I don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't seem to get myself motivated enough to have even ONE on plan day. I can't get off the sweets, primarily. I know the more of the crap I eat the more of it I want, and if I could just get one on plan week under my belt, I'd be a lot less likely to fall of the bandwagon, but its just SO HARD for me. I don't understand why.

I just had a baby in July and I feel its now more important than ever to take care of my food issues so that they don't rub off on my daughter. I want her to have a healthy, fit, and in shape mom. Not a mom who can't run around with her, or is too embarressed of my own body to take her to the pool or beach. My mom was significantly overweight and as a result, we all led fairly sedentary lives. I don't want to be that way.

How do you find the motivation? I feel like I need some sort of meal plan to stick to. Too many options is what is always my downfall. How do you manage to stick to a plan when you're always on the run (I'm in college, and raise my daughter on my own) and when you're on a budget.

I felt exactly the same for years. Finally in desperation last May I went on a drastically different plan with limited "allowed" foods (17 day diet). I stayed on that for just about one week but I lost at least 5 lbs and that gave me the motivation to start a more longterm plan (calorie counting). I've been at that since June 1st & have gone down approx 2 pants sizes (I dont weigh myself). Sometimes I think that trying something completely different shakes us out of our rut and gets us back on track.

The very first time I dieted, I decided to count calories, but I just couldn't get myself to eat right for one whole day. The solution? Simply count your calories. No matter what you eat. If you can't stay on plan for more than 6 hours, tough cookies, just count every single thing you eat. Even if your planner says, oatmeal, 160 calories, then a gallon of icecream, 2000 calories. No matter how bad it gets, keep counting. At the end of the day, seeing 3,000+ calories helped to change perspective. After about three days, I started decreasing the candy and choosing foods that were lower in calories. Slowly, I didn't need the candy anymore.

Also, my trick to not craving sugar is not eating sugar. ANY sugar. It may take a few days to get off of it, but after a couple of days without it, I stopped craving it. Sometimes I want it now, but what used to be an uncontrollable appetite for sweets is now more than controllable. In fact, most of the time, I don't even think about it. For the first few weeks, I had to limit my fruit intake as well, because even healthy sugars like fruits can change your blood sugar more drastically than other foods, making me crave that sugar high more.

gawd you and me both. I am forever off my diet by lunch time. Started again today and am still on plan at dinner.

sometimes though I just lose hope. If I can't stay on a diet more than a day or two how can I possibly get down to a normal weight?

I didn't realize I was carb-addicted, because my carbs-of-choice weren't sweets they were mostly savory foods in sweet/savory sauces - meats with barbecue sause, sweet and sour asian dishes...

Then I read "The End of Overeating," by David Kessler, and I realized that the salt/fat/sugar (or starch) combination fit all of my trigger foods.

It truly is an "addictive" combination. So even a little bit can set off insane cravings.

I also believe a meal plan is important, but the perfection mind-set isn't. It's very easy to get into the "I've blown it" mentality, where even one small slip gives a person permission to eat out of control until they can "start fresh" tomorrow morning (or if the slip happens on Wednesday or later - permission to start fresh Monday morning, and if the slip happens after the 23rd of the month, permission to start the 1st of the month, or the first Monday of the month).

We "learn" to diet by what we see and hear others do, talk about and write about. Most of what we learn doesn't work, so we have to try something different.

Have a plan, but know that your instincts are going to be filled with booby traps, because we've learned and internalized those traps. We think we need many things that we don't. We don't need a perfect plan. We don't need to be perfect on that plan. We don't need a specific amount of time, money, or even motivation to start.

I had almost no motivation when I started, and almost no confidence in my ability to succeed. I was able to succeed despite myself (although it was incredibly slow gowing when I was my own biggest obstacle).

For me, it started with deciding that while I might not be able to lose weight, I was certainly able to maintain weight - so I focused on maintaining my weight first and foremost (so if I didn't lose, I didn't have an excuse to binge because I thought a gain wasn't any worse than a non-loss. With maintenance always as my first goal, there was always a very good reason for not letting an off-plan bite, become a binge worthy of the name "food bender."

When I started, my hubby and I were in an extremely tight finances. Our income was too high for food stamps (by less than $50), and our medical and prescription drug expenses were through the roof (and we didn't qualify for assistance programs because the same income guidelines were used as for food stamps).

