruin my diet:(

I am sure there is someone whom you could talk to.

Don't beat yourself up. No one is perfect. For me, I just refuse to let myself fall off plan..my health is too important to me now.

Hang in there :hug::hug:

You're going to lose weight when you're ready to commit to eating better and doing good things for yourself.

If you don't want to eat salad - then don't eat salad. Diets do not equal 100% salads 100% of the time.

If you are quick to eat garbage - quit eating it. If you can't handle it in moderation or as a limited part of a healthy diet, then STOP EATING IT.

Yes! YES! You WILL lose the weight! IF you choose to! And IF you commit to a long-term eating plan that fits with your lifestyle. It IS that easy.

So just breathe, stop the "all or nothing" I'm on a diet or I'm a failure mentality, research some plans that let you work your food preferences into your lifestyle, and go for it. You CAN do this, you know. Lots of us have.

You might find success with calorie counting or with Weight Watchers. You know that on WW, you CAN go to Wendy's, right? You CAN have pizza and whatever you like, as long as you account for what you eat. Cause if you don't account for it, your bottom will do it for you!!! OR, you may find that sugar/processed foods are a huge trigger and choose to limit your intake of these foods. WhatEVER it is, you need to FIND the plan and COMMIT to it. We all started somewheres, you know. Those who have lost alot have just found the plan that is the right fit for their lifestyles. For me, it is WW cause darn it, I like my Subway and Harvey's and Tim Hortons. But I can account for it and manage it. For others, whole foods works great. Still others go to higher protein/low starchy carb plans. But you GOTTA find the plan and work it. If you do and you are CONSISTENT, you'll make it. You just need to choose to do so.

Oh, and forgive yourself those less than 100% days and just carry on. I don't think there is a single person here who hasn't had less than 100% days. The difference is that they didn't give up. They forgave themselves and just moved forward...

:hug;

Kira

I think also what helps is finding what works for you.

I started this counting calories- after just over 20 lbs my loss has stalled. Finally spoke to my doctor she recommended south beach. I've looked it over and figure I can do it. I started yesterday and I had a HUGE headache yesterday but today am feeling much better.

If you are currently doing something you feel doesn't work then I suggest trying something else :)

Good luck! Don't give up!

Of Course You Will, If You Believe In Yourself
 

What kiramira said is sound advice.

Your day is not ruined! Each time you put something into your mouth, you have a choice. Just because you screwed up at lunch, doesn't mean you should let your dinner go too. Try, try again.

Wow! kiramira said everything I was going to say and more and better.

So, since I'm a librarian, I'll add a couple of book recommendations:
The End of Overeating by David Kessler will be an eye opener if, like me, proccessed foods are triggers
The Complete Beck Diet for Life and The Beck Diet Solution by Judith Beck are great books for answering those questions you asked. She specializes in Cognitive Behavior techniques. So she explains why we don't behave in ways we know would be helpful and how to change our behaviors for the better -- she would probably approve of leaving the debit card at home if that's what helps!
Oh, and if you like the Beck books, there's a 3FC thread for discussing them each month under General Diet Plans and Questions.

everyone falls off the wagon sometimes. people have good days and not so good days. you just can't give up. work at it! you have plenty of people here who give you oodles of encouragement and will always be here to listen and lend you support when you need it!

You bet you'll lose the weight! I tried for years to drop weight (started out at 262.4 pounds and am now at 141 with 14 to go!) I never ACTUALLY believed I would which led to me falling off the wagon. Then I decided to get a trainer and some focused workout routines - even still it took a few months before everything sank in and I REALLY believed I could lose it. Once I flipped that switch in my head there was no turning back.

There are still hard days - I'm struggling now because I'm close to goal and the weight loss has slowed a bit, but I'm determined to stick with it.

Find what you need to make yourself believe you can do it (and believe me - you CAN!) and you'll be off and running.

I'm sorry Breanna. I wish I could lose the weight for you. I hope you will lose the weight someday, but I think in order to do it you need to be damn sick and tired of being fat and know that fast food (and junk food in general) is not your friend. I read here and other places all the time that moderation is the key, but I truly believe that sometimes, for some people, moderation does NOT work. SOME people have to give up certain things entirely to finally be free of them. I think most of the people who fail are the ones who say, "I'll never give up______! (fill in the blank with some junk food).

Also millions of people die fat, and I'm sure they wished they could have lost weight. They just didn't. Just wanting it is not enough.

This is my humble openion.

i agree, i think some of us sort of had to hit "bottom". mine was when i was over 220 and didnt want to go anywhere because i was so ashamed of myself. i barely let them take pics of me at my OWN wedding. i didnt even wanted to see my own family at christmas. new years eve, i decided this was my bottom and i decided that i WASNT giving myself a choice this time. giving up was/is not an option. do i want to sometimes? YES! do i think about it? YES! but i dont quit because i made this commitment and i decided that night that even if it took 10 years i wasnt giving up. even if i stay on this plateau for 6 months i wont give up. will i whine and ***** and complain and talk about how i want to give up? absolutely! but its not an option for me.

