I can feel my health deteriorating, I can see the stretch marks growing, I can feel my clothes getting tighter. So I tell myself this will be the day, I'll eat right and workout. I'll make small changes so it'll last. I'll start with short workouts and make them longer as I get stronger. And then a day or two later (if I even make it that long) I slip back into my old ways. I want more food, I want fast food, I don't feel like working out...So many things go through my mind and I let them. As I'm eating that Chick-Fil-A I can think about how it's not helping me but it tastes so good. And then minutes later I feel so guilty about it...

My house is a mess, my sink is full of dishes, and I can't manage to get off of my couch to do anything about it. I'm letting myself slip away....Just because I'm not motivated to do anything at all. How do I get out of this? How do I get off the couch and make good choices for more than a day?

I need some major help....

Pick *small* changes. Don't worry about the big picture.

Let's say, start with a healthy breakfast, and 5 minutes of exercise each day, and pick one household chore to tackle each day. With the exception of laundry, which is time consuming, most chores, don't take up more than 15 or 20 minutes. So, a healthy breakfast, 5 minutes or so, 5 minutes of exercise, and a 20 minute chore, is not even an hour.

When you master that, and are comfortable with it, pick another healthy food option, and add 5 minutes to your exercise, and add one household task.

Rinse and repeat!

I have found that when you break things down into small steps, and not worry so much about the big picture, it becomes easier to deal with.

Beyond that, you also should go get a good check up, and make sure there are no medical issues that need addressed.

Thanks for the ideas shcirerf!
But what do I do the rest of the day? I feel like if I keep eating the way I do the rest of the day then it negates the good choices I made in the morning. And I definitely do need to work on taking small steps. I start to get caught up in the big picture and I think wow...I have almost a hundred pounds to lose.... I can lose like 5 and then I gain 10...HORRIBLE cycle.
So in the meantime I just need to take small steps. A healthy meal here...a little workout there. Got it! Thank you!

I couldn't make any reasonable decisions until I stopped eating sugar and flour. I don't know if that will help you, but that's what made a big difference for me. I still struggle and some days are tougher than others, but I'm not so much a slave to those strong, intense cravings.

Another tip you might find helpful is to only have one plate of food for each meal. Try to use a medium sized plate instead of a large. Your brain will still think of it as the same amount of food, but those types of little changes can add up.

I highly recommend not drinking any of your calories, so skip juices, "coffee" that's more like a milkshake and soda.

Take it one day at a time. Don't think about the next day or week or month. Just focus on getting through today. Think how proud you'll feel in the morning when you wake up knowing that you made better choices than the day before!

your posts are really very helpful, thanks a bunch

Yep - I went out and bought all new dinner plates that are significantly smaller and put my old plates away for special occasions.

I've also had to take some time to wrap my head around small goals and not a huge overwhelming picture.

Try taking it one meal at a time. Just because you eat a crappy breakfast doesn't mean you have to eat a crappy lunch. Try to balance it all out!

First off, let me say I'm so sorry to hear you're struggling like this. I've been exactly where you're at, not just the weight, but the dishes, the lack of energy, the whole thing. I've suffered with Major Depressive Disorder most of my life. I am by no means trying to diagnose you, but just saying you should see your doctor. Everything from depression to thyroid imbalance could be the cause. I'm willing to bet your doctor can do something to help you.

Another source of help I could suggest is www.Flylady.net. Flylady changed my thinking and my life. She teaches you how to get your house ( and your life ) together not by guilt but by FLYing ( Finally Loving Yourself ). She's all about babysteps and routines.

As for the weight, I'd say stop telling yourself you can't ever fall back into old habits. No, it's not as crazy as it sounds. Why do you have to string together consecutive "good" days? What if you decided to look at 5 days out of 7 as an improvement? Why do you have to feel guilty about eating fast food? I eat fast food a few times every week and I never feel guilty. Quite the opposite, I look forward to it.

