On goals and motivation – or the lack of them

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Viv

At some point in the past month or two, I started struggling. I did amazingly well in the first two months of the year – even making it to a normal BMI range. Then I got sick and ever since, I have been having trouble getting myself to get motivated again. Between weekends spent in Munich and weekends spent with the boyfriend, being sick, and just dropping out of that routine of daily or near daily workouts, I have been having the hardest time getting back into the saddle.

I think part of it is because I feel like I’ve made it already. I am so close to my goal, I feel like I can slack off a little. Only I can’t. I can feel myself going down that slippery slope from easing up a little on my routine to falling off the band wagon. I don’t think I have. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. And I know I have a great support system this time around. I have come too far to let it slip away.

But I am scared. The past two weeks, especially the weekends, were probably the worst. Weekends never used to be a problem for me. I didn’t have a boyfriend, but I spent more time in Munich with my friends instead. It was no problem. I didn’t slack off. I ate out but made good choices. I spent time with friends in Munich but I made time to work out there too. I made no excuses.

Nowadays, I don’t even consider bringing my workout gear with me to Munich. When I realized that this past weekend, I knew something had changed. I’ve lost focus and motivation. And I desperately need to find it again. At some point, I stopped treating my health as a priority.

The first half of this week was quite good. I was still snacking a lot – too much really – but I worked out every day again, and I burned off the calories. Then Thursday came when a cookie from Subway put me over my goal, and Friday was when things got a little crazy.

I ate nearly 2,900 calories on Friday. I didn’t even log Saturday, and for today, I am at 2,300. In case you don’t know it, my caloric goal is 1,500 before workouts. I’ve not worked out. I’ve eaten more chocolate in the past three days than I usually eat in two weeks. It’s like I’ve lost any idea of moderation. I had become so good at allowing myself some snacks but in moderation. Where has it gone?

I used to beat myself up for going 30 calories over goal. I think in my first six months on MyFitnessPal, there were probably no more than five days total that I went over my caloric goal. These days, going over seems to be the norm.

If I allow myself one snack, I reckon I might as well have another. If I go over by 100 calories, I might as well have something else that will put me over by 300.

I’m scared. I’ve been here before, and I can’t go back to where I was. Luckily, I have still lost some weight in the past three weeks. I don’t know if I deserved it, but the scale has been kind. I don’t know if it will be this week. The weekend was absolutely mental and it would be the biggest surprise if I didn’t gain weight this week. I know that rationally, I did not consume enough calories to gain more than, say, a kilogram, but I am almost dreading getting on the scale, thinking I may have gained more.

I know that this is the point when I need to pull the emergency brake and tell myself to stop. I need to get my head straight and re-focus. The next four days I will be doing my best. I will avoid snacking at work as that has gotten a little out of hand, and I will eat healthy meals. I will work out.

Friday, I am flying to Edinburgh to spend the weekend with my boyfriend. I will probably not be logging that weekend, but I will not let that be an excuse to go totally over board. I will enjoy myself, but in moderation, and I will try to get in a lot of walking to make up for it. I will come back Monday afternoon and am invited to a friend’s birthday dinner & drinks Monday night. I will not use that as an excuse to eat everything in sight and drink too much.

For the next week, moderation will be what I focus on. I need to get back on track with a healthy lifestyle, working out, while still allowing myself some treats. I know this is what works for me. It would be so tempting to just say, screw it, I’m starting again on May 1st, after Edinburgh and my friend’s birthday party, but that would be the easy way, wouldn’t it?

I know that I am strong and that I can do this. Moderation. I think that the rest of my life I will have to focus on moderation but I think that once I am back into a routine it will be easier. It’s not hard. I mean, it is. But at the same time it’s not. And I know I am a much happier person when I am not chiding myself for letting myself get this far.

What the … – are people really that clueless?

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Viv

I just talked to a co-worker who had been off work sick for the past month. He asked whether I’d lost weight again and how much I’ve lost now. He had asked me about it several times before and complimented me on it so I didn’t mind his questions. I told him I’d lost about 25 kg now. He said how that was quite fast and asked whether I had any health problems because of it. Why would I though? I am a lot healthier now than I was 8 months and 25 kg ago. I think people assume that I must be eating very little or having some sort of nutritional deficit because of the amount of weight I’ve lost, when really, it’s the complete opposite! He then said that I shouldn’t starve myself. I replied that he shouldn’t worry as I still eat a lot of food.

This is where things got weird. The co-worker who was sitting with him joined in the conversation saying, “yeah you won’t be able to stop that either. Once you start eating big servings, you’ll always be doing it.”