I agree with this.

Do it for yourself Breanna. Make yourself and your health a priority today :hug::hug:

Thank you everyone. I think that when I fail I have to pick myself up. Its a lifelong goal. I am going to eat veggies and chicken for dinner. I am now going to leave my debit card at home. I get gas on the weekends and i food shop. I tend to get starving then who craves healthy food when u just start out. I need to eat more in the am so that by 12 or 1 I dont eat everything in sight. I want to be healthy.

You can do it. Plan out your meals. Track what you eat and drink. Commit to your plan. We are here for you :hug:

I'm new to this group after struggling to make it on my own with PCOS, endometriosis, and severe insulin resistance. I went without insurance for a long time so I wasn't able to see a good doctor to treat me. I was a normal weight and getting normal menstral cycles with the help of glucophage, a few months after I stopped taking it, I got pregnant. After I had my son (May 7th, 2007) my hormones went out of control and I started gaining weight like crazy. Over the course of about a year, I gained over 70lbs. Come to find out, it's because of this crazy, horrible insulin resistance that most women with PCOS have. People do not understand that it's a lot harder for US to lose weight than it is for a normal person that doesn't have PCOS or insulin resistance. Our bodies do not metabolize sugar and just turns it into fat. I am on a very strict diet now that my doctor put me on. He told me that sugar and carbs for women that have PCOS or are insulin resistance is like poison. He told me I was borderline diabetic because of it. All I have been eating for a week now is meat, fruit, and vegetables. It's hard and I'm hungry all the time but I am not only doing this for myself, but for my son so that I can be around for him and watch him grow up. I want to be a happy Mom, not a miserable overweight Mom. Insulin resistance can cause vomiting, nausea, weight gain, fatigue, exhaustion, shaking, restlesness, anxiety, depression... etc. If you're on a low carb no sugar diet, you still need to eat some sugar (two tablespoons of peanut butter on wheat bread) to regulate things. It will help with anxiety and that "overwhelming" feeling of hunger. I have been researching and trying to find answers for years and I finally feel like there's hope. I also went to nursing school and am almost finished so I pay attention to signs and symptoms a lot more than I did before school. If anyone wants to talk or has questions, feel free to drop me a line any time! I'd love to have someone that understands to talk to.

Breanna, I'd say you simply have to stop changing your mind when you get hungry. That's really all there is to it. You have to tell that "oh what the heck" devil to take a hike. Plan ahead, prepare what you need, and eat it. Then repeat. Gosh, tape yourself to your work chair if you have to! ;)

Good luck! :cheer2:

Jay

Planning is definitely key for me. If I let myself get really hungry, i have a much harder time making good choices, and will fall back on easy habits for instant gratification. I have a hard time if I'm really tired, too. Some people find that having healthy snacks helps. I find that if I eat a healthy, satisfying breakfast (for me it's whole grain toast with peanut butter) I do much better the rest of the day. Even at night if I feel snacky (not hungry, but snacky) I remind myself that in the morning i get to have toast and peanut butter, and that seems like a reward for not giving in to my restless munchiness.

I also bring salads for lunch, and make sure they are big and satisfying and something I will look forward to eating, with lots of different veggies and colors and crunch, and some protein- tuna or nuts or beans or an egg.

If you keep losing ten pounds, you can do it! You just have to keep losing those ten pounds (or five pounds, or one pound) one after the other! You can do it!!

I have three pieces of advice: First, sometimes you just have to push back against the voice in your head that is trying to get you off track. When you are even thinking about doing something that is counter to your weight loss plan, first recognize what is happening and then conciously choose to stay on plan. Resist it and the urge will go away eventually. When the urge (or another urge that is equally designed to get you off track) comes back, resist it again.

Second, what you believe will consume you. Your post suggests that you believe that you always screw up, sabotage yourself, etc. If that is what you believe, it is likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your ability to lose weight is no different than anyone else's here. You are not somehow defective because you are struggling. Everyone here has struggled along the way. If you are consistent and refuse to give up (even when everything in your being wants to give up), you will be successful.

Finally, give yourself a break. The fact that you ate something you didn't plan on is not a complete and total failure. The way you react to the slip up (i.e. move forward or move backwards) is up to you and truly what matters.

J

I think what the others have said is so accurate you have to find what works for you and at that time. You might find that WW works for the first 6 months and then you have to change over to South Beach and then maybe to calorie counting.

I started with South Beach in 2005 in my first go around but found it to labor intensive. I know am more of an conscious eater convert.

My big plan now is that I watch the food network all of the time. Make really REALLY good food and then only eat a a little of it because it is so satisfying.

It is much slower weight loss than what some of the other posters are showing but it is loss and it is consistently working for me.

So I think that is the trick is just shaking things around till something settles.

