mental hurdle on health and diet

[Anonymous]

Help me get over a psychological hurdle. The thing that is going on with me:
1. the past two days I engaged in some work (not exercise) that made me suuuper sore. I’ve been working out in general, so this was surprising. Both times, I reacted by wanting to eat a lot. It seemed like it would make me feel better—fix the soreness. Dumb, it did not make me feel better, but made me feel tired and like sitting.

2. A year ago I successfully lost 16 pounds. (Highest weight to lowest weight, with some 2-3 lb range over that time). Just in the past 2 months, I realized I gained back 9-10) So more than 2-3 pounds of daily range.

3. I was food journaling / tracking during that weight loss. Not going crazy tracking calories but how I felt and what I ate. It wa so positive. Every day I think about starting it. But work/life have me mentally struggling.

4. I feel fuzzy in my head more often. Again, I think work and life are stressful right now. I don’t have mental clarity. I float from one thing to the next and rest l a lot.

5. I am working out way more often. Is this making me want to eat more? I’m trying not to overdo it. Focusing on weights, and light but long cardio. This is what I did during last year’s weight loss too.

Tl;dr Any advice for breaking out of mental struggles to:
-start food journaling again? I put it off everyday
-feel better mentally?
-compartmentalize work stress? which I think is why I’m resisting the mental effort to lose weight again

[Anonymous]

Bump

[Anonymous]

Bump

[Anonymous]

There’s really no advice other than you just have to do it. Long term commitment to health isn’t going to be achieved by day to day motivation, which obviously isn’t always there. It’s just discipline. Luckily you know what does work for you so you’re just going to have to do it again, unwillingly, until it becomes habit again. One thing I’ve read is “choose your hard today.” It is hard to workout and eat healthy when you don’t want to… it’s also hard to go through each day feeling bad about yourself and physically unwell. Choose your hard today!

[Anonymous]

100% it’s discipline and momentum. Also when you eat poorly or deviate from your routine you are likely to get reminded why you are doing what you are doing. At least I do. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Do you have your food journal from before? Can you just commit to eating like you did then and reuse those meals?

Or, plan out 1-2 meals and just commit to that being breakfast and lunch for the week.

For example, have oatmeal with berries for breakfast every day. Then pick a healthy lunch recipe on Sunday and prep your lunch for the week. This cuts out the work of tracking for 2/3 of the meals. Basically make it less effort so you don’t need motivation to keep going.

[Anonymous]

For food journaling, I do it the night before and plan my meals. I usually stick with what I planned, then it isn't a constant chore. On weekends, I tend to not plan as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s really no advice other than you just have to do it. Long term commitment to health isn’t going to be achieved by day to day motivation, which obviously isn’t always there. It’s just discipline. Luckily you know what does work for you so you’re just going to have to do it again, unwillingly, until it becomes habit again. One thing I’ve read is “choose your hard today.” It is hard to workout and eat healthy when you don’t want to… it’s also hard to go through each day feeling bad about yourself and physically unwell. Choose your hard today!

I am not the OP but I love this view on life. I forced myself to the gym tonight despite being burned out from work. I did over 150 push ups on top of the other movements (ie I can’t move my arms right now), but I would rather be sore and feel like I accomplished something versus sitting on the couch, regretting my decision to not workout.

It is 100% about discipline.

[Anonymous]

I’ve lost 80 pounds this year. Yes, Wegovy, but also huge life style changes. And I had some of the same hurdles to overcome. The solutions that worked for me:

I pay for the full version of My Fitness Pal to food track. Scan a barcode and done. And a good database of food already entered. Easy to add the same breakfast for a week all at once. Seeing it on paper, including calories and macros keeps me on track.

I hired a persona l trainer who comes to me twice a week. Pay for 12 sessions at a time. So after work, there is someone who is standing at my door, that I have already paid to work with me. Can’t really avoid that workout. And I’m making great progress on strength, flexibility, balance.

I started yoga and found a studio I am comfortable at. Not a lot of 20 year old size 2s. I thought I’d hate it, but I go at least two of the nights I don’t have my trainer and really enjoy it. Great separation between work and home, and I always leave feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Hope some of that helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve lost 80 pounds this year. Yes, Wegovy, but also huge life style changes. And I had some of the same hurdles to overcome. The solutions that worked for me:

I pay for the full version of My Fitness Pal to food track. Scan a barcode and done. And a good database of food already entered. Easy to add the same breakfast for a week all at once. Seeing it on paper, including calories and macros keeps me on track.

I hired a persona l trainer who comes to me twice a week. Pay for 12 sessions at a time. So after work, there is someone who is standing at my door, that I have already paid to work with me. Can’t really avoid that workout. And I’m making great progress on strength, flexibility, balance.

I started yoga and found a studio I am comfortable at. Not a lot of 20 year old size 2s. I thought I’d hate it, but I go at least two of the nights I don’t have my trainer and really enjoy it. Great separation between work and home, and I always leave feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Hope some of that helps.

Obviously you have a lot of money to afford all of these things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve lost 80 pounds this year. Yes, Wegovy, but also huge life style changes. And I had some of the same hurdles to overcome. The solutions that worked for me:

I pay for the full version of My Fitness Pal to food track. Scan a barcode and done. And a good database of food already entered. Easy to add the same breakfast for a week all at once. Seeing it on paper, including calories and macros keeps me on track.

I hired a persona l trainer who comes to me twice a week. Pay for 12 sessions at a time. So after work, there is someone who is standing at my door, that I have already paid to work with me. Can’t really avoid that workout. And I’m making great progress on strength, flexibility, balance.

I started yoga and found a studio I am comfortable at. Not a lot of 20 year old size 2s. I thought I’d hate it, but I go at least two of the nights I don’t have my trainer and really enjoy it. Great separation between work and home, and I always leave feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Hope some of that helps.

Thanks for sharing this! This is very inspiring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve lost 80 pounds this year. Yes, Wegovy, but also huge life style changes. And I had some of the same hurdles to overcome. The solutions that worked for me:

I pay for the full version of My Fitness Pal to food track. Scan a barcode and done. And a good database of food already entered. Easy to add the same breakfast for a week all at once. Seeing it on paper, including calories and macros keeps me on track.

I hired a persona l trainer who comes to me twice a week. Pay for 12 sessions at a time. So after work, there is someone who is standing at my door, that I have already paid to work with me. Can’t really avoid that workout. And I’m making great progress on strength, flexibility, balance.

I started yoga and found a studio I am comfortable at. Not a lot of 20 year old size 2s. I thought I’d hate it, but I go at least two of the nights I don’t have my trainer and really enjoy it. Great separation between work and home, and I always leave feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Hope some of that helps.

Obviously you have a lot of money to afford all of these things.

DP but this is a fair point. Not everyone is going to have the money for out of pocket Wegovy, personal trainers, yoga, paid apps etc.