Unhealthy lifestyle but can't change

[mollydol]

Really fed up with myself. I know I have to improve my diet and lifestyle but I'm just struggling to know where to begin.

My diet is rubbish. I eat big portions and don't get enough nutritional stuff. A typical day is cereal bar for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and something carb heavy for dinner. I drink 2-3 coffees and snack on crisps and chocolate. Takeaway at the weekend. I don't exercise at all and have a sedentary job. I drink most nights of the week, not to excess but it's becoming a habit I struggle to break because life is such a slog I just relish that downtime in the evening. People say find something else to do that you enjoy but the sad fact is, I enjoy having a gin and tonic and sitting in front of the TV.

I have young dc and between them, work and house stuff there is very little time for the gym and classes and even if there was, my motivation is zero.

I keep promising myself I will make small changes. Quit the booze. Get up early and do a YouTube workout. Try and stick within a calorie deficit. I just can't stick to any of it.

My dh is supportive but we are in a rut together and have no help. I'm nearly 40 and well aware that I need to start future proofing my body and taking better care of myself.

I've had periods in the past (before my second child) where I managed to stick to healthier diets and exercised a bit more often (still actively hated it most of the time) but at this point in my life I'm just totally spent. I feel very down on myself.

Had two glasses of wine with my Sunday lunch and felt great at the time. Now I'm laid in bed thinking I've done it again. Eaten and drank and left myself looking bloated and feeling shit.

Is anyone else in the same boat? How the hell do you overhaul your lifestyle when you don't want to but know you need to?

You need to make one small change at a time. Once that becomes habit introduce another change.
Start small, but stick to it.

Pick one thing and start there. If you are in a rut and lack motivation you’ll keep setting yourself up to fail.

how about breakfast? Why not challenge yourself to have a nutritious breakfast for a month and get DH on board. Porridge or boiled egg is easy. Swap the cereal bars for those on your next shop.

if you can do that, move on to something else for the following month. Maybe switching the takeaway from once a week until once per month? Then

buy more veg. easy veg like broccoli or frozen peas or frozen sweetcorn is fine - it doesn't have to be hard work to cook. even baked beans are OK.

cook smaller portions of your pasta / potato etc and do a portion of veg too.

also, get some slightly smaller plates and serve the food just in the middle (like a posh restaurant) and you'll find you eat less.

Forget the stuff that you know isn't gonna happen in a month of Sundays, like getting up at 6am for a run or going to the gym instead of watching Netflix, and do some easier things first. Rather than start taking away from your diet, instead add in. So research the best foods to eat for energy, immunity, gut health, skin, whatever and eat them every day. At first, as well as your usual meals. So alongside that cereal bar, a bowl of berries. Before you start your sandwich, force yourself to eat a mumsnet massive salad. For dinner, cook up some veg or make a veg soup and don't allow yourself your carby dinner until you've eaten it. 5-8 fruit and veg every single day. And no gin until you've drunk water/green tea.

At first you'll think, I'm taking in even more calories here! But you will find that the good healthy stuff means you'll have less appetite for the unhealthy foods and will also make you feel better because you're getting the right nutrients. After you've mastered that, then the time to start gradually swapping out the unhealthy for even more healthy foods. It worked wonders for me.

Adding healthy stuff in is a very good idea. I think i associate health with deprivation and being miserable but it doesn't have to be like that i suppose.

Unfortunately you just have to do it. People think you start off with motivation but actually I think that motivation comes with just doing it even when you don't want to. I think about 'the person I want to become' if I want to change something. So for example, 'the person I want to become would floss everyday' and now I floss everyday.

Could you do things really slowly? Like - for 2 weeks I'll only drink 2 night a week, then for 2 weeks one night a week etc. Mark it off on a calendar or something. Give yourself a visual reminder that you can do it.

Following as your lifestyle is so similar to mine (except I go for wine rather than G&T!)

I like the idea from PP of having salad before meals, this sounds doable for me.

I may get a veg delivery, but I'd hate to waste it :/

I'm afraid I would tackle the alcohol - partly because it's a depressant. So you feeling low is what it's designed to do.

If you move to a point where you have tonic instead of G&T 5 or 6 nights a week, you'll have made a significant change which protects your body, your mental health and even cuts your calories a bit ( plus you might smack a bit less, I always nibble far more when I've had a drink). Good luck.

I have been beating myself up about my unhealthy ways for around 20yrs. Change is really hard but not impossible, start small and piggy back good habits, it's easier to look after yourself when you kids are more independent though.

Its exactly that. Doing it that way completely removes the sense of deprivation because your carby treat is still right there waiting for you and no one's saying you have to have the salad instead. Just first. In the process you're spoiling your appetite for the usual stuff, adjusting your palate to healthy foods and associating healthy foods as alleviating your hunger. Youre boosting your nutrition and health and youre coming at it from a positive place of giving to yourself rather than withholding.

I'm another one saying add don't remove.
Pick something you would enjoy.
If you are super sedantry don't aim for 10000 steps, aim for 5000. After a month increase it, or if you hate it, replace with something else (I like a swim, others like a class or yoga on YouTube - but once a week to start).
Make it fun - aim to try something new every week or month - walk round a resovior or try a new food.
Put some veg or beans on your plate every dinner time!

