I am seriously having a hard time getting into the groove of weight lose! I start my day with good intentions, mostly my only goal is to stay within my points but I have been failing horribly at it. I often will over eat and give up and then eat more. When you were losing weight did you ever have days like this? When you just stopped counting because you lost track and knew the points were too high? It really throws me off because I then don’t know where I am at with flex points. I am sure they are all gone, but the next day I just try to start fresh, with the flex points I start fresh again too. Does this make any sense? I am stuck and need to get past this phase… HELP!!
-Jillian
Hi Jillian,
It make PERFECT SENSE! and yes, yes, yes I had days exactly as you describe and sometimes still do *cough* like yesterday. I’m not trying to lose but I still woke up with good intentions and before I knew it I was scoffing down double cheeseburgers and M&M McFlurries. It happens to the best of us, I don’t care how motivated you are to lose weight.
Here’s the only way I know how to combat this cycle.
Ya ready?
Face it. Own it. Move on.
Too much of the weight loss process involves shame. Depending on your own personal situation you may even have a history of sneaking or hiding food, like I did. The only thing that helped me get over this and stop the "I’ll start Monday" insanity was by facing it, owning it and moving on.
When I had a day like you described I’d force myself to count. Yes.. force. It’s really easy to walk away and pretend it didn’t happen. I know, I did that for years. It didn’t really teach me anything or give me the skills needed maintain a weight loss.
Pretending it didn’t happen doesn’t make it go away. You did it. You ate it. Who cares! I mean, I know you care, but you have to start to change your mentality about the situation. By turning your back on the binge you are continuing the cycle. By facing it, you are showing it who’s boss. You are in control, not the food.
I found out a couple things by doing this…
- Sometimes it’s not as bad as you think. I had days where I faced my binge only to discover I didn’t even come close to using all my weekly points. If I would have thrown my hands up and stopped counting I would have given up for no reason at all.
- Even if it was as bad as I thought, counting it and knowing that my weekly points were gone but I could still could start fresh tomorrow with my daily allowance kept me on track. Isn’t this better then the alternative of just giving up completely? Which one will get you to your goal quicker?
All of this comes back to the concept of stateless dieting. The sooner we get over the on plan/off plan mentality the sooner we can stop self sabotaging. I know I pigged out more times then not in the name of being "off plan" simply because "on plan" didn’t start until Monday.
So Jillian, my advice to you is to not stop counting. Face it. Own it. Move on.
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About Roni
Roni started this blog in '05 to journal her weight loss. 70lbs later, she's committed to living a conscious, healthy life and hopes to inspire others along the way. Read more on the about page.
Awesome advice Roni. I need to Face it. Own it. Move on!
I’m sitting here nodding my head in total agreement. The only way for me to stick with it, is to own it and move on! And NO guilt! None whatsoever. If I do let myself feel guilty, I just eat more.
I also find that having at least dinner preplanned I do better. Because then I know what I’m working with for the day instead of winging it.
I loved this post and so badly needed this reminder. This is my life, not a diet. Face it. Own it. Move on.
Your idea of stateless diet, owning and tracking what you eat and always changing, finding new fun food/exercise, has help me lose 30 pounds! Only 20 more to go!! Thank you!! Jillian you can do it too!
great advice, Roni! i like that “you are in control, not the food” :)
i’m no expert, but i think the solution to over eating varies on the reason for it in the first place. like – is it a matter of not getting enough fibre or protein in your diet and are just left feeling hungry? or is there just too much yummy-yet-calorie-ladden food in the house and it’s hard to say no? or is it emotional eating? Jillian, perhaps if you knew what the sabotage was exactly, you’d be able to attack it more effectively?
I’m always amazed on how you approach difficult questions like this. I would go like “don’t want to go there, too risky!” But you are right. This doesn’t end on sunday, nor it starts on monday. It’s life. It’s happening, even if you like it or not. And the realization of that might be a lot on the shoulders, but at the same time it’s liberating. We are not dieting anymore. We are just behaving.
I think it may also help if you let go of the ‘diet mentality’ (i.e. telling yourself “I must be at xx points today’ and not eat any of x, y, or z”). You have to eat in a way that this is a lifestyle change, not a diet. If you start each day thinking ‘I’ll be “good” today and won’t eat x,y, z, you will only crave x, y, z even more.
