What is the SINGLE most important thing you do to lose weight?
I know we all have different things that are important to us with our dieting.
Though I know it's not good to do the yo-yo diet thing, but I've been on that wagon for years, and one of the benefits is that I have learned what works for me and what doesn't.
Hands down the most important thing to me is to weigh my food and ACCURATELY count my calories. I know that sounds overly simple, but if I skip those steps, I don't lose weight. End of story.
Letting go of fast food, especially pizza, burgers, and tacos.
It's not easy for me, I depended on it several times a week for years and years. I miss it. I want it. I've never lost weight with fast food in my diet though, so I just have to fight the desire. I've survived a month without it. I'm losing weight, slowly but surely, and I feel better. The only negative is how many dirty dishes I have now, lol!
I've only been doing this a few days, but although I don't count calories, it's got to be my portioning and amount of meals a day. I've cut down quite a bit.
I would say my exercise, but I'm never worried about missing a session. I have the hour a day to follow the Insanity Program, I love it, and no matter what I won't drop it.
It's eating right, that's my biggest challenge and what I find stresses me out C:
I eat anything and everything, but in small amounts. This allows me to never feel bad about what I can't have or desire to binge. Controlling portions allows me to feel like, one day, I will be eating like a normal person because I'm actually only about 300-700 calories away from that right now. Getting this habit in place has set me up for the rest of my life.
Sleep. Ever since I started getting my severe sleep apnea treated, everything has fallen nicely into place. I count calories and exercise, and have found those things DOABLE now that I sleep well, when before they simply were not.
Developing a plan that is easy to stick to, and sticking to it 100%.
The problem with dieting is that every time we go off plan, we immediately get a reward: a yummy bit of food, or an extra hour in bed. This reinforces going off plan. The rewards for staying on plan are much more abstract and take longer to see.
If every time a child misbehaves, you were to give them a cupcake but yell and scream to make them feel guilty, but good behavior was rewarded only after weeks and months (even with something awesome), you'd see more bad behavior than good. The positive reinforcement of the cupcake would be more powerful than the negative reinforcement of the guilt and shame, and the "good" rewards are too distant to be worth trying for. You'd also have a ****ed up kid, because that sort of emotional roller coaster is no way to live your life.
We dieters do this to ourselves. Every time we go off plan we "pay" for it with guilt and shame and remorse and "accountability posts", but before that, we get the joy of eating the whatever. The rewards for sticking on plan take longer to manifest, and it's harder, on an emotional level, to see the connection between good choices and a different body.
So it's important to never, ever go off plan. But the trick to that is not "more will power", it's "more realistic plan". Better to plan to eat 1600 a day and really do it than to plan to eat 1200, fall off the wagon a couple times in the week (getting rewarded with a cheeseburger and fries once and a big piece of chocolate cake the next time), beat yourself up, and end up at that same 1600 calories.
A strict plan is self indulgent. It allows for the classic Sunday-night dieter's fantasy "I'm gonna be so good. I'm only gonna eat X and Y and Z and the weight will fall off and my mom will be so impressed and I'm going to look so good", but when it falls apart, it teaches us worse habits than we started with. It teaches us that weakness brings an addictive emotional roller coaster of joy and shame.
Cooking my own food & having developed a repertoire of good, healthy dishes.
+1!!!
Also, completely changing the mindset I've had for twenty-odd years (I blame/credit Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories for the beginning of my shift in thinking) and actually transitioning to a way of eating that has made me feel better than I have in many, many years. It's hard to pinpoint the ONE thing, so I hope it's ok that I gave a rather broad answer. Best part = getting smaller/feeling better and not being HUNGRY -- finally!
What is the SINGLE most important thing you do to lose weight?
I NEED to LOVE what I eat!
