No motivation.

[SirVixofVixHall]

I really need to lose weight. I had put on weight since DD2, and never quite lost it mainly due to exhaustion and an under active thyroid. Recently I have gained nearly two stone, in only seven months. I have hardly any clothes that fit, and I feel unattractive and unfit. In the past, when my weight has hit a point where certain trousers are snug I have done something about it, but I feel totally lacking in motivation. I have no idea what diet to do, and I crave carbs as I am always tired. I think there may be a peri menopausal thing going on too, so hormonally deranged, lazy, and fed up. How do I get myself to get a grip and really tackle this? I don't want to just collapse into middle aged frumpyness and never be slim again, but that is how it seems to be going...
I had a dreadful year last year as a close friend died, and so I think I have been stress/comfort eating too, and the grief has also made me less motivated generally. .

[TalkinPeace]

Make a list of five things you want to do with your DCs in two years time when you are lean and mean again.

Take a picture of yourself in bra and pants and print it to put on the inside of your wardrobe door next to the list.

Eyes on the prize and you'll get there.

Mood / food diaries often help to identify what makes you start to inhale haagen daas by the tub

also, find an exercise you like as this thread shows ...
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2343617-I-have-exercised-every-day-for-30-days-straight-let-me-share-the-effects-with-you?

[SirVixofVixHall]

I did used to cycle everywhere, but now live in a hilly rural area where cycling can be rather dangerous. I am so tired all the time that the thought of exercise just makes me shudder! I don't know what makes me inhale Haagen daas...Tiredness, greed, general enjoyment of icecream. Short term gain. Sadness. Until I had my dd2 at 43, and my thyroid went awry, I ate whatever I wanted and stayed slim. So that doesn't help, as I've never had to think about being careful with what I eat. I just feel as though its all too much effort, and yet I look in the mirror and literally wince as I look so podgy, and it really doesn't suit me. I'm not a sturdy person, I'm a spindly slightly built person so all the extra weight is just flab.

[TalkinPeace]

(((( sirvix )))
A diary is the best start

Thyroid : yup its a big one in my family too but none of my generation have allowed it as a reason to put on weight : they use it as a reason to eat less but better
not judgey, just fact - and mine has not gone yet so I do not really know how hard they work.

Eat what you want and stay slim - this being young.
End of.
As you get older your body no longer builds bone and muscle so your needs drop
if your intake does not drop with it, you get fat.
Accept that and all else falls into place

[SirVixofVixHall]

I don't think it was just being young, as I was like that well into my 40s. My DH also eats whatever he likes and is the same weight now as he was 20 years ago when we met. I know logically I need to eat less, and definitely less sugary food, but I just can't summon up the gumption to be more disciplined about it. I graze too much, I don't eat massive meals, and my meals are healthy, it is all the extra stuff that has put the pounds on, combined with a less active lifestyle since moving here. I keep postponing the inevitable diet as I hate the restriction. In the past few years I have managed to keep my weight at a more acceptable level by addressing it when it got to a certain point, but now I feel sort of defeated by it. I realise I sound as though I need to get a grip. I don't know why I feel so demotivated, and I don't know how to find a plan that I can live with and stick to. Any suggestions?

[TalkinPeace]

Stop snacking.
Stop buying the snack foods.
Just eat your meals and nothing else.
Get the kids to make a sign saying kitchen closed that will go on the door between meals.
Brush your teeth after meals so the taste of mint kills your hunger.

But think of the health reasons for why you need to be lean and mean.
When your kids have kids, what sort of granny do you want to be?

[carlajean]

I sympathise, as I've often felt the same. What has really helped to stop me binging is this...my brother also wants to lose weight, and has the same problem with binge eating. We live some distance apart and meet every other month or so. Each of us put £20 in a jar, and every day, put in another pound. Whoever has lost the most weight when we meet gets the money.
It sounds simple, but I have the jar on my kitchen counter and it has stopped me binging. It also helps that I know what I want to spend the money on - a Diptyche scented candle.
I also have stopped eating sugar, full stop. No cake or biscuits in the house as well.
Good luck.