There's loads of food you can make that's nice, but still healthy! Recently I made (copied from my post on another thread!):

Shakshuka with crusty bread, olives and feta. Salad.

Ful medames with a salad, pitta breads, hard boiled eggs and olives.

Salmon with tenderstem broccoli, soft roasted leeks, roasted butternut squash, and a creamy dill sauce.

Homemade cod and herb fishcakes on a bed of spinach with crusty bread, salad, and roasted chantenay carrots and beetroot.

Homemade roasted pumpkin and sage soup.

Two types of homemade curry; king prawn and a chickpea and spinach one. Rice and papadams, yoghurt, mint and cucumber dip.

Baked sweet potatoes stuffed with (cooked) tomato, spinach, tahini, spring onion and sharp cheddar. Salad on the side.

It's just a habit. You can do so much with veg, we made cauliflower steaks the other day drizzled and roasted with tahini, served with quinoa with veggies (would have been couscous if I wasn't coeliac 🙄) like peppers, courgette, a smoked paprika cream sauce and asparagus. Bloody lovely!

I get up and do about an hour and a half of cycling and yoga. I've built up, obviously, but just start slow! It's not a race!

Might be completely left field here but get a dog? It gets you moving and out and quickly becomes routine

I used to be like you. I changed now. Because i dont want to die young and leave my kids by themselves!. I found acting lazy and have bad lifestyle its very selfish for me because i dont think of the future. I want to live long to see my kids getting bigger and have grandchildren. So i started joining gym, diets and have a better lifestyle now

Don’t think in terms of what you can’t eat. Plan nice meals that you know you’ll enjoy and remind yourself when y feel like snacking that you’re going to have a lovely lunch or dinner. Have your gin and tonic but make it one shot and a small glass of tonic.

Consistency. Start with the alcohol. As you get into peri-menopause you may struggle with tolerating it anyway.

First post nails it. Just as @BeasBees said start small.

Quit the booze first. Swap it for something non-alcoholic served in wine glass if you’re struggling to stop.

Carbs won’t fill you much. This is something that actually makes you feel bloaty. Tackle one meal at the time. There’s excellent section of low carbing on MN,not just good for the weight loss but also for healthier eating with lots of recipes.

Love your diet @GiddyRobin

It’s not all or nothing.

It’s adding a banana at breakfast. Replacing one crisp snack with an apple. Making one bottle of water to drink. Parking at the back of the car park. Etc etc etc

And salads. Forget the traditional British lettuce cucumber and tomato salad. A good salad is delicious: cooked green beans, broad beans, peas; grated carrots and celeriac; celery, fennel, beetroot, big tomatoes, sticks of cucumber, rocket, romaine, watercress, lambs’ lettuce, pickle gherkins or onions, chutney, peppers, olives, radishes, mooli, kohlrabi, shredded white cabbage, sweetcorn, tinned artichokes and kidney beans . . . Put plenty of olive oil on it. Have ham and two kinds of cheese or smoked salmon or eggs and tuna. Take time over preparing it and eating it because you deserve it!

I love cooking haha! And you're so right about the booze.

I love herbal teas, but also just a nice fizzy water with cucumber. Or those Seedlip bottles to replace gin! They're so tasty and you can do all kinds with them. Kombucha is an acquired taste but that's delicious too, and tbh even the non alcoholic wine if you're craving can be good. Some of the fizz I think is nice with orange juice and lemonade. Still calories, yes, but it'll be less and you tend to stop after one or two!

100% this!

I am never good with small changes, it doesn't make me feel any different so I don't stick to it. I need a major health kick that makes me feel different and starts showing results. Something like completely cutting out sugar, alcohol and UPFs for a week, and then scaling up to something more manageable.

Look at the low carb bootcamp threads on here. The LC lifestyle definitely got me out of a very similar rut to you’re in. If you follow the bootcamp rules (there’s one going at the moment which is more than half way through, but you can still access all the info and just start now), the first 2 weeks are a strict total carb detox and that includes no booze. And after a couple of weeks you can reintroduce alcohol, as long as it’s of the LC variety, but 2 weeks might be all you need to break the habit. The good thing about it is that you lose weight fast, and once you are seeing results it makes you want to not undo your hard work. Honestly, give it a go, absolutely life changing.

My god OP. I could have written your post word for word. In fact this afternoon I had a rant about all of this to my husband.

I can’t help you. I’m following with interest in the hope that I can help myself. But you are absolutely not alone. Honestly. It’s uncanny.

I got like that after having ds in my 40s.

I started with a meal plan. No major change, just adding a veg or salad to every meal. It takes less than two minutes to put lettuce tomatoes & cucumber in a bowl, or microwave some peas & broccoli. Add a satsuma or pear to your cereal bar breakfast.

Once I'd got used to that, I started running. Hilarious at first because I hadn't done anything since school. I was hopeless. I tried to do c25k and ended up doing gateposts. I started by jogging as far as I could, then the next time, tried to run one or two gateposts further. Any progress, even an extra 3 metres was a win. It took me a year to manage 5k. Now I can run 10k without too much trouble.

Don't expect miracles, but persevere. If it doesn't happen one evening, just move on. Everyone has off days.