porkkchop

What did you do? F:1 Weakness food ‘Healthier’ pancakes: - 1 small / medium banana - large egg - I like adding extra egg whites for protein and fewer calories topping: - low fat Greek yoghurt - frozen cherries F:2 Track food Normal routine of tracking everything on my fitness pal every day What is your experience with it? Did you enjoy it? Was it easy or hard? F1: Mornings and evening are my weakness when it comes to cravings and sweet food. Well if I’m honest I feel like I’m fighting cravings a lot. I’m conscious of my carb intake because I know when I eat carbs at breakfast I’m starving by lunchtime. So these are a better alternative, super easy to make, mash a banana mix in an egg and fry off in a non stick pan. And it satisfies that sweet cravings a little, I’m always eager to eat more after every meal because I have a bad habit of pushing past physical satiety. Ultimately easy and delicious, and something I’ll probably do most days in the future. F2: Since dieting seriously for a year I’ve tracked my calories because I find it very hard to gauge how much food I’m eating and I like having treats within my daily intake limit. Right now I’m going to the effort of being very precise, weighing to the nearest gram. It can be tedious at times but I need to do this to stay on track right now. So over time it’s become more of a habit. Would you incorporate it in a future challenge, or otherwise do it again later? Why or why not? F1: Definitely, love me some pancakes E5: Will continue the tracking habit, I find it’s one of my best tools

What did you do? E:4 Do an activity you enjoyed as a kid Did a weird kid game that involved standing on the ground trying to throw a ball in a ring attached to the safety net of a backyard trampoline. The other person tries to block the other while bouncing on the trampoline. E:5 Go on a walk with a friend or family member This was with my boyfriend, I assume it counts, and we went for a long walk, probably a couple of hours along a walking track by a long creek than runs through a number of cities in Melbourne, and also walked through a nature reserve / park in an outer suburb. What is your experience with it? Did you enjoy it? Was it easy or hard? E4: I’m a nanny, and this happened to be a game the kids wanted to play with me, and we had an uncharacteristically active afternoon. This was something similar to what I’d do as a kid. It was a lot of fun and while I dragged my feet a little initially, it ended up being a lot of fun (even if it was a little embarrassing than an 8 year old beat me when I was legitimately trying) Ended up playing around with a soccer ball and basketball too, and then I coached kids a little in volleyball (I used to be a coach) and I actually ended up having a lot of fun with it. E5: We try and schedule in little roads trips most Saturdays so it was came about pretty organically. I always enjoy them because it’s quality time with my boyfriend too. So it was easy and definitely enjoyed. Would you incorporate it in a future challenge, or otherwise do it again later? Why or why not? E4: I’ll probably be a little more encouraging when it comes to outdoor activities with the kids in the future, and that’ll probably be easier as it gets warmer. (It’s early spring, so pretty cold where I am in australia) E5: Because it’s something we already do there’s no doubt I’ll keep doing it. Particularly as it gets a little warmer I’m sure we’ll opt for outdoor options more as well as just going for walks outside in the city at night more regularly. And definitely want to encourage myself to just get into the habit of walking and moving as much as possible, considering it as a rest or way to relax rather than a chore.

Been on track the last couple days. Feel like I’m fighting myself with trying to stay in track. It’s exhausting and I feel like I’m just repeating the same cycles and saying the same cycles of good and bad eating again and again. I know creating new new habits takes time so there’s no reason not to make this ‘reset’ the time that it happens. So I’m committed to keeping it up. In calories today with an hour of exercise.

Sounds like fun, if it’s not too late I’ll be joining too, it’s always good to have a push to try new things. Excited to see if any would be good to incorporate into a regular routine after trying them!

Congrats sounds like you’ve got the right mentality and making good progress. And it’s great you’ve found something that work for you! The advice on not comparing yourself is definitely applicable to me. While I can see how some people use it as motivation, I definitely let it get me down sometimes when I think about how long it’ll be to get to where I want to be. But been progressively kicking that negative mentality. Anyway, keep it up!!!

About 6 months ago I worked chin ups every day until I could do about 4. After injury I lost it again, and now I really want to get back into it. This might be a really good motivation because I know I wanna get some pull ups as well. Muscle up is a super long term goal but definitely something I want to train towards. Will see, might use all the amazing people here as a motivator.

