HELP!!! Need motivation to get back on track

[Gr8t 8]

Hey everyone! its been forever since I have been on the boards maybe since feb. but anyways, I started medi last Nov 08 and was dedicated to the program till May and lost about 80 lbs. I went on vacation in May and went off the program for the first time. since then i have been back and forth, pretty much maintaining around 160. my goal is 120 so i still have 40 lbs. to lose. How do i get that mind setting back? I cant find it. It depresses me because i did so great when i started it and stuck with it 100% even during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Please send me some motivation to get back on my healthy weightloss and lifestyle program!!!!

[luvlonghorns]

Originally Posted by Gr8t 8

Hey everyone! its been forever since I have been on the boards maybe since feb. but anyways, I started medi last Nov 08 and was dedicated to the program till May and lost about 80 lbs. I went on vacation in May and went off the program for the first time. since then i have been back and forth, pretty much maintaining around 160. my goal is 120 so i still have 40 lbs. to lose. How do i get that mind setting back? I cant find it. It depresses me because i did so great when i started it and stuck with it 100% even during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Please send me some motivation to get back on my healthy weightloss and lifestyle program!!!!

Let me be the first to say welcome back! I'm a newbie compared to you, but I'm still here to provide support and motivation. First off, don't look backward and don't beat yourself up. We have a number of "restarts" in the group. The important thing is that you're back and recommitted. Excellent words of wisdom and encouragement can be found throughout the August thread. I know that when I've been tempted to cheat, rereading these posts has really helped me overcome. McBoo also started the new thread "I feel I want to go off plan. Do I deserve it?" which has equally insightful posts. Next, join us over on the new September thread and you'll be overwhelmed with motivation and support.
You've come so far, 2/3rds of your journey. You can and must complete that last third. Think how great you'll look and feel when you see everyone over the holidays! Visualize! You can do it - you know you want to! Now, post a message on the September thread and get with the group. We're all on the same journey!
-Jane

[Desert-Rose7]

~Gr8t 8~Welcome back! I would suggest that you bring your question over to either of the threads below for better responses. We will almost always check the monthly thread and the "Off Plan" thread before any others. And remember, this program is about a major lifestyle change. And about 100% commitment. Once you have both of those items, you will be successful. Get yourself back on the horse, and keep riding.


I feel I want to go off plan. Do I deserve it?


Shedding Pounds in September w/Medi Weightloss


Jo

[tracy_d]

Originally Posted by Gr8t 8

Hey everyone! its been forever since I have been on the boards maybe since feb. but anyways, I started medi last Nov 08 and was dedicated to the program till May and lost about 80 lbs. I went on vacation in May and went off the program for the first time. since then i have been back and forth, pretty much maintaining around 160. my goal is 120 so i still have 40 lbs. to lose. How do i get that mind setting back? I cant find it. It depresses me because i did so great when i started it and stuck with it 100% even during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Please send me some motivation to get back on my healthy weightloss and lifestyle program!!!!

The fact that you are here is a great start. Think about what is worth more to you...getting back to this way of life, or gaining the weight back after all your hard work. You can do this. Remember how easy this way of life is...right now you have those blasted "sugars" in your system that are toying with you and making you hesitate. Getting those sugars out of your system will make it that much easier and it only takes a few days into get that "mindset" again.

[Desert-Rose7]

Let's bring this discussion over to the September thread. Everyone can benefit that way.

Thank you!

Shedding Pounds in September w/Medi Weightloss


Jo

[NOT2fat4fun]

I actually like having this thread - it is kind-of like having a panic button. Maybe we could keep it like that... sometimes when we are posting everything in the monthly thread - posts get overlooked - questions don't always get answered....

[Desert-Rose7]

Hi Macauley,
The motivational factor and the need to stay on plan is the reason that McBoo began the thread below. People can find it easily using the search function, and the thread serves the exact same purpose as this one.

I feel I want to go off plan. Do I deserve it?

Jo

[TriMom]

To answer the OP, you are not a failure. Read my siggy. You inspire "ME" to lose as much weight as you have. Now, inspire me to lose the 100 I need to lose!

You have so much to offer! See you in the September thread!