[SirVixofVixHall]

Sugar is the really tough one for me, as I reach for it when I am tired (all the bloody time) and or cold. I don't have loads of snack foods in the house really, decent quality dark chocolate in a tin as I bake with it, cake on market day, or if I've made one, but I might make toast and then have jam on it, or peanut butter, I have milky coffee. (I don't drink soft drinks or juice, but I do have one sugar in coffee or tea). I will eat ice-cream if there is any in the freezer as I love it. I don't binge really (although I have today, obv!) but I do constantly graze. I do torment myself with the "what sort of granny etc" situation, as I have had my dcs in my 40s and my own mum is elderly and very frail. But even that doesn't seem to motivate me any more. I am slumped around at home feeling grotty, I have nothing nice to wear any more as everything is too tight. I'm not a big size really (12 ish, creeping towards a 14), but I have a really small frame and was a size 8 until the weight piled on so I am properly chubby at that size. I have friends my size or bigger who are much slimmer, whereas I am all blubber! I seem to have become terminally lazy. Even the thought of buying a lovely dress or something if I shift some weight has not made any difference, and this is not my normal state of mind at all. I've bought books, I tried a diet a month or so back for a week or two and lost a few pounds but I just gave up. I don't know why I have been able to get a grip in the past and now I feel so unable to even begin to tackle it. I usually give up sugar for lent, and have done it every year for decades, but this year I lasted about three days!

[carlajean]

I understand the situation you're in, but why not stop baking?Then you won't have chocolate in the house and nobody needs cake.
Leave out sugar in tea and coffee as well - you will get used to it. Also, limit the amount of bread that you eat. I used to graze on bread but now limit myself to 1 or 2 slices a day, and that's wholemeal. As white bread goes immediately to sugar once you've eaten it (I believe) cutting out on it will make you less sluggish (it did for me, anyway).
I have wasted decades of my life (I'm in my late 50s) eating crap and, you know what, it makes you feel crap. Break out of your sugar craving, and exercise more - I've found a pedometer invaluable - and you WILL feel better, I guarantee it.
You will also look better - it's not just about weight, it's not looking in the mirror and thinking 'God I look shit'.
But only you can do it, nobody's going to do it for you.
So there you have it. It's really simple, no one is holding a gun to your head to behave this way.
(Sorry to sound so evangelical, but I have wasted years of my life damaging my health and appearance by eating too much. Now I'm this age, I am eating a exercising sensibly, but the excess weight is stuck to me like glue, but that's a different story.)

[TalkinPeace]

Its the sugar that is making you tired.

You have to cut right, right back on sugar.

Instead of baking cakes, make savoury pies and pasties and quiches and fill them to the brim with vegetables.
THen you can have the "fix" of being creative in the kitchen without the damage to your insulin system that your sugar habit is causing.

BUT
Nothing any of us say will do a blind bit of good until YOU decide to want to be healthy more than you want cake.

[MrsMyrtleMarple]

I could have written your post. Not much help I know.
In the past I have been able to decide to go on a diet and then stick to it. That person seems to have disappeared.

I would love to be skinny again, but obviously don't care enough to do anything about it. I have had a terrible couple of years, and I think that maybe I now realise that there are more important things to worry about than a fat arse. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Seriously, I just can't stand the thought of another diet. I have been dieting for six months of every year for the last 35 years. I just can't do it again. Part of me thinks that if diets worked I would have been slim, and stayed slim, years ago.

If you come up with a solution please let me know.

[carlajean]

But why view any changes as 'a diet'? Instead see it as eating how you are designed to eat.
Sorry to bang on about sugar, but we are not supposed to eat the amounts of refined sugar that we consume. Cooking cakes and puddings is seen as showing love, when it's the reverse. If you cut sugar out of your diet, your body will quickly learn not to crave it.
Exercise will get the endorphins buzzing round your body, and will cheer you up (seriously) and the dietary rules are really simple i.e. no processed food, no sugar, and limit your white carbs. I also only have red meat once a week.
Feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to change anything.

