Took a break from dieting

[GraciebytheBay]

So how did "I'll take a little break from counting calories during the holidays," which I said approximately December 21, turn into :party: :party:

 

for over a month?! Realizing that I have been ridiculous, I hopped on the scale today. :eek: How is it even possible to gain so much weight in five weeks? So here's my plan:

 

1. Make a shopping list like the one I had before the holidays.

2. Purge the pantry.

3. Journal my food.

4. Stop feeling sorry for myself and pull myself out of "failure mode". **This is the hardest for me.**

 

Any other ideas to NOT allow this to turn into an excuse to give up (like all the other times)? Have you managed to pull out of a hard fall?

[DragonFaerie]

One thing that I absolutely have to do when I try to lose weight is allow myself to eat. I have a serious sweet tooth. I'd be perfectly happy eating cookies and candy all day long (and have sometimes). If I tried to say that I can't eat candy or I can't have a cookie, can't, can't, can't, I'd never lose a single pound. What I did instead was to set a caloric intake goal for myself, and I record my food every day. I eat whatever I want, but I try very hard to stay under my allotted calories. I also let myself have occasional "days off", usually when I'm going out to dinner or running errands all day or something else that makes it hard to count what I've eaten. By giving myself days "off" and allowing whatever I want to eat (within my limit), I have managed to lose weight.

 

Back in 2009, I lost 65 pounds this way. I actually got a little underweight, so I stopped counting my food. I did okay for a while, but by last fall, I had gained back about 40 pounds of it. So, I set out to lose weight again. I lost about 8 pounds, and then stopped for the holidays. Surprisingly, I did not gain anything back over the holidays, and am now down another 3 pounds or so (about 11 pounds total). I could never do that if I deprived myself, though. All things in moderation. Words to live by. ;)

[GraciebytheBay]

One thing that I absolutely have to do when I try to lose weight is allow myself to eat. I have a serious sweet tooth. I'd be perfectly happy eating cookies and candy all day long (and have sometimes). If I tried to say that I can't eat candy or I can't have a cookie, can't, can't, can't, I'd never lose a single pound. What I did instead was to set a caloric intake goal for myself, and I record my food every day. I eat whatever I want, but I try very hard to stay under my allotted calories. I also let myself have occasional "days off", usually when I'm going out to dinner or running errands all day or something else that makes it hard to count what I've eaten. By giving myself days "off" and allowing whatever I want to eat (within my limit), I have managed to lose weight.

 

Back in 2009, I lost 65 pounds this way. I actually got a little underweight, so I stopped counting my food. I did okay for a while, but by last fall, I had gained back about 40 pounds of it. So, I set out to lose weight again. I lost about 8 pounds, and then stopped for the holidays. Surprisingly, I did not gain anything back over the holidays, and am now down another 3 pounds or so (about 11 pounds total). I could never do that if I deprived myself, though. All things in moderation. Words to live by. ;)

 

 

This is very encouraging. Thank you! Yes, I need to remember not to become obsessed (a tendency for me) but to live normally. I look at my dh who is naturally thin and healthy. He rarely thinks about food and certainly doesn't sit around lamenting what he can't have. His body just knows! I need to think like a thin person, which adheres to your reminder: All things in moderation. :) Btw, good for you for getting back on track and not gaining during the holidays!

[Dandelion]

Some of the most helpful diet advice I've ever come across is in the book "The Power of Habit" (http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/1400069289).

 

It's a book about habit change, not dieting, but the author shares his own example of trying to lose weight as one illustration of the power of our habits. Because overeating, excessive snacking, etc. mostly boil down to habits.

 

According to the author, our habits are based on a simple, three part loop: cue, routine and reward. As he describes it, “first, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the futureâ€. His premise is that the most effective way to modify your habits is to attack the habit loop directly, and to replace an old routine that is associated with a particular cue and reward, with a new routine. He describes this as the golden rule of habit change: “you can never truly extinguish bad habits. Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routineâ€.

 

Here’s an example of how you might apply this to developing new eating habits. First, you evaluate where your diet plan seems to break down. Do you get afternoon cravings? Are you a late night snacker? Pick one of scenarios where you struggle to stick to your diet and then evaluate it based on the cue-routine-reward loop.

 

Example:

1. Every day around 4pm you crave sweets (Cue: 4pm)
    
   
2. Your current routine is to head for the pantry and grab 3 cookies (Routine: get cookies).
    
   
3. Your reward is an increase in energy / pick-me-up from the carbs in the cookies (Reward: increased energy).
   

 

To keep the old cue and deliver the old reward, you simply prepare ahead of time with a plan for a new routine. Your plan might be that at 3:30pm each day (to head off the 4pm cravings) you will have a healthy, protein-rich snack that will give you that same energy boost but without the excess sugar and calories. Be specific about what you will eat (e.g. a cup of yogurt with fresh fruit) and better yet, make it in the morning, set a timer for 3:30pm, and then get your pre-made snack when the timer goes off.

 

Habit change isn’t easy, but looking at it and analyzing it this way makes it a lot more likely that you’ll be successful with it. It’s helped me considerably.

 

Good luck! :)