What is YOUR biggest weight loss struggle?
 

I sure do know what mine is. My biggest challenge has got to be work. Hot fresh baked goods will always be my downfall- unfortunately I have easy access to them. I'm a baker and was raised by a baker. I work 40+ hours a week in a bakery, primarily cake decorating. There are always stray croissants, cookies & cupcakes floating around. The other downside is I'm on my feet all day, which makes it hard to work out after. Being a student also limits my work out time.
My family, although supportive, tends to help me backslide a bit. I come from an Italian family, which comes with big Italian dinners with plenty of breads, pastas, fatty meats and WINE! I never realized how calorie dense the wines I love are- which I've given up. It's become a hobby to find healthy, low calorie replacements for this stuff. I also enjoy making more of the already healthy Italian meals.
I envy thin people who don't have to think about being thin. /sigh/

What's YOUR biggest weight loss struggle?

Exercise, hands down. I'm not at all consistent about it even though I feel better when I am.

night time snacking at home. Thats my number 1 undoer of all my good habits.

PORTION CONTROL!
i could eat healthy for the rest of my life and not eat junk but i still would want huge portions, i do manage portion control very well (i have one cheat day a week where i do not!) but in my heart of hearts i would love to eat every meal with abandon!

I truly wish i could be satisfied with a small amount of food like it seems a lot of the "normal" population is :(

Beer - in every shape, size and color!!! LUV IT!!! Total waste of calories, but I still love it. I save my WW points all week so that I can have a few on the weekend. I have managed to make sure that it's only the one evening a weekend. We boat and camp and I am sooooo tired of hearing "Aren't you having a beer?" But, so worth it when the scale goes down!!

Boredom/emotional eating is my biggest problem

Junk food. It is my weakness. I would love to sit and eat crap all day long and would not mind exercising for it. But realistically I know it isn't good for me, nor can I possibly exercise enough to combat the amount of junk food I can eat in a sitting.

Going over on calories in the evenings. Trying to be done with eating past 8 p.m., but I struggle. Doing better, but I don't like going to bed on an empty stomach.

Me too! Even if I do great all day, I'll end up ruining my day when I get home and "unstress" In reality, I'm not unstressing at all, just setting myself back.

Of course there are. We eat those too. In the past I've just prefered the less healthy choices. I should have specified Italian American. It's taken me a long time to get over New York styled pizza & subs.

Back in the day, it was portion size for me. When I first started losing weight a few years ago, I retrained myself about what a portion should feel like in my stomach by eating frozen dinners. I used to expect to feel full after a meal, sometimes even stuffed. The frozen meals taught me to associate eating a meal with a less bursting sensation. ;) I can still pack away quite a lot of food from time to time, but for the most part eating smaller portions for so many years has changed how much I'm comfortable eating at a sitting. Now I usually only eat past fullness when I'm having a special meal.

I'd say what remains as my greatest struggle is eating in a way that keeps my appetite in check. My appetite stays controllable so long as I eat a certain way. But if I get lax and allow myself to indulge in trigger foods, my body feels so much hungrier and then I eat more than I really need.

Social eating/drinking can also be challenging, but mostly because it can lead to the above.

Sticking it out until I reach goal.

I can fly/battle through for months if need be, but then what would happen (in the past) is I would eventually fall off the proverbial wagon before reaching goal. And the bingeing that happened afterward is my second weight loss struggle. Sadly, this resulted in a regain of all the weight (and sometimes more) I had lost. Now, neither of these problems would have been such an issue if I had a small amount of weight to lose, but having 140+ pounds to take off means sticking to plan and maintaining are VITAL. I think I've realized/am realizing that now...

Hormonal hunger. During PMS/TOM I find it very difficult to avoid binges. At best, if I'm diligent all month and can minimize tom eating, it's still often three steps forward and two steps back. If I am not trying, it ends up being zero steps forward (during non tom time) and three to five steps back during hunger week.

If it weren't for the monthly "rabid hunger" I'd probably still have to watch my weight because I love food (healthy food and not-so-healthy food too), but I do wonder if I would have ever gotten even close to 300, let alone nearly 400 lbs.

I'd estimate that 95% of every pound I've ever gained during my life post puberty (at 9 or 10 as I started menstruating in 4th grade) was during pms weeks.

Birth control helps, but as I'm nearing menopause, the hunger episodes (and the cramping and mood swings and other pms/pmdd symptoms) during hunger week are getting worse and worse, even with the birth control.

For me it's all of the above, but if the nighttime was equal in effort/restraint levels as the daytime, then I'd be skinny all the time. Nighttime is just incredibly difficult.

I've been at my goal weight since April but I'm beginning to feel "fat" again without an actual scale gain. :shrug:

What's that all about?