My brief diet vacation
 

Hi All,

Long time reader. First time poster here. Lately, I've been feeling burned out from food logging, daily weighing, portion controling, and worrying about food/weight/etc. Thanks to some awesome posters on here, you gave me the idea to just coast for a little while. And so far so good! I'm eating intuitively and maintaining pretty well this week. (Actually, kind of proud of myself for that.)

My question is: for those of you who've tried this strategy during their weight loss journey, how did you get back to losing mode? Were you just inspired one day? Did you set an end date? Big picture, I still need to lose, so this vacation can't last forever. I just don't know how to kick it up again without feeling burned out.

Thanks for the insight all!! You guys are awesome!

Wish I had some great words of advice for you but I am having the same problem. Congrats on being able to maintain. That in and of itself is a huge accomplishment.
Maybe try building up to it. Start one week with logging your food and keeping an eye on your portions. If you can do this for a week without driving yourself crazy. Then add back in the weighing of the food.
To be honest, I never have weighed and measured my food. That is probably why I am having trouble really losing the last 5-6 lbs that I would love to lose.

I've done plenty of "diet breaks".

The important thing is to decide in advance how long the break is going to be. When it's over, it's over.

I'd suggest you make the break at least two weeks but not longer than a month.

One thing you might ask yourself: do you really NEED to measure, weigh, log, etc., when in losing mode? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. I never did. I just estimated my calories to the best of my ability.

I think we all know deep down whether we're being honest about our estimates. If you're committed to being honest with yourself, you may not need to do all this onerous measuring and record-keeping when losing weight, so you may feel less burned out.

Freelance