To despair at how hard it is to lose weight?

[Angel1983]

I know I need to toughen myself up and it's my own fault for letting my weight get so out of control in the first place but my word how hard is it to lose weight?

I have just been to the gym and worked my backside off on the cross trainer (amongst other things). After ten minutes of really going for it (sweating and panting) I had burned only 50 calories. This is not even enough for an apple!

AIBU to feel disheartened? How do you keep your motivation? Help!

[alphabettyspaghetty]

5 stone lost through slimming world here. We eat as we used to in terms of meals but just use more veg and cook better with less oil. I don't snack now and take lunch in. I've dropped from a 24 to 26 to a 18.

I think it's about how you approach a "diet" it needs to be something long term and sustainable which many people struggle with. Often loosing is the easiest bit when you come to maintain that's when people really struggle.

[Angel1983]

I am on day three of MFP and I have to admit it has been an eye opener as to how many calories are in certain foods. Even those foods which you might think would be healthy are laden with calories.

[Sickoffrozen]

I think losing it isn't that hard but keeping it off is or there would be no needs for diets! Don't most dieters put all or some of the weight back on within a year or two of hitting goal?

I have some very slim friends and they eat very little, don't eat chocolate/crisps/biscuits/cake ever and probably eat around 1200-1500 calories a day with the odd binge day at the weekend.

[EllieFAntspoo]

fascicle Change takes effort and it needs to be permanent. To arbitrarily decide you're going to stop eating food X, or run X miles a day, or only consume X calories a day, only works for a short period of time. If you're happy with short term benefit and don't want to make a change to your lifestyle, you get corresponding results.

Now, I know that's not what the entire diet/weight loss want you to believe, because they have a very strong financial interest on continued need and failure. But it is a proven fact.

The semantics of whether you call the motivating impulse to lose weight 'willpower' or 'desire for change' or 'passion for a healthy lifestyle' or whatever is neither here nor there. The point is, without suitable motivation to implement change, change does not happen, and without suitable motivation to learn and understand, change tends only to be temporary.

The choice is, do you invest a large amount of effort now, a large amount of effort in the future, or lots of little bits of effort for the next two decades chasing fad diets, yo-yo dieting, and wondering why you continue to struggle?

[boxofholes]

"I have some very slim friends and they eat very little, don't eat chocolate/crisps/biscuits/cake ever and probably eat around 1200-1500 calories a day with the odd binge day at the weekend."

That's basically it - at 40 years old, 5 ft 2 & 8 and a half stone (my ideal weight) my total calorie requirement per day is only 1300-1500. That's far less than the standard 2000 calories a day for women & even a small excess of 100cal/day will lead to a significant weight gain over time.

[tobysmum77]

I'm 5ft10 and 10.5 stone, I certainly don't eat next to nothing. I don't eat crisps, chocolate and cake often though and I don't graze at kids parties so people may think I don't eat much ...

[fascicle]

EllieFAntspoo My point is that it's hard to stick at something that feels like it requires a lot of willpower/effort. I think it's possible, and easier, to make lasting changes if whatever you're doing doesn't feel too hard to sustain.

[horseygeorgie]

I feel the pain too. I'm 31, 5'9 and 18 stone. I have had a very active life up until motherhood and was never smaller than 14 stone. Even when working 60/70 hours a week on a yard and barely eating.
I have tried SW many times and fail miserably at it. Mainly because i cook everything from scratch and cannot eat more than 1200 calories a day without gaining. To maintain my weight i need to eat 1000cals a day, to lose 2lb a week i need to eat about 900. Plus exercise like mad. I'm a defective unit i reckon!

[maddening]

i've been on 1000 cal/day for two weeks and have put on half a stone

[vickibee]

The wow leader says some people do not eat enough of the right foods and your body goes into starvation mode and holds on to the reserves, whether this is true or not I don't know...

[MummyPig24]

For me it is a huge psychological battle. I don't need that sugary, carby food, but my brain thinks I do. I've lost nearly 2 stone doing Slimming World. The actual plan is easy, but I have to fight myself all the time not to give in and binge.