Yesterday I purged for the first time in almost a year. I have a peanut allergy and ended up accidentally eating some nuts. I used that as a excuse to then go and eat a lot and make myself sick. Honestly, the feeling was euphoric. I know that there’s something wrong with that given that people in my life seem concerned but somewhere in my head I struggle to view it that way, even after kicking that habit for such a long time. If I’m honest I stopped for other people, not myself. Anyway, it was just a little lapse and I’ll be seeing my psyc again soon, it’s been a while. In calories yesterday, exercised too. Focusing on making exercise fun has helped me get back into it.

Yeah I definitely agree with that. When I say I’m trying to be nice to myself it’s not be saying: you deserve some sweets or you worked hard you can have a treat. Its more a case case that I go in the complete opposite direction, I hate myself I get really down for a couple of days at a time. Sometimes when I’m really angry at myself I cancel plans I have with friends and punish myself. I make myself cry cycling through negative thought patterns about how disgusting I am. And then after all that when I’m sad, I eat. And then I’m even more down on myself. Regardless, it’s all stuff I need to work through with my psyc some more, life’s been busy and I’ve put it off.

Lots of back and forth this evening with food. Currently around 1800 and eaten all my calories for the day but my god am I craving sugar. I know I’m not physically hungry, but my god I’m tired of the back and forth I have with food, it’s exhausting. Its literally the the first day since I ate like shit and I’m dying to skip back into bad habits. I know breaking a habit sucks. I’ve got to be nice to myself. Started a a new job nannying this week, and it’s been exhausting. I’ve used that as an excuse to eat like shit. And particularly with these jobs it’s so easy to snack on junk food the kids eat. Cereal, something I never eat at home tends to be my go to because it’s always in abundance, and I feel like it doesn’t go noticed when I have a big portion. That always leaves me feeling a bit guilty even though the parents have said I can eat whatever id like. Definitely anything habit I have to change. Babysitting tomorrow too. Same again, last time I was there I probably had 3-4 giant bowls of granola / sugary cereal and piled on the calories. This is all a learning process, I’m practicing being nice to myself with positive affirmations. But god do I hate myself sometimes. It’s something I’ll just keep working on.

Seems like you’re doing really well and getting a handle on food and self control. Really admire this because I’m currently at the point where I buy things in single portions purely because it means I have to stop, even though it’s so much more expensive. Anyway, keep up the great work!!!

Been staying on calories, weight has gone up over a kg after a couple of binges over the last week which has been a bit frustrating. But I know what happens when I binge, it’s not like it’s a surprise. Emotionally I’ve been feeling better, reached out to a couple of people and it’s relieved things a lot. I’m definitely in a far more positive place which I know puts me in a better place to diet. Working out regularly, most days I get about an hour in. I’ve been having nightmares about binge eating and waking up rather anxious, but they’re just dreams. Overall things feel more positive.

1600 cal and an hour of exercise today. Pretty standard. I feel like my weight is bringing about lots of relationship issues. My boyfriend and I don’t have sex nearly as often anymore since I gained weight. That was probably in part due to my self esteem but he’s also not really attracted to me anymore. He’s very supportive of my weight loss, and incredibly empathetic, it’s just a little hard sometimes because it gets me a bit down and I know I struggle to eat well when I’m sad. Regardless today was a good day given I’m on track.

After three terrible eating days and +4-5kg in scale weight (I know it’s mostly food / water but there’ll be fat gain too) I’m doing the thing where I say I’m starting fresh. I’m recognising that this won’t be some spectacular 180 there’ll be bumps and hiccups and I’ll take it day by day, but after wallowing in a bit of doubt and hopelessness for the last couple days I’m reaffirming that I’m still committed. Woke up early to hit the gym this morning, low cal low carb breakfast. I’m going to opt for lower carb options whenever I can because I get crazy hungry when I do have any sort of sugars. If I’m honest I’ve probably trained myself the last 4 or so months to eat whenever I get cravings, and always eventually give in. Undoing that will probably take a month or so of consistency to build new habits. It will suck so I’m making the effort to streamline choices as much as possible for minimal effort and thinking. I’m going to work really hard on being nice to myself to make this as easy as possible.

I definitely find the carb thing to be true for me. When I binge I know I always reach for carbs, it keeps me hungry and I can eat more and more sugary garbage without being satiated. Trying to do do something similar currently and would love to hear about any tips if you come across them.