I'm a manager, and if there's one thing I've learned about making decisions, especially when you make a lot of them, it's that no matter what you know or how good you are, you're going to make bad calls sometimes. You can't get a do over, so you just try to learn from your mistake and do better next time.

When I was going to WW, I remember hearing in a meeting that we literally make hundreds of decisions about our eating daily. So numbers seem to dictate that if you're going to beat yourself up for every " wrong " decision, if you expect perfection of yourself, you're going to feel like you've failed there really is no such thing as long as you chose to look at making changes as a process.

Hang in there and things can and will get better.

Honestly that was the cycle i was going through until i gathered my thoughts and realized that i had to do it for myself..yes you can make small changes and that kind of stuff but you really have to dig deep and grab that motivation and will to be healthier. You can do it

You're not alone, so many of us get caught up with trying to have good days vs. bad days. Criticizing yourself and the choices you make is not good strategy, it doesn't lead to anything productive. I spent a long time in the trap of trying to control myself around food and it backfired constantly. I would have x amount of good days and then a backlash of bad days. Because the bad days made me feel like a weak failure, this resulted in a damaged self esteem and poor body image.

For me, the key to good health was to neutralize my relationship with food and stop judging myself over what I ate. I used to celebrate having a salad with no dressing as a my lunch - it was a good day and as a result I was a good person! How long did that last for? A day or two? Then I'd be so hungry that I'd make compulsive decisions on what to eat, causing me to binge! And then of course I was right back at being a bad person, a complete failure. Listen, you can't base your self image on whether or not you made good decisions about food every day. You are a good and strong person no matter what, you can't let your self confidence be swayed by a salad OR by a brownie. Remain neutral about food and then you're able to make neutral decisions about it. I achieved this by following intuitive eating which has cured me of my compulsive binging.

I feel like a hypocrite saying this, but I think you need to forgive yourself. It's so hard to do and I can totally appreciate that, but the "all or nothing" mentality seems to be hurting you. Will adding 30 minutes of exercise a few days a week make weight loss happen when you're still eating too much? No, probably not. But it's something. And then maybe you force yourself to throw a healthy meal in crockpot once a week to start replacing some of the fast food. Its' so easy to feel like failure when you don't think you're doing everything you should be, but I feel like the trick is to take the emotion out of it. Just make a few little changes until they become automatic and part of your routine. And then make a few more little changes. You might not lose weight right away, but you will eventually as the changes add up and you won't feel like you're "failing" during the process.

I think maybe luckymommy and others who suggest cutting out sugar and flour are on to something. I don't know if I could do this forever, but I have tried it a couple of times and it seems to me that I instantly feel better. It is very difficult to sustain, of course, and goes against the idea that nothing should be restricted because restriction leads to binging...

I totally understand where you're coming from.. before (and to some extent now but much less than before) I've slipped into the same way of thinking and not been able to muster the determination to continue good habits.

Honestly, what worked for me was getting out of my normal environment. I went to Asia for a couple of months and was walking a lot and eating lots of veggies - by the time I got home, I wanted to keep up the good habits.

I know not everyone can just go off to Asia! But have you got a friend or family member's house you could stay at for a week or two? Preferably one with healthy habits! I would muster the strength to do a complete tidy up of your place - empty the cupboards of all things unhealthy - so that it's ready for your return and go stay with a friend. While you're in a new environment you might find it easier to start new good habits, like a 20minute walk every morning and veggies with every meal?

I think when we start associating an environment with old habits, sometimes the easiest thing to do is to get out of it to clear our heads for a while.

Good luck anyway - I know you can push past this, one small step at a time!

That's great advice KitKat! I noticed that most of my binging happened on my couch in front of the tv. So now it's a rule, no eating on the couch in front of the tv. And wow how wonderful it is to sit down at a real table, at a nice plate setting and enjoy my food like a human being! Eating at the table somehow does not spur me into overeating but as soon as I get on that couch I start thinking about potato chips. We're programmed like Pavlov's dogs, and so it's a great idea to find a way out of your usual environment.