[EllieFAntspoo]

fascicle No real effort is required once the habit is formed. Humans are creatures of habit. The only effort required is the effort needed to form the new habit. After that, maintenance of good habits over bad requires very little 'willpower' at all. We're not talking Ben Stiller with his electrodes in Dodgeball here. But if you can't break and old habit that is harming you and form a new habit that benifits you in its place, you're destined to either struggle for a long time with torment and anguish, or give up.

That said, I don't subscribe to many of society's media invoked norms. If you're happy, you're happy, and to hell with anyone else. But if you're self conscious and think people are judging you, and you can't shake it and it's getting you down, deal with it. In most cases I don't think people really need to lose weight. I think what they really want is their self confidence back and to feel like people aren't judging them anymore.

This next bit is a general observation, and in no way meant to be towards anyone who has posted....

If your weight is detriment to your health that's a different matter, but if you've put on a couple of stone having three kids and you're still able to keep up with them running you ragged, and what really gets to you is what you think people in the street might be thinking, or mourning the looks you used to get when you were six years and three kids younger, or wondering if your husband is only staying with you because of the kids, and annoyed that he glances at other slimmer younger women, then to hell with them. If you've had three kids and you can still keep up with them being manic, and you're their perfect cuddly mummy, what does anyone else's opinion matter?

[EllieFAntspoo]

vickiebee I think that's pseudoscience masquerading as logic. Fasting has existed in every culture in one form or another for millennia, and has been studied extensively.

It is bazaar that we would choose to spend our time doing physical and mental labour in exchange for money, and then choose to spend that money on consuming too much food that we would then need to spend more of our time and the money we worked so hard for, to get rid of the excessive weight our over consumption of food created.

[Postino]

I've looked into the process of fat loss, and found some useful stuff about carbs.

All carbs break down into glucose, raise blood sugar and trigger insulin to be released. This facilitate storage of glucose in fat cells.

Keeping your blood glucose level in check - with a low carb die - causes your body to consistently burn more stored fat.

I believe this is right, but would be more than happy for any biologists to correct me.

[EllieFAntspoo]

horseygeorgie I'm a defective unit i reckon! Rubbish. You're the shape nature made you. If you're healthy and have no fears of dying young, and your kids love it, to hell with everyone else. They're wrong. You're right.

[Kundry]

I found MFP absolutely mindblowing to see how many calories I was mindlessly packing away.

Personally I had to set my calories to 1200 to lose weight - as you always eat a bit more than the target.

I haven't given up any food groups but have massively cut down on portion size. Carbs are often quite an easy thing to cut from a meal as well - I don't think they are the bad guy but it's much easier for DH and I to eat the same meal if I lose the carbs. So for example tonight we've had pork chops - he had a much bigger chop than me with carrots, potatoes and salad. I had salad, a couple of bits of carrot and no potatoes. It's just easy to cut out the potatoes. We still have pasta, rice etc but I'll make sure my portion is much smaller.

The big key for me is cutting down a lot on sugar - I was really influenced by Dr Robert Lustig's work on sugar - he says the body can manage endless amounts of carbs (although too many calories still = overweight) but sugar (any sort including fruit) is processed by the body in the same way as alcohol so leads to fat and lots of health problems.

Sugar is also a fairly easy food group to lose - no snacks, no added sugar, fewer puddings. It irritates me that lots of healthy eating bloggers go on about cutting down sugar and then cover stuff with maple syrup - it's still sugar! Dr Lustig is fine with sugar if you eat fibre with it, so fruit is handled by the body OK but fruit juice not. Cooking from scratch makes cutting down on sugar far easier as it's hidden in so many ready made ingredients.

I still eat pudding but in much much smaller portions.

Am losing 2 pounds a week, even in the week I made homemade banoffee pie

[horseygeorgie]

aww thanks ellie I'm actually pretty fit. Not stupidly so but i run 10 miles a week at about 10 mins a mile. I will try and get it off though as i want to be able to do more and be healthier.

[shiplessocean]

I believe everyone is different...different personality types find different methods motivating. But for me, three things always work

1. Low carb High fat
   
2. No snacking between meals (and with LCHF you really don't get hungry anyway)
   
3. Exercising in a fasted state for max fat burn.
   Good luck OP!