I’ve had a mixed week or so. Was on track, weight was going down and I was pretty excited about things. Had a bad day, and then another. I feel like I’m stuck in this cycle where I’m struggling a lot to stay on track. I know I have a lot to loose if I don’t get back on track in a consistent way but it doesn’t feel like enough. I’m having all these questions about whether I want this enough to actually put in the hard work or if I’ll keep making excuses. I guess I’m just unsettled and confused. Im having these thoughts that it would be easier if I just gave up with the weight loss thing. I’m getting really tired with the hope and the disappointment and the shame and the guilt. It sounds awful but if I just gave up and became resigned to being unhappy with myself I feel like it’d be more manageable than the up and down. I know now this is the mentality that’s made me fat. And keeping on playing out this sob story is really pathetic. Can feel myself spiralling with negativity at the moment. Need to turn it around. Need to be more consistent with posting, it’ll probably help work through things in my head.

Had a bit of a meltdown about my weight today. Not like that’s new. Not feeling good, and I’m hideously impatient. Sometimes I worry about how much I let my weight dictate how I feel. Needless to say at the moment it’s not good. The fact that I’m less attractive to my boyfriend weighs on me a lot. Sometimes I think about it too much and I start to get panicked. Particularly because it’s not something I can change quickly. And then I’m not feeling good within myself which isn’t helping. I’ve got a new eating plan that’s a little more extreme in the calories deficit while I get to somewhere where I’m comfortable. Then I’ll go back to a more slow and steady method. Part of this scares me, because extreme habits don’t have a history of ending well for me. And I’m aware of that. If there’s ever a point where I don’t feel like it’s manageable I’ll raise calories again. I just know I can’t wait around at this weight. 1600 cal today and the only exercise was walking up and down the single flight of stairs in my apartment for an hour or so. Right now it’s hard to focus on the positive things, and I think I make it worse by beating myself up for being self critical. Hah the irony.

Definitely all really good advice, particularly with the test. It’s one I’ve heard but never tend to implement, and something I’m going to start to add to my ‘mental defence system’. Thanks for that!

I don’t know how many calories I ate today. Was on track but in the evening I was having binging urges. I did a back and forth between about 3 different supermarkets on a trip home. Basically made the decision to get what I wanted but I had to do it mindfully. No distractions and I had to slow down. I’m used to wolfing down food anyway and binging feels like a frenzy. Id just chosen supermarket bakery items (4 slices of carrot cake), stuff I genuinely like and ready to eat curry with rice. The process was actually really frustrating, as every part of me wanted to switch off and pretty much inhale the food. I deliberately chose a sweet that would go down very easy. And I definitely was far more aware of the food become less and less enjoyable. Whereas when I deliberately switch off I could go well beyond the excess cake. Not something I’d deliberately do again but at least I gave myself the experience of binging ‘mindfully’. And I did say it didn’t have the same: ‘going crazy’ feeling. Which was a little bit of a relief. I decided to forego calories for the little experiment today. And I think I do need to incorporate mindful eating in more and more, with all my eating practices, even if it’s a bit of a chore sometimes. 2 hours of cheer training and 40min strength training. Scatterbrained thoughts today. Just wanted to get some words out before bed

2000 cal today, kind of starving and thinking about eating more, weighing up the pros and cons because I want to have a ‘healthy’ relationship with food where I know how to limit myself but I also listen to hunger. I just can’t tell whether it’d emotional or genuine hunger a lot which makes things a little harder. Actually ate dinner mindfully, which I almost never do. I know it’s probably an important step to me being better with my hunger, and binge eating. I just like being busy so sitting and focusing on my food can be torturous. I’m sure it’ll become easier with practice, and it’s definitely something I need to do more of. Started a new weight based workout routine too, wanting to make sure I’m still building strength for performance based stuff while I loose weight slowly. (Sourced from my workout routine.com - recommended to me) Its personally a lot more fun and what I need to keep trying to do, make working out something I look forward to. UPDATE: ate another 700 cal. Mainly in the form of skim milk and hot chocolate powder. Definitely not the best choice. I think I’m the future I need more calories available in the evening because that’s when I’m hungry.

Yeh it’s pretty crazy to think about what I don’t realise what’s driving emotions and thoughts sometimes until I take a step back and actually think on it.

