Starting again

[darthdrienne]

Hey Everyone!

 

I joined the academy over a year ago.  It helped me a lot and in about 6 mo I lost 30 lbs and was starting to feel like my old self again.  It was awesome since I'm 30 and my "old self" was 18.  I made a lot of mistakes that first round, a major one being not reaching out to a community.  Anyway, I fell off the wagon because I was pushing too hard and not getting the results I wanted.  So 6 more months and I basically undid all the progress I had made.  I'm back over 200 lb and can only do about 3 strict push ups.  So this is me coming back, only better.

 

I really like that in the blogs and such there emphasize learning from your mistakes.  It is so important that we don't work harder trying to do the thing that failed last time, and instead figure out what went wrong and change it.  So this go-round I'm making a few changes.

 

1) I am reaching out to the community.  I have failed a lot of things in my life because I was too shy, too proud, and to anxious to ask for help and support.

2) I'm not focused on weight or size goals.  When I focus on the scale or waist measurements I get "end-goal" brain.  I get the idea that there is an end or finish line and if I just work really hard I'll get there faster.  This makes me do unsustainable things in an attempt to get to where I want to be NOW!  So, no more of that.  I am making SMALL PERMANENT CHANGES. 

3) I am working on life organization and self-esteem issues in conjunction with my physical health changes.  Right now I don't have a therapist, but I am reading books about boundary setting, self-compassion, and other more practical skills.

[Grymm]

Welcome aboard!  Sounds like you're putting some of your passed experiences to good effect.  Have you honed in on any smaller, permanent goals?

[Jaelinn]

Welcome back! 

 

It sounds like you know where you're going, that's great. 

An advice for number two is to make sort of "milestones" to reach your end goal. For example my end goal is 53kg (about 118lb, I think), but I don't really think about that too much. In part, because it might change at any time. Instead, I just relish in the feeling of having lost a bit of weight every day. My next milestone is 64.2kg (141lb). When I reach that, it'll go for next one, etc. Babysteps!

 

Good luck with it all.

[darthdrienne]

On 6/23/2016 at 10:18 AM, Grymm said:

Welcome aboard!  Sounds like you're putting some of your passed experiences to good effect.  Have you honed in on any smaller, permanent goals?

No liquid calories - usually not hard for me, but when the weather gets hot I tend to go for iced coffee with a little half and half and some sweetener

No fast food lunches - I drive around and complete work in people's homes which means I never know exactly when or where I'll be able to grab food.  Before that meant a lot of sandwiches and fast food. 

Yoga 2+ times a week. 

Next month I think I'm going to focus on hydration and sleep.  I'm not very good at getting enough of either.

[Cataleya]

Man I feel very similarly to you. I look forward to seeing you progress as time goes on. Keep us updated!

[Guzzi]

Oh man! Your story is solo similar to mine. I lost a lot of weight in the run up to my wedding, not by any kind of sustainable method though. I got your "end-goal brain" and was practically starving myself and exercising too much. Of course I put it all back on again within a couple of months once my goal had passed.

 

Second time around I did it properly. I became much more active on the forum, started regularly taking part in challenges, shifted the focus away from the scale and started setting myself better, more realistic goals. I got back to where I had been for the wedding and then some! It took a long time but this time I can honestly say the change was for good. Even though I have had a major setback with my health, Im still maintaining as good a diet as I can, and although I can't do any exercise I have a plan for moving forward and I WILL get back to it when my health allows. 

 

Ive shared this because I want you to know that you're not alone, and with the right help and support you can accomplish whatever you want to achieve. You've already figure it out, small permanent changes and building healthy habits. 

 

I think that you would benefit from joining in with the 4 Week Challenges. I found those to be great for cementing my short-term goals and providing some accountability. Here is Spezzy's post explaining how it works in case you haven't seen it yet. 

 

Gotta go right now, I'm being rude to a friend who has just arrived!

 

If there's anything I can do to help or if you have any questions then just let me know. 

[Igaduma]

On 6/21/2016 at 2:43 AM, darthdrienne said:

I was too shy, too proud, and to anxious to ask for help and support.

congrats on reaching out then

 

There's nothing wrong with setting a big long term goal

but make sure to have many many many little goals as well.  Small victories keep you motivated far better than one huge victory (which you will most likely not achieve because you couldn't keep yourself motivated)