I honestly thought, “what the hell is he talking about?” I had been meaning to say that I was eating normal servings, and not starving myself, NOT that I was stuffing myself with huge portions. Not to mention that I also disagree with what he said. Of course you can get used to smaller portion sizes if that was your problem with gaining weight. For me it wasn’t. I always ate quite normal-sized portions at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My problem was the junk food I ate between meals.

He then went on and asked, “haven’t you lost weight on this program 4 or 5 times before?” I found that so offensive.

First of all, no, I haven’t. I have lost some weight a few times before, but I have never lost this much weight in my life ever before. The only time I was close to the weight I am now was six years ago when I lost 16 kg with Weight Watchers and managed to get down to 73.3 kg which I maintained for a month or two at the most. I have also attempted to lose weight a few times since, but I never lost more than 5 to 10 kg at a time, and ended up gaining the weight back. Is that healthy? No. But I also didn’t yoyo back and forth losing and gaining crazy amounts of weight. I never did any fad diets or starved myself. And what program is he even talking about? All I do is eat healthily and count calories – that isn’t really a ‘program’ or ‘diet’ at all.

I did wonder how he got that idea though, and I realized that people have probably been talking about me. I did probably mention to some people that I’d tried losing weight before, and I do not mind people knowing that, but when the truth gets distorted and I get the feeling that people are just waiting for me to fail and gain back the weight, that does bother me.

But the madness didn’t stop there.

He told me about a friend of his who had a lap band surgery and he is now doing great, and I could talk to my doctor about that.

At which point I couldn’t believe my ears. Did he really just suggest to someone who is a healthy weight to have lap band surgery?! What the FUCK? Excuse the language but what the fuck?

Now, I realize that he clearly has no clue what he’s talking about, because no one who did would even suggest such a crazy thing. Lap band surgery is a last resort for morbidly obese people. Not only am I virtually normal weight with a BMI flucutating around 25, I was never morbidly obese at any point in my life. I am pretty sure that I never would have qualified for lap band surgery even at my heaviest weight.

Not only that but he seems to think of lap band surgery as a convenient and easy solution to losing weight. It just seems so absurd that he would suggest that in reply to my co-worker’s comment not to starve myself. How would lap band surgery be any better? I am sure that there are people that lap band surgery is a good, maybe the only, solution for. But for 99% of overweight people, it shouldn’t even be considered. There are a million better and healthier ways to lose weight.

I just said that I wouldn’t qualify for it anyway, and also why would I want to get a lap band now that I’m a healthy weight – not even mentioning that that would have never been an option for me even at 97 kg. He said, I could probably get one if I talked to my doctor. But why? Why?

Basically, the conversation was a big fat WHAT THE FUCK from beginning to end which resulted from a misunderstanding on his part leaving me wondering whether to be offended or laugh because clearly he is completely clueless.

I have been getting comments like “don’t starve yourself”* or “you’ve lost the weight quite quickly”** a few times lately, and although I know they’re not true, they do bother me a bit. They imply that I lost the weight in an unhealthy manner, when I did it the right way, eating healthily, never going hungry or denying myself anything, and exercising regularly. I have also had a friend mention a few months ago how my way of losing weight had been quite extreme. I asked her what she meant, and she said she meant the amount of exercise I did, and that she would rather lose the weight slowly and healthily. However, while I do exercise a lot more now than I used to, so I would agree that the change has been quite extreme, I do not think that there is anything extreme about what I do.

It feels a little like an insult to insinuate that I did not lose weight in a healthy manner, and it takes away from my achievement. I know that it’s not true but it’s hard not to let it get to me all the same.

* I eat at least 1500 calories a day, but usually more as I eat back all the calories I burn during exercise as well.

** I lost about 25 kg over the span of 8 months. Is that fast? Probably, though not unheard of. Is it too fast? No, I don’t think so. Weight Watchers recommend to lose between 0.5 and 1 kg per week, and I have averaged about 0.7 kg which is perfectly normal.

New progress pictures

Aside

I just posted new progress pictures from this morning on the Progress page. I started the picture series in August at 94.1 kg (207.5 lbs) and have taken pictures for every 5 kg I have lost – at under 90 kg, under 85 kg, under 80 kg, and this morning at under 75 kg when I weighed in at 73.8 kg (162.7 lbs).

I love that I thought of this when I first started losing weight in August; it’s great to have pictures of my body’s transformation. It really blows my mind how much smaller I have gotten. I didn’t really see how big I was until I saw how much smaller I could get – and I still have nearly 9 kg to lose.

If everything goes according to plan, I will be taking progress pictures two more times, at under 70 kg and once I hit my goal weight of 65 kg.

I always wear the same clothes for the pictures so you can see the difference, but I think I may have to invest in a new pink shirt as this one has gotten quite big and now hides my shape a little.

Click here to see my latest progress pictures.