We weren't always on the run, but I was extremely ill, nearly bed-ridden. I couldn't cook when my husband was working, so all the food had to be ready to eat (which is a similar challenge to being on the run and having little time to cook).

I chose exchange plan dieting, because I was most familiar with exchange plans, but my doctor recommended low-carb, so I found a low-carb exchange plan.

Because there are inexpensive foods in each food (exchange) category, we bought whatever was cheapest to fill those categories (cheap fats and starches were a lot easier to find than cheap proteins, and fresh fruits and veggies - so we ate a lot of canned and frozen veggies and a lot of tvp, ground beef, chicken, and beans).

I used tvp (soy protein) to extend ground beef. And I browned it with cheap ground beef. I'd make a huge batch and freeze it in "crumbles" so I could use it in recipes when I needed it. That way, I could make enough for several weeks worth of meals and just scoop out what I needed. For example, I'd heat a 1/2 cup of the meat mixture in the microwave with a squirt of barbecue sauce to make a sloppy joe mixture to put over a microwave baked potato.

My tvp recipe and other super-cheap recipes are on my 3FC blog

this page has the tvp recipe (second recipe on the page)

http://www.3fatchicks.com/diet-blogs/kaplods




Because my doctor wanted me on low-carb diet, I had to find or create a low-carb exchange plan. I did find a low-carb exchange plan like the one described in this pdf (the food plans are listed on the last few pages). The low-carb plan is called a high-protein food plan.

I experimented with different carb-levels and calorie levels, but more often than not, I used an exchange plan. I tried some non-counting plans like Atkins, South Beach and Primal Blueprint, but I found that I did best with a plan that had portion-control limits, so I took what I learned from those plans and applied them to my exchange plan.

Here are the exchange plans, I'm talking about

http://www.frugalabundance.com/exchange-plan-diet.pdf


Probably the biggest change I made was never allowing myself to believe that I had "blown it." I also had to get the idea of "starting over," completely out of my mind. When I thought I had the opportunity to "start over," it always meant a binge before the starting over point.

As I've been saying frequently, if weight loss were mountain climbing, most of us would never survive it, because at the first stumble, we'd throw ourselves off the nearest cliff in order to "start fresh."

There is no starting fresh or starting over, there's just moving on. All of my failed attempts weren't failures, they were successes in learning what didn't work. I didn't have to be perfect, I just had to do better.

It's taken me 7 years to lose 94 lbs, so I'm obviously a very slow learner - and yet it's success like I've never experienced it before. All of my life (from the age of 5 until 38) I was always gaining or losing, I was never maintaining (because I was following the rules - the fail-doomed popular ways to lose weight).

My guiding thought was "I may not be able to lose weight, but I can maintain the loss I've had so far, and while I'm at it, I'll try to lose one more pound."

I've lost most of the 94 lbs, 1 lb at a time. And while I've had a few small stumbles, I've never let myself backslide intentionally. I've slid a few pounds back, but I got up and kept moving forward. It's really hard to believe that I haven't had a significant backslide - but only because I've picked myself up before I could slide back more than a few pounds.

Part of that for me, was learning to weigh myself every day without feeling discouraged by the normal scale fluctuations. I couldn't afford to go a week without weighing on the scale, because I could easily gain 20 to 30 lbs in a week (I've done it before).

But by defining "not gaining" as the main priority, most days I got to celebrate (when only losing counted for anything, I would be deeply disappointed when I weighed daily. When maintenance is success, I got to celebrate more days than not).

I don't know what if any of my little monologue here will help you, but I threw it all out there, in case any of it does. As I mentioned, I highly recommend the shoestring meal forum, because there are tons of budget friendly tips and recipes. They've been a life and weight loss saver.

The thing that works for me is having outside motivation. Looking better and being able to shop for cute clothes and feel healthy are all really big motivations, but the problem with that for me was that I could always procrastinate. I could eat this NOW, and start my diet tomorrow. Rewards work for a lot of people, but they have to be the right rewards. Something you reeeeally care about. I did a couple of "biggest loser" contests with my family, with a fairly substantial monetary award, and that worked for me. Time limits and competition are big for me. Another thing I've done (and that I'm currently doing) is a little silly, but SO works for me! This year my family is getting together for Christmas at my parents' house. I love being with them so much. So I made a deal with my husband that we wouldn't go unless I lost 40 pounds by Christmas. He will absolutely hold me to it, and knowing that is making me stick to my plan. As you can see, this motivation is very specific for me personally. I found something I really really care about, and that has a time limit! Also I think it helps that it's both the thought of the reward and the fear of the "punishment" that urge me along.

