I've mentioned on a few threads on how bad I've been with my diet lately, luckily I haven't gained but I'm not losing.

I feel like I'm blaming my lack of diligence on everything except myself, my parents fighting all the time, school stress, no sleep, cold weather (and im in socal so where near where there is actual weather disaster!), ugh I'm so sick of my own excuses, it's really pathetic. How and where did I get the motivation to lose the first 25 lbs?!

Since I'm prepping for a cousin's wedding coming up, I went to the store earlier today and STOCKED my fridge. I haven't had the financial liberty to do that in awhile, but I finally did and I'm preparing everything so I don't have to "look around" for food. This is what always kills me. That and weekends. How the heck do you guys do it on weekends?!

I've also decided I'm going to stop thinking of this as a diet to lose weight, but more so to just eat healthy, I should see something right? Hopefully lol. I'll be eating around 1200 and then go on from there and exercise 4x a week.

I might come back on here and update daily (is that ok to do?) I just need somewhere to go where I can write down things and be accountable for it. I feel like this is the only place I can do that, not very diligent with MFP. Can't believe I'm restarting again, but better to recognize I'm failing now than 20 lbs later (which is the way I have always been!)

Thanks for letting me rant guys!

I don't see weekends as anything special when it comes to eating. I see them as any other day that I want to eat well. And I don't look at what I'm doing as a "diet" because it makes it seem like something temporary, when what we really want to do is make new good healthy habits. It doesn't mean you can't eat the things you really like, just a healthier version or much less of the original. Like I've mentioned, I drink wine, but I do so every day and account for the calories. Same with pizza, I make it on a pita bread with a little sauce, veggies and a little cheese, it's still very yummy but not slathered with grease...you know what I mean? Stress is hard though, for me I can't eat when I'm stressed but I can understand people emotionally eating, it's very soothing. When you're stressed can you do something else to soothe yourself?

Hi Chardonnay!

For me weekends are bad because my schedule eases up a lot. On weekdays, I'm up at 5am out the door at 5:30, work 6am-6pm at a school, come home to eat + shower, then I drive an hour to get to night class from 7-10, study for an hour or so and then sleep. Over time, it becomes so so tiring!! So on weekends, I can't help but feel like indulging/relaxing/doing anything but exercising!

Also I usually have a lot of studying to catch up on, so I'm mostly sedentary, but my schedule sucks. When I'm stressed I like to pop in a friends dvd or something like that, but when I see people eating on there it makes me hungry. I'm thinking now I should just go for a walk when I'm stressed or something. I hate that I always give into a desire just to be satisfied. It's a really bad habit I have!

Lots of similarities between us. I'm also from Canada, I also drink wine every day, and I also make my own pizza with a whole-wheat tortilla, fresh tomatoes, onions and cilantro and shredded mozarella. I actually like it better than fast-food pizza.

Freelance

I live by this: if you eat healthy and exercise then weight loss will be a side effect.

I have no time goals. I have no diet. I have change goals. Since May I have cut out unhealthy foods and added more and more healthy foods. I have not calorie counted once. My appetite naturally went way down when I cut way down on sugar, bread, pasta, processed food, junk food, fast food.

Went I started fueling myself with good, whole food, I had more energy to exercise. When I started exercising I got more energy, exercise became easier, and my appetite did not increase. I personally found carbs make me hungry, protein and fat do not. I enjoy and think veggies are good. I am not on Atkins.

But lowering carbs and for me eliminating bread and pasta, whole or otherwise, was transformative. It brought my hunger under control and I could then step away from potato chips, cookies, cakes, pizza, candy, etc. without much effort.

Still enjoying food, it just happens to not be processed. I like what someone said, veggies and fruits are Nature's original fast food. That is true. You don't have to do much to enjoy them if you don't want to.

Weekends irritate me, but I think at the end of the day, I "lose" more on weekends than a week day. I walk around all day yet I eat the same amt of food. It would be easier to do with something like "i'm at work" or something mandatory that keeps me from eating my face off. So I totally feel ya! They are tough for me for sure, even with a "clean low carb" diet.

Cilantro in EVERYTHING! One great addition to my healthy eating is fresh herbs. I never used as many herbs as I do now in my cooking and it gives the food so much flavour.

Hi hhm6 So problem #1 is that you are suddenly not as busy. I have to keep busy on my "fast" days (like today) or else I find myself thinking of food too much. I don't know why I'm programmed that way. I can eat what I want tomorrow so why am I bothering with this struggle today? I've taught myself lots of self-control, so I'm okay, but I remember when boredom set in when I first started losing, it felt desperate. If I didn't eat, I'd panic or something. It's such a psychological game isn't it? Will I die if I don't eat those cashews? My mind is convincing me I will. So I gave in to my mind game and ate cashews, but not just a handful, half a can. Disaster!

I have some advice. Why not keep low calorie and healthy snacks available to you? Diamondgeog mentioned fruit. Fruit is very filling. You can have an apple dipped in peanut butter, very yummy. Air popped popcorn is so low in calories, 3 cups is under 100 calories. I also snack on those rice cakes on fast-days. They're 35 calories each, I spread some mustard on them, it makes it taste less like paper lol...have some cut-up veggies available and make a low calorie dip with low-cal sour cream or yogurt. It's all in the planning. Plan a nice healthy pizza for dinner too. Keep it low on the cheese and high on the veggie toppings. You don't have to starve yourself, but try to make small changes as you go along. And if you slip up, don't let it turn into a binge. Just recognize it and forgive yourself and resolve to do better the next day

Great thread! I too find weekends more difficult to stay on track because of a more flexible schedule. But nothing feels better than waking up Monday morning knowing you stayed on plan all weekend!

Same problem here. Weekends are the worse for me. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but the scale jumped up 7lbs from Friday to this morning. I know I wasn't on plan but I didn't realize I was being that irresponsible. Gosh, I'm so frustrated but I only have myself to blame. I undid a whole week and a half in just 3 days. Oh well I got to get back on track and do some serious behavior modification.

My husband and I had a "thrill eating" habit on the weekend nights that was really hard for me to break. It took quite awhile for me to find my weekend night groove and go-to food items (and during the transition process I will admit I was pretty miserable watching him eat chips while I abstained).

I always found weekends to be the toughest, since we counted eating as grand entertainment!

Grand entertainment, I've actually used that term! For me, I try to make dinner grand every night. Mind you, I have the time to cook for a few hours each day, so it's a lot easier for me. On those days when I'm super busy, the last thing I want to do is cook, but I always have something healthy in the freezer, and I always have salad fixings in the fridge too. A glass of wine with a salad and a healthy main course to me is very grand

The Superbowl destroyed me. I caved and snacked on all kinds of junk dishes. I made turkey burger sliders, which were pretty healthy, but I still made a mayonnaise-base sauce to put on 'em. Of course, the boys brought a pepperoni stromboli, a buffalo chicken dip, cheese n' crackers, pizza bagels, and ice cream.

I didn't exactly binge or anything, but I ate more than I needed to. =/ *sigh*