Yesterday was my fast day. I woke up feeling a little unwell and grumpy at the thought of no food, so I gave myself permission to eat something if I really felt like it. Dinner I was in a rubbish mood so I had around 600 cal. No formal exercise but did a bit of walking with 17, 000 steps. This has lead me into thinking about the 5:2 diet. Given all the reading I’ve done about occasional fasting windows as a lifestyle. Today I realised part of reason I freak out about my weight having gone up, and why I worry about how long it’s taken for me to loose weight, is because I’m afraid of getting old. I have this sense that I’m running out of time to be slim ‘now’ in my physical prime while I’m young. I have this irrational notion that the time I’ve been chubby I’m wasting potential. I know thats a stupid fear. And in reality this time that I’ve been on my weight loss and fitness journey I’ve learnt a lot. It’s crazy when I think about giving up, because I get caught up in all the frustration. Because if I really take a second sweet and fatty delicious food isn’t worth feeling comfortable in my body, it’s just very easy to fall into the trap of emotional reasoning. Getting on track has definitely been a very slow process and I’ve realised that I’m far more lenient than I used to be. I was super strict with calories to the exact number before. As a result my weight has been incredibly up and down, and haven’t been seeing a slow and consistent decline. So right now I’m trying to find the balance between staying on track and having reasonable expectations and leniencies for my psychological health. It’s all a valuable learning experience.

Seemed like you’re doing the best with your situation at the moment, it’s a shame but sounds like you might need to. That being said, it’ll just mean that next workout you can go all out!

2000 cals today, over my 1800 goal but I was starving from around 8pm onwards so it’s a lot better than the thousands of calories I was fantasising about consuming in my head. Finally dropped back to the 70.0kg today after hovering over 70 for a while. It’s a small victory but I can’t help but keep kicking myself that I could have bloody stayed at 60kg the last 4 months and it would’ve been a non-issue. But the damage is done and I need to stop dwelling and get on with it. Struggled to move my ass today. Earlier I thought about just going to the gym tomorrow but my boyfriend dragged me there and I did some HIIT intervals on the treadmill to get the heart rate up for half an hour. He just sat and worked on his laptop but it was all I really needed. He made a good point that the fact that I try and work myself to death every time I go to the gym might be building up some hesitation to actually go in the first place. So I might give myself a break when I’m not feeling it and go all out when I actually want to. Ultimately a positive step forward today.

Hey! I kind of took a break while I sorted out my life: work, family, relationships, mental health, all that fun stuff. Only got to a point recently where I’m admitting a lot of my shit is self inflicted even if I don’t realise I’m doing it. I guess I’m big on the accountability thing. I know there’ll always be excuses but I guess I keep coming back, because I’m going to have to fix all my weight along and health related things eventually, that is, along with improving other aspects of my life. But thanks for checking in and I’m excited to take a little step each day for the long journey ahead! I’ve definitely got a bit to catch up on and when I’ve got a little time it’d be cool to check up on how you’ve been going!

Been away for a little while dealing with some self destructive behaviours. Ultimately I’m aware that not being track with my weight loss has been a huge cause for a lot of the stress in my life amongst other things. I’ve gone over a couple of days here and there which hasn’t been great but I’m making a consistent effort to exercise around 60 mins a day because I know that keep me feeling better. Yesterday was a bad eating day, 2500cal but I did hold out on the urge to do a ‘crazy’ binge, the 4000+ cal type. This doesn’t happen often (when I’m able to stop myself) so I’m proud of that, evens if it’s minor. Given I didn’t eat from about 2pm onwards this morning I woke up around 3am and when I’m groggy my self control goes out the window. Wasted 400 cals and today was a bit of a back and forth with me telling myself that I shouldn’t give into old habits of black and white thinking. Used to saying fuck it and going mental on food but I’m tracking in at 1850 today after dinner, and I guess it’s proving to myself that I’m back on track. I think some part of me doubts every time I tell myself I’m on track given how much I’ve acted against my own word when it comes to food. I’ve also been fasting for the full day every Saturday with the exception of black coffee, tea, sugar free soft drink and stock. Things have been very up and down and I think almost 4 months now of digging my own pit of despair it’s about time I pulled myself out of it. Seeing a new psyc, even a fucking hypnotherapist for gods sake to deal with my self talk and relationship with food. So the rest is up to me. Last weigh in was 70.9 and the lowest I’ve been in the last week I’d 70.2kg. I’ve been as high as 73.5 in the last fortnight. It makes me a bit ill when I think about the fact that I’ve undone about 12 months and 13kg of work in about 3-4 months. But I’m learning a lot. I keep reminding myself that I can stay on track now, or feel even worse when I haven’t made progress by next month. This is is a littLe all over the place trying to give a recap of what I’ve been up to, but this is me, however delayed still holding myself accountable.