[SirVixofVixHall]

I bake for a local cafe, not for myself, although I sometimes bake for my dds or for friends. I am coeliac so don't eat much bread etc anyway as gluten free bread is not all that great. I have a slice of cake once a week on market day as there is a gluten free baker, so I'm not mainlining cake.
I think I need more thyroxine for a start, so I am going to ask my GP for a trial on a slightly higher dose as I haven't felt well since my thyroid packed up, and it doesn't help the "can't be arsed" feeling. Its also been such a ghastly year, that I really haven't even thought about my weight as I've had much bigger issues to deal with, like you MrsMyrtle.
I re-read through my posts and think I sound rather depressed, which given how things have been is normal I suppose. (my friend died quite quickly leaving a young baby and it has been truly dreadful and incredibly stressful). I know I need to cut down on sugar, and I am doing that, but I think that its not the sole reason I feel tired, (I don't eat as much as it sounds from my posts ) I am so tired I couldn't work full time for instance. If I do something out of my normal routine I literally can hardly move the next day. I had a few weeks without sugar a month or so back and I wasn't any less tired.
My DH wants me to try and see a holistic GP as my feeling is that the flat feeling, where I really couldn't care less, is caused by a mix of thyroid, peri-meno (I'm 51) and grief. If I felt less flat and low I know I would find it easier to get motivated, I am a bouncy whizzy whippety person normally, and I have turned into a slug.

[SirVixofVixHall]

carla I don't eat many white carbs, or any meat.

[TalkinPeace]

SirVix
What exercise do you do : Yoga and Pilates are both great at getting brain working with body and are not (initially) too strenuous so will fit with your thyroid getting readjusted

[SirVixofVixHall]

Oh and I don't feel sorry for myself. I feel sorry for my friend's baby, left without a mother at 15 months old.

[carlajean]

Do you think that the problem might be depression?

[SirVixofVixHall]

Well, I am really heartbroken about what happened, she was one of my closest friends and it was all so brutal and distressing. (There are other upsetting factors around it that I can't post here). It hasn't been all that long, 6 months, since she died so I am still getting used to it and I do feel pretty low about it. But i don't think that is true depression is it? In that it isn't a chemical thing, its more a normal reaction to a terrible situation. I know her family are -obviously-in a worse place than me, and other friends are also grieving. I don't know how big a part it is playing in my general inertia. My dad had died a few months before my friend was diagnosed, and I'd been pretty unwell, so I wasn't in a great place to deal with her illness and had to really steel myself to soldier through it and give all the help that I could. There has been a lot of other stress at the same time, my Mum has had to go into a care home nearby and has increasing dementia, my dd has been having problems at school, and I haven't been well over these two and a half years either, thyroid , and other chronic conditions including periods that never end. Maybe I just don't care about my weight because i don't have the emotional or physical energy to expend on it any more. I have said I rely on sugar, but actually on paper my diet looks pretty good. I have sugar in tea/coffee. I have cake now and again, and very dark chocolate regularly, I have icecream when I have PMT, but breakfast is Bircher muesli (grated apple, small amount of gluten free oats, plain yoghurt and a few nuts/berries), lunch might be leftovers or a sandwich if i have any GF bread, or a salad. Supper is maybe vegetable curry with brown rice, or chickpea stew, that kind of thing. Its just that I graze when I feel tired, so I'll eat nuts and fruit, or dried fruit, or peanut butter on oatcakes, or more rubbish stuff if there is anything here.
I've always cared enough about my weight in the past to sort it out, and now although I feel too fat, I can't be bothered to even try and address it, and that is completely new to me. I don't think I am clinically depressed, but I do think I am worn out. I truly don't feel "oh poor me I'm so fat",I know I've obviously over-eaten for months. I feel twisted up about my friends baby, and about what she went through, and as though I'm only just managing to deal with what I have on my plate.

[carlajean]

I'm really sorry to hear what you have been going through, but perhaps checking for depression might be worth trying as a first port of call? I hear what you say about it, but might just be worth checking up on. Also, if you could claim back ownership of your eating habits, it might help you feel better about other things. It's not about weight (for me, anyway) it's about not feeling at the mercy of your appetitite.
With very best wishes, it sounds as though you're going through a hard time, but putting food in your mouth doesn't change any of the things that are going wrong at the moment.

[Frostycake]

You are where I was twelve months ago. I felt terrible, had a BMI of 28, was always tired and felt desperate. I now have a BMI of 24, feel fit as a flea.

I booked myself onto a boot-camp course for a week to get my motivation going and get me out of old habits and into new ones. They also taught me that to shift the weight you have to work bloody hard.

Then comes diet. You HAVE to ditch the carbs and sugar - they are slowly killing you. When you do this, you'll feel a million times better as they suck the energy out of you and make you feel awful.