I was the same way until about a week and a half ago.

One day I ate a whole bag of potato chips and a half of an oreo pie. I was so disgusted with myself. I wound up throwing the whole pie away. I truly had hit rock bottom. That is what finally motivated me.

I had ordered "The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged!" by Tosca Reno earlier, and I finally took it out to read it. It excited me!! So that made me want to get my rear in gear.

Know that we are all behind you! It helps.

I would say 99.9% of people who are dieting, be it short term of life changes, have hard times. Right now just happens to be yours. I feel your pain a lot though. I'm also in college and working full time. Between going here and there all day long it's hard for me to plan out meals in order to stick to a plan. So what I do is plan a calorie count for each meal and bring along snacks for inbetween. Say for example I have 200 calories allowed for breakfast, I think about breakfast the night before when I'm going to sleep and get myself excited to eat egg whites and veggies. When I'm getting hungry in class I think about salad and the yummy dressings instead of cake so when I go to get my lunch it's easier to choose the healthy choice seeing as I spent time getting excited for it!


Tomorrow I have class then work then dinner with the bf then gym. This is what tomorrow will look like

Breakfast-2 egg whites (40 cals) with veggies (60 cals) and 1 cup of hasbrowns (70 cals) and 1/4 cup of low fat cheese (40 cals)

210 calories total

go to college...bring a bunch of grapes (40 cals) and a granola bar (190 cals)

230 calories total

Lunch-salad bar at school with 1 piece of chicken breast, vinegar for dressing (250 cals) ***school food is very cheap so easy for budget. this costs me usually 3 to 4 dollars***

250 calories total

go to work. Fat free yougert (100 cals) and orange (50 cals) for snack

150 calories total

Dinner-Chicken breast-no skin (140 cals) steamed califlower (40 cals) baby spinach salad with fat free feta and dressing and croutons (200 cals)

380 calories total


that puts me at a total of 1220 for my calories for the day. This number may be much different than yours depending on your starting point and your goal, but my best advice is to find your number and plan out your meals a head of time. When I first started dieting I would write down my meal plan and take it out every time I went to eat to make sure I was staying on track. When I got an urge to diverge I would remind myself that most cravings only last for 15 mins...so I'd just take a deep breath and remind myself that by the time I finish what I had chosen to stay with, I wouldn't want what I was craving! The end feeling of satisfaction with myself made me want to stick to the next meal too.

It takes time and practice, especially since this is a life style you've watch for years.

I wrote "what do you want more" on my phone screen, and I look at it when I'm craving. What do I want more, that snack that's tempting me, or to be healthy in the body I know I deserve

Sorry for the long response...hope some of that helps! And best of luck to you! We're all rooting for you!

THIS just get in the habit of writing it down and eating mindfully. It is probably the most powerful step you can take. And then just change one thing. Just one. When you have that, change another.

And get the stuff you dont want to eat out of your house. The rest of your family doesnt need it either.

So you are a single mom in school full time with a 2 MONTH old? Wow, that sounds incredibly difficult. I'm not suprised you are feeling too strained to get through one day of a lifestyle change.

How about this... make a rule to improve something just for one week. Whether it's "no pop", "walk 3x this week", or whatever. Make a small mini-goal. Maybe you are trying to do too much too soon. It's hard enough for childless people who don't have school, but to be so newly postpartum with so much on your plate, that's a big mountain to climb.

Good luck!

I document my meal plans/tracking via computer and I keep that day's meals on my blackberry just in case I need to modify, but I don't think I'll ever stop, especially since I've been doing it for years. Not only does it keep me on track, but it makes my life easier to meal plan. I take it to the point where I cook most meals ahead of time and freeze them because I just can't seem to make time to cook everyday, but I can cook at least three meals a week (usually on the weekends).

It sounds boring, but I usually keep my calories roughly the same for every meal, with dinner and evening snack being the exception. During the week I keep it pretty rigid because it's brainless and I won't need to really figure anything out, and on the weekends it's much more free because I can just stay in tune with my hunger and eat accordingly since I'm at home.