Good Luck You can Do this.

For me, planning AND variety is key. I cannot "wing it", nor can I eat the same old things every day.

Regardless of how you're approaching your weight loss, I can pretty much promise you there is no "regular" recipe that cannot be de-fatted, de-carbed, or significantly lowered in calories yet STILL taste good.

Have fun in the kitchen! Try something new!

Hugs,

Sherry

Breanna - years ago I purchased a book called "A Woman Doctor's Diet for Women" which was written by a female doctor who herself battled weight problems. It talked a lot about how much harder it is for women to lose weight than men (among other things). The other day I had a garage sale and dug out the stacks and stacks of books I'd been hoarding for years and put them up for sale - this was one of them, but it didn't sell, so I grabbed it out of the pile and re-read it.

One thing that I remember from reading it the first time that really struck a chord with me was her discussion of the "pain-pleasure" principle in relation to a person's weight. To be successful, you really have to get to the point that the pain of being overweight is stronger than the pleasure you get from food. When I got to that section of the book this time I vividly recall reading it initially and how that knowledge spurred me into action. She also does have a diet in the book (a couple of different plans, actually) and I went on that diet and lost about 20 lbs, which was all I needed to lose at the time. It's a low-carb, low-calorie diet that is fairly austere but was what I needed at the time. But the real value to the book was the insight she provided into an overweight woman's struggles to lose weight.

About the fast food...

You know people always say that people who quit smoking or quit drinking have it easier than people on a diet, because unlike smokers and drinkers, who can live without ever smoking a cigarette or drinking an alcoholic beverage, a person can't live without eating. Yes, this is true, BUT....you can live without ever walking into a fast-food restaurant again. If something is an intense trigger for you (for me, it's french fries, chips, and white bread) sometimes the only thing you can do is abandon it completely. I still go into fast food restaurants from time to time, but generally only because it's the only choice I have. And when I do, I go for the salads. It's hard, but I know that one order of McDonald's french fries or a Wendy's cheeseburger and I'm off program for a week. It's happened to me so many times over the last six months that I finally had to just admit that I can't eat these foods any more. Period.

If you gotta eat at a fast food restaurant, make it Chick-Fil-A :smug:

Good luck, and you WILL succeed. Be sure to read through all the success stories - every day, if you have to. You'll find people who have lost a whole lot more than you need to lose. They did it, and you can too!

Here's a tip- don't let yourself get starved!

I used to not eat all day then pig out at night- I realized I was starving myself- NOW I eat breakfast EVERYDAY. First I was like no I don't like breakfast, yada yada. Now when I get up I have to eat breakfast within an hour or two, I make sure I have protein and fat in my breakfast to keep me going a few hours. Then I have a good sized lunch with veggies, fruit, protein, and so on, something balanced AND filling. A few hours later I have a planned snack. Then dinner is meat and veggies (I also have PCOS and don't eat many carbs- just started south beach).

Plan your food out and stick to it- make sure you are also getting enough calories, I'd say for your weight you should be eating 1800-2000 calories a day. Also try and up the fiber intake- helps keep you fuller longer :)

Good luck.

The only times I binge are those times when I don't consume enough calories during the day. Have a plan. Plan and pre-pack your meals for work. I write out what I'm going to eat, then pack it in the morning, and that's that.

You can do it, but requires hard work and planning. Good things rarely come easily.

I feel like im eating too much though. But today I ate a good amount of healthy food and I dont want to binge. :)

Breanna, today I ate:

oatmeal, 1 kiwi, 1/2 c. raspberries
1/2 c. cottage cheese
1 nonfat plain yogurt
1 6oz. chicken breast, sugar snap peas, two Wasa crackers, a peach
protein bar

For dinner, I will have 3 oz of steak + salad (I have a dinner to attend for work, and it's surf 'n turf. I will also probably have 1 glass of red wine & no dessert.)

I haven't done the calorie count, but I would say that it's definitely less than 1500, and I know I didn't even eat enough today.

If you're eating healthy whole foods, you eat *a lot* and still lose weight. You'll be surprised if you ditch the fast foods and eat more than just salad.

Good luck!

Sometimes I feel I'm eating too much as well and I know that I'm not when I count my calories- are you counting or guessing?

I so know what you mean. I do WW, but I also keep a daily total of my calories just so I know. Some days I feel like I ate so much, until I sit down and count and realize how far under my WW points I am. And it's so important to eat the minimum points or calories -- eating too little can actually hurt your weight-loss progress.

What weight loss plan are you using?

I agree with the above poster about journalling - it REALLY helps. I kept a private journal through most of my weight loss - noting down how I felt after eating different foods, keeping track of meals, how I felt through exercise, etc. I helped keep me focused and it also helped to go back and see what I did on weeks I was more sucessful.

Now I blog (www.getfitchicks.com) and that's great too! It's nice to share the story and get feedback from others . Something to consider for sure!