Next comes overhauling your daily diet. You MUST set up weekly menus and shop by sticking to them. Meal Plan. Build in gentle exercise and you'll feel the difference in your waistline and your mood BUT - diet is 80% of weight management.

You have to face facts that you've had it easy for so long and those times have ended and if you want to enjoy life again, here is where the hard work starts. Look at it as payback for all the years you never had to worry about your weight.

Start a food and mood diary. Put up a motivation board in your bedroom (pictures of you now, pictures of you when you were slim, a holiday/some other date to work towards. You have to have a goal.)

Good luck.

[BlodynTats]

Sorry to hear of what you have been through with your Dad, Mum and Friend. What a horrible time. What about just getting out and walking more in the area you live and it will help lift you too. Sounds like you need to re learn your hunger signals rather than diet. Eating when your not hungry is not good. Your food sounds normal. Diets are not good. Only cause most people to end up binging. You are emotional eating I would say and given where you have been, it's perfectly understandable. What about mindful eating? Paul McKenna does some good books and hypnosis CDs to help you get in touch with true hunger again. Once you can relearn to eat when hungry and stop when satisfied then you will get control back without cutting out anything. There is a lovely Paul McKenna thread on here. No diets just lovely helpful people losing weight.

[SirVixofVixHall]

Blodyn thanks for the message, and thanks to all you other posters for the motivational advice. Blod, I have just picked up the Paul McKenna CD, before reading your post, I am going to try that and see if it helps.
I also think a food/mood diary is something I could get to grips with, plus a motivational board. I'm going to go back to the gP too, as I don't think feeling this tired is normal. I feel drugged, rather than just a bit knackered. It feels like when my dd was waking every two hours (for several years), its that level of absolute nauseous exhastion. Like trudging through thick mud.

[MrsMyrtleMarple]

Sirvix, I am so sorry for all your losses. It's no wonder you feel low. I think you need to be kind to yourself.

My problem started when my mum died very suddenly. This was followed by a long very stressful period with my stepdad. I then hurt my back and was unable to walk for about a year. I was just recovering from that when my husband was suspended from work.
The year that followed was the most stressful of my life. My back relapsed and I was put on very strong medication that caused debilitating side effects.
Everything has been ok for the last year, but I think I am going through a delayed reaction. However much I try to eat properly, I just can't sustain it.
I'm bigger than I've ever been. I hate it. It's making me miserable, but my motivation has taken a hike. There's no point anyone giving me an eating plan etc as I just can't do it at the moment. I bloody wish I could. I really don't know where to go from here.

My plan is to be kind to myself and hope that my healthy eating mojo will return eventually.

[Itchylegs]

I think that the real issue is happiness, because if you are unhappy that colours everything and you will feel much worse than you truly look. And if you feel happy either being bigger does not bother you or you have motivation to change things without it feeling like another punishment. I have been trying to get fitter for the past 8 months and I am fitter now, but my weight is about the same. Don't know how to alter that, but if I am feeling happy, I feel in better shape and when miserable I focus on little things like the bulge of my belly.

I was bamboozled yesterday by reading an article on medical myths, the main one being that the quest for 'correct weight' and BMi or under 25 is a fallacy: people who are overweight, that is around what I have, 26 BMI, and up to 29, live longer than those classified as the right weight. Well there a thing, eh! What and who are we doing any of this for?

[carlajean]

That's so true Itchylegs. What set me on course was moving from the countryside to the city (which I love). I, too haven't lost much weight, but I am not binging anymore, and I am fitter and I feel in control (the most important thing of all)

[MrsMyrtleMarple]

I think you're absolutely right. I haven't been very happy for the last couple of years. I am still battling various health problems that are with me for life.
I think that I feel guilty for not being happy. I gave up work four years ago due to stress. My husband was very reluctant for me to do that and thinks that I have the life of Riley. He works away during the week and I make a massive effort to have the house clean, fridge full etc at the weekend. I know, I know it's not the 1950s.
He dismisses everything I do and has no understanding of my illness. I think he just thinks I'm lazy.
I don't know why I'm rambling on like this. It's cathartic though.
I think the bottom line is that I'm frightened he's going to say that I'm a lazy cow, and leave me. There, I've said it.