I was worried that I had symptoms of insulin resistance. I had previously been on metformin for it, but I couldn't tolerate it. Just threw up all day long. A few months back I decided to look for a natural alternative and I found it in a cinnamon supplement. I never knew just HOW much I was thinking about food and how bad I was craving sweets until the cravings stopped. And, they stopped after a day or so after adding the supplements. If you're interested in learning more, and how it has worked for others there are a few threads in the PCOS forum. It has been an actual life saver for me. As long as I'm taking the cinnamon...no cravings.

This! This exactly! This is how I am doing it. Right now I've told my husband, I'm not on a diet, I'm not making any big changes, but I want to know what is going into my body and back out again. He's getting excited to look at my chart on FitDay that shows I burned more than I ate, although he's really hesitant at the idea of me dieting. He says I'm beautiful the way I am . . . but it isn't about my looks, it's about feeling healthy!

Anyway, it's just counting to start, as far as I'm concerned. The changes will grow naturally from there.

in a way, you've answered your own Q. that stuff can be seriously addictive, physically and mentally. that's why on the diet shows they come in and throw out all the sugary, fatty high caloric foods and replace it with fruits, veggies and lean proteins.

you're right that after you have one day it will get easier. buckle down, make a good meal plan for the day that you'll enjoy, and don't have the other stuff around to tempt you.

HOW I CREATED MY WEIGHT LOSS PLAN
Here's what I did - I decided that calorie counting was the way to go, because the math is simple and I find it fairly easy to add.

3500 calories = 1 pound. We all know this.
It takes X amount of calories for me to maintain my weight.
And if I eat too many calories per day, then I gain weight.
To lose weight, I need to decrease my calories.
See? Simple.

But HOW to apply that simplicity?
First, I kept track of my normal eating habits - not trying to diet at all! - for about a month. I thought I was averaging around 1500 or so calories per day. HA! -Then I entered everything into FitDay, to my surprise I was eating about 2300+ (heavy on the plus!) calories PER DAY! No wonder I was fat! ACK!!!

Then after that part of my "experiment" was over, I sat down with a good old fashioned pen & paper. I proceeded to write down every single thing I could think of that I enjoyed eating (or drinking!!) I mean everything! Fruit, veggies, meats, desserts, beverages, condiments, etc. EVERYTHING.

The point is I wrote down EVERYTHING that I would consider putting in my mouth. And I decided what I could "substitute" & still be happy (Diet Mtn Dew instead of regular Mtn Dew, for instance ... but not fat-free ranch dressing... icky poo!!!- but I do like Hidden Valley Ranch LITE ) Then I went on-line & looked up the calorie count for a regular serving of all those foods. Some are harder than others to decipher, because hey... I make my own sweet tea and I put 1.5 cups sugar to a gallon, and I am not math-minded enough to decipher what an 8oz serving glass would equal in calories. And going out to eat can be pretty tricky sometimes. But with some practice (& looking up everything online! - & coming here for guidance! ) I finally got the hang of it.

I went online to find a calorie calculator - to find out how many calories *I* should eat for my size & to lose weight (healthy, safely!). Then I built my own food log in FitDay (just one of many calorie trackers out there!!!) and now I adjust that caloric intake for however much weight I lose so I can keep on losing, until I'm ready to maintain. (192 lb me ate a different amount of calories than the current 161 lb me eats.)

I EAT ALL THE FOODS I LOVE. I never eat anything I don't like! No "puffy rice cake" shall ever pass these lips!! No gagging-reflex crappy low-fat anything! Is it OK for me to eat a cheeseburger from time to time? YOU BETCHA! I enjoy pretty much everything - just less of it. And it also makes it easy for me when it comes down to "Do I REALLY want a frozen margarita for 700 calories?" - usually I choose NOT to imbibe, but have a nice 150 calorie glass of wine or a 100 calorie light beer instead.

This is working for me. My weight is decreasing slower than some, but I'll take it... as opposed to not decreasing at all, or worse yet... gaining. And I KNOW I can do this "for the rest of my life" because when you eat what you love, there's no "going back to old eating habits". Is it a perfect plan? NO of course not. There are still times when I eat too much. I can pretty much never say no to a bigger portion of macaroni & cheese (3/4 cup... puh-leeze!!!) and sometimes I DO have that 700 calorie frozen margarita... But the basic bottom line? "the perfect diet is the foods you'll eat"