HELP ME TO HELP

Hello everyone.  i have been off and on the sie for a month.  Ok, let me be honest, mostly off.  I have lost so much weight all on my own.  The motivation was I wanted to be healthier and set a better example for my kiddos.  So I have lost a total of 96 pounds in a little over a year. 
Ok well, for the last month and a half I can't seem to get back on track.  I keep bouncin around the same ten pounds.  I start out in the morning saying I am not going to put that sh*t in my mouth.  And I do good all morning and then at lnch I eat sh*t that I shouldn't.  Or like last night, instead of eating one hamburger, I ate 2.  Why?  I wasn't hungry any more.  It just tasted that damn good.  So I said this morning I am not eating sh*t today. Which was good at first.  Then I had Taco Bueno for lunch, you all know that is my down fall, then I had a giant chocolate chp cookie worth 430 calories.  Why?  I don't fing know, it looked and sounded good. I haven't worked out in over a freaking month. I have good intentions, but I have sh*tty follow through here. 

What the hell is wrong with me?  I have done so well.  I know what I am doing is bad for me.  Why can I not get back on track here?  Help me kick start this back in guys.  I don't know what to do to make me get off my lazy ass and do this again!!!! 

GRRRRRRRRR!!!!! 

Yanno, losing weight is hard and the only way that we are going to get r done is by wanting it bad enough.  How much we put into it has a lot to do with how desperate we are at the time.  So when you started this journey 96 pounds ago, you were in a totally different state of mind as far as HAVING to do this.  But staying on this journey is a lifelong endeavor and it's hard to start over when you don't have the need so much for health reasons as you did 96 pounds ago.  Basically, you're not as desperate. 

So go back to square one and refigure what your motivation is for wanting to get the rest of the weight off.  You're going to have to come to a place in your head...cuz that's where the battleground is, that tells you to start doing the right thing for your body.  You're an intelligent woman and you know the right thing to do, now you have to get it in your heart that you are worth what it takes to finish the job you started.  It's not laziness on your part...your heart and brain just need an update on where you are in your journey!

Best wishes,

Mary

Mary,
Thank you so much for your words. This is why I love it here and need to stop going away.  You guys giv eme so much inspiration.  I am glad to see that you are back on track yourself and not talking that nonsense any more.  We all have those days that we feel like it isn't worth it any more and why do it to yourself.  You know why you do it.  And the scale is a piece of sh*t.  Really you didn't gain that much real weight that quickly.  Do you feel better?  Do you have energy and the wanting?  then stop looking at the scale.  And I will too.  If we are healthy and doing what we need to do to get that way and we feel good, why do we need the scale??

Hmmm, maybe the two of us should head our own advice huh?  Cuz it appears that we both have great thoughts about it and just need to hear someone else say it to us??? 
Thanks again Mary!!!

Hey Leah, you're welcome for the words of wisdom, but I think you have me confused with someone else.  I'ze a good girl I am and lost the twelve pounds I gained with my last surgery.

But I've been where you are now and I know what it is for you thinker to be a stinker....that's why it needs reprogramming from time to time.  After my thigh surgery and I was eating the junk that DH was feeding me for six weeks, it was almost too easy to say, oh in the grand scheme of things, twelve pounds is nothing, so why bother.  And it was hard to bother at first, but it was twelve pounds that I owed myself before I could go on maintenance and it was part of the aggreement I had with myself, so I had to muster the strength to go through the deprivation cuz I have to go REALLY low carb to lose.  But it had to be done.  To thine ownself be true!!!

Mary

You are talking to the queen of sabotage here!  I have two thoughts on this.....

1.  Maybe your body just needs a rest from being "on plan" and the constant mindset of "lose more weight".  By that, I don't mean a license to binge and eat the sh**, but just focus on maintaining for a while and let your body get used to where it is now.  96lb is phenomenol and quite a bit to get used to.  I know you want to lose more...how much?.....but don't feel like it's got to all be done right now.  You're gonna have to learn to eat to maintain when you get it all off anyway so give yourself a break from the strictness of being on plan and experiment with healthy choices to just level off a bit.

