Losing weight - sometimes I care, sometimes I don’t care

[Valdera]

What can I do to get through the times when I don’t care so that I don’t sabotage the work I put in when I do care?

Find a nice picture of yourself looking slim (or the opposite I suppose?) and stick it to your fridge in a place you'll see it every time you open the door to take out a snack.

Fast results in a massive motivator for me. Have you tried Fast800? You need iron will for about 4 days to get through the detox and cravings phase and then I just wasn’t hungry.

Fat melted off me. I lost 2 stone within 8 weeks and I loved how clothes fit and I was just more agile and able to run about after my toddlers.

Good luck!!

Have you tried 5:2? I find this easier as I only have to suffer through 2 days and then the rest of the week don't have to care! Obviously within reason but no calorie counting etc to think about.

The thing is you won't do it if you don't really care. In my experience you just have to want to do it enough. What spurred me on was health reasons - not just what I looked like. Knowing I was investing in my long term health made the difference. Because yeah I know there are lots of times when you think "oh fuck this, life is too short".
But do also meake sure you can have the occasional treat. Because treats are a part of life.

Exercise. I find that when I’ve been for a run or training session at the gym, I’m more motivated not to sabotage the effort by over eating. I suspect part of it is also that the endorphins suppress appetite (NB I am not a scientist) but it definitely helps me when I walk past the bakery and would otherwise buy a delicious loaf of bread and go home and eat half of it.

Also. It doesn’t work for me (psychology is interesting in this way) but DP finds self motivation hard and swears by apps like My Fitness Pal or, when he’s fasting, an app which monitors progress of the fast. He says that logging everything and seeing what you’ve eaten, nutritional breakdown, calorie intake and output, how many hours since you last ate etc is good at keeping him focussed on the weight loss goal.

Or, if you’re really shallow, book a big holiday where you know you’ll not be wearing a lot and loads of photos will be taken of you and plastered everywhere. We’re heading off to Burning Man again at the end of August and the jolt of realising that we were still not quite our best selves really send DP and me back to heavy weight lifting and no more snacks!

Following this thread with interest as I'm exactly the same @Valdera ! I had mild food poisoning early in July and just wasn't hungry/didn't fancy food for 3 weeks. I lost a couple of pounds, my bloating went and I was feeling much 'lighter' in myself. But this week I've just eaten and eaten and eaten. All my waistbands are tight again and I feel SO tired!

I have tried the fast800 and it was definitely very effective but it messed my sleep up and I was tired and miserable the whole time I was doing it, so don’t really want to inflict that on my family again! I generally don’t want to go down any route that means I can’t eat normal meal with my family. Mealtimes/portion sizes etc aren’t my problem, it’s the snacking.

I am trying to increase my exercise, with strength training mostly, so maybe I should focus on that and hope it influences how I feel about food in general.

There’s a locked cupboard at work where the biscuits are kept, but also has a bit of equipment we use regularly. I usually unlock it at the beginning of the day and leave it unlocked until home time. One day I unlocked it, got the equipment out, then locked it again, thinking it would provide that moment of having to think twice about reaching for a biscuit (or five…). And it really worked! Mid afternoon I mindlessly went to the cupboard, found it locked and actually said out loud, ‘well played past me’!

If I could just find something like that, that worked in general life. The family probably wouldn’t be too impressed with me installing locks on the cupboard/fridge at home…