Eat using a mentality revolved around health and providing your body with the nutrition it needs and deserves. Instead of thinking “I can’t have x, y, z” think “wow, look at all of these great, nutritious food I can fuel my body with”.
Just a subtle change in focus will change your behaviors.
Whenever I loose weight, this is how it starts. Ill be out of control one day then I wont want to count/weigh myself/whatever untill I feel Ive done enough damage control. Then next thing I know it two weeks have gone by…. Just like Roni said brush yourself and keep going and COUNT.
Ive found that using my phone really helps me stay accountable. I use the livestrong app on my iphone and i love it, it syncs with the website which is free. This way i am not waiting until i get home to count and then ‘forgetting’. Even putting it in your phones notes section might help.
Thanks for the great advice Roni! Owning it is key I think, it is too easy to just have a night where you stop caring. The guilt of owning those days is difficult to deal with. But I agree, face it, own it, move on!
Angela-I think my exact sabotage is boredom. There are many times when my fiance is out of town and I am home alone with nothing to do but watch TV (or so I convince myself). Perhaps my new approach should be to find things to do in the evenings that will keep me busy and make snacking difficult!
Great advice as usual Roni. I have found when I suck it up and count it up it is rarely as bad as I imagined and that if I own it and take responsibility I rarely feel bad about it later, if I pretend it didn’t happen I feel like I failed and continue the cycle.
Go over your points if you need but really track what you eat and maybe try to track your hunger and emotions with it and see if there is a connection, then work on that. Good luck Jillian
Great advice Roni. I have s-l-o-w-l-y discovered that going “on and off” my “diet” is the mentality that has sabotaged me. Like WW says, STOP DIETING … START LIVING … When we release ourselves from the pressures of being on and off a diet and the feeling of failure that comes with it and just commit to making healthy choices more often than not we can finally lose the weight for good. Binges, candy, cookies, whatever your “vice” is is an inevitable fact of life. I KNOW for certain that I WILL absolutely without a doubt have another brownie in my lifetime, but if I make healthy choices around those times and do as you say, Face It, Own It and Move On, I know that a tiny little setback is just that, tiny, in this big picture of health I’m creating. Weightloss isn’t a race, it isn’t a magic pill and it certainly isn’t easy, but it’s worth it in SO MANY more ways than being at those three digits you think will change your life. Getting fat is easy, it’s being fat that’s the hard part, but being healthy and maintaining that health, albeit hard at times, can never compare to how it feels mentally and emotionly to be overweight and out of control. Every time you make a healthy decision, own it and remember how good it feels!
Wow – little windy there …. sorry!
To Roni and the rest of the readers, I wonder how DO you “Face It. Own It. And Move On” ? I realize that the practice of NOT writing down what you ate when you were out of control and NOT weighing yourself when you knew you had a bad week/day/month are examples of putting your head in the sand and waiting for the storm to be over… trouble is, with that behavior, the storm never is over. Counting points/tracking food is ONE way of recognizing what exactly you’ve done. But, are there other ways that you can recommend??
I feel like this every single day. And I don’t “diet”. I just try to eat healthy. But I’m never at home, always on the run, and inevitably end up eating much more than I planned. For a while, I really did just throw up my hands and forgot about trying to be healthy, and I watched the pounds creep on.
I don’t know that I can offer much advice, because I’m still constantly falling off the wagon, but I do keep trying, and it’s good to know that others feel the same.
OMG. Was that Jillian Michaels who posted that? :-)
Great question and great advice!! I’m going to utilize your advice this week!
I heard a lady say yesterday that it’s like if you drop an egg on the floor…you don’t then throw the rest of them down too…you clean up your mess and move on…I loved that!
Sandra – This is a good question. I think there is another mental aspect to it. I try really hard to figure out the why. It’s not about looking for an excuse or a reason. For me it’s about the consciousness. WHY do I want to eat an entire pint of ice cream? Why isn’t 3 slices of pizza enough, especially when I’m full? What’s going on? I may eat it I may not but at least I’m aware of where the desire is coming from.
Not sure if that makes sense.