2.  I think sometimes the key to why we end up sabotaging our weight loss (speaking of me here) is that we don't really believe down deep we deserve it.  Think about what a great wife and mother you are and really give yourself credit for the healthy choices you have been making for your family and the rest of your life.  Get out there and play with the kids and don't make exercise drudgery....have fun.  Be good to yourself, admire that new body in the mirror, buy some sexy clothes and give yourself a pat on the back for this journey you've accomplished so far.  Relax and enjoy the ride. 

It doesn't have to be all or nothing at all......and congratulations on a job well done so far!!

good thoughts on the deserving part, Sherrie! I know now that being fat did have a payoff...sexual protection on one level, and truly some kind of punishment for really bad decisions that I harbored shame over. Now, when those feelings of shame creep in (when I am aware of them), I nurture that person i WAS - I am not that person any longer...at the time, I did the best I could, or knew to do.  It's time to forgive!

I can only add that we never seem to equate the "little things" we should choose to the Big Picture! As humans, we of course, want to pick the easy stuff, oh just eat it this one time type of thing. Or I'll skip today. It's hard, because we never get immediate pay-off for all the little things we do right!

So true.  We just want to see it now and not months from now.  We want to have immeiate results, gratification, satisfaction.  Guess what we didn't get this way over night, right?  Every single one of you that have talked to are amazing people and none of us should hide who we really are behind being overweight.  But you are right Sherrie, I think we all think we don't deserve it for some reason.  Or we think why me??  What did I do to deserve this??  Why does this happen to me and not to her or him??  Why?  Because we let it and now realize we have to stop it!!!  We can make it better for ourselve, we just have to keep trudging along and know that it isn't going to be easy and probably one of the hardest things we will have to do.  Because, we have a disease.  And society, even though it frowns upon obesity, doesn't make it easier for us.
It is more expensive to be healthy, it is easier to eat the sh*t, we are always on the go, and everything an go in the microwave and take you 2 minutes!!! 
I say screw that!!!!  I want to be here when my babies have babies.  You want to be here for your baby's babies.  We want to be here to see our kiddos walk down the aisle, graduate college, and we can.  We just have to make that change and stop punishing ourselves.

" I know what I am doing is bad for me.  Why can I not get back on track here?"

Well, you just did the First STEP! you have the information on what specific behavior is blocking progress.   You said it:  eating two entrees or choosing fast food with dessert.  You're stuck here....so the Next Step:

Planning, aka, What to do about it!

First of all, I like that you do not exclude foods. That's good; in my mind, it helps avoid deprivation. The bad news, of course, is that you must eat controlled amounts of certain things, esp fast food and cookies!

If you cannot do that, then you may have to exclude foods until you CAN eat half that cookie, or one hamburger.

I know for me that in certain moods or conditions, i simply CANNOT go out to eat when I need the scale to move. That is like saying I am quitting drinking then going to a Coyote Ugly bar.

At home, plan to eat one entree, then get up, start cleaning, or go for a walk, or come journal here, or anything...no seconds!

It helps me to actually picture myself ahead of time with my planned meal, no variations. I will picture myself ordering better choices at restaurants, too. Then I do it.

98% of the time, anyway.  The other 2% is not going to stop weight loss...may slow it, but we can deal with a measly 2% of screw ups, right????

You can do this...you have to come back here to help us, too!
 

See you guys are SOOO the reason that I need to NOT stay away.  I know all these things I just need TO DO THEM.  And to have someone tell me to do it helps so much.  I am havig issues just maintaining right now.  I just want to binge eat for the last 2 weeks.  It is so self destructive!!!  I need to not do this.  I need to make good choices and stop whining and just do it!!!

Leah:
Binge eating is destructive but let go of the all or nothing mindset that accompanies binge eating.  If you binge at one meal, get back on track at the next meal...or if you binge all day, tomorrow's a new opportunity to get back on track....or if the binge happens to last for a week, next week is a new opportunity.  You can ALWAYS get back on track, even if the binge leads to weight gain and self-loathing.  You don't have to be perfect ALL THE TIME!
Pat yourself on the back for your HUGE accomplishment of losing 96 pounds.  THAT'S AMAZING!!!