[NOT2fat4fun]

Hi Jo - it seems to me that one is about going off plan and one is about getting back on plan - so you are probably right about this being under the September thread. There is a difference about thinking that one would deserve to go off as opposed to having a panic button thread, though...
There were a few times that I just needed something something inspirational to read - immediately! Sometimes, to me, the monthly thread gets bogged down with chats about where to buy stuff (never works for me on the west coast) - and restaurants to go to (again on the other side of the country)... I do love reading the monthly thread and do so about every day - just sometimes need something more specific - and even the search function has to be used a few times to get more than one set of responses..
even though I am doing well on the program - I still like my instant gratification sometimes : )
b

[tracy_d]

Originally Posted by NOT2fat4fun

Hi Jo - it seems to me that one is about going off plan and one is about getting back on plan - so you are probably right about this being under the September thread. There is a difference about thinking that one would deserve to go off as opposed to having a panic button thread, though...
There were a few times that I just needed something something inspirational to read - immediately! Sometimes, to me, the monthly thread gets bogged down with chats about where to buy stuff (never works for me on the west coast) - and restaurants to go to (again on the other side of the country)... I do love reading the monthly thread and do so about every day - just sometimes need something more specific - and even the search function has to be used a few times to get more than one set of responses..
even though I am doing well on the program - I still like my instant gratification sometimes : )
b

I agree. Sometimes the monthly thread is hard to go through if you are away for a few days. I like this thread here too.

[Desert-Rose7]

I can see the point you both are making, however consider this: IF you need INSTANT help, ask yourself why? The amount of time it takes to pop into the computer and look for inspiration could be used to talk yourself down from that moment. And it is a lot quicker. What is triggering you? What is causing the panic, why are you having the issue? And if the issue is causing you to go off plan, have you figured out why?

Here is an article I have found to be helpful.



De-Stress in 3 Minutes or Less
Stop Emotional Eating Before It Starts
-- By Dean Anderson, Behavioral Psychology Expert
What is the single, most common problem that most dieters face when trying to lose weight? Will power? Nah. Temptation? Sometimes. Emotional eating? Bingo! That’s why it takes so much more than good intentions and information about nutrition and exercise to be successful. The ability to manage difficult situations and feelings effectively—without turning to food and eating—is a necessary foundation for a successful weight loss plan and healthy lifestyle.

Fortunately, there are many proactive steps you can take to keep functioning on all your mental cylinders during tough times. These steps range widely from basic relaxation techniques to the development of a reliable support network. Other options include:
Keeping a food journal to help you identify your emotional eating triggers
Cultivating mental and emotional well-being through practices like meditation, mindfulness, massage, and yoga

Developing good problem solving skills
Turning to the Message Boards for help and support when you need it; offering help to others as a way to get your mind off your own troubles and gain a little perspective on things.

But all of these things take time, and there are many instances when you need something you can do right now, to keep yourself grounded, focused and able to make good decisions. After all, you don’t always have time to take a walk, relax in a hot bath or call a friend to talk things over. That’s what we’ll be talking about here—a 3-minute trick for handling stressful situations in the moment.

Minute 1: Stay Grounded
Emotional eating happens when you lose your connection to your grounded self. Stress itself is not what makes you reach for something to eat. In fact, stress is often a good thing and your grounded self knows this! We need the physical stress of exercise to keep our bodies in good shape just as we need the stress of intellectual and emotional challenges to keep our minds healthy.

Nine times out of ten, what really leads to emotional eating is getting caught in a "mind storm" of worst-case scenarios, projections, misinterpretations, and all the emotional overreactions that come with these thoughts. This "storm" turns a manageable challenge into something that makes you feel helpless, overwhelmed, ashamed or afraid—and sends you to the kitchen to find something to stuff those extreme feelings. When you can stay grounded in the moment of stress, you have many more options.

Here are some simple ideas to keep you grounded when something (or someone) pushes your buttons and your feelings start to spiral out of control:
Take a few deep breaths. (You can also count to 10, if that helps.) If the stressful situation involves someone else, take a timeout and agree to continue the discussion in a few minutes.

Remind yourself where you are.
Take a look around, noticing and naming the colors and shapes in the space around you.
Notice the physical sensations you are experiencing. Whether it's a sinking feeling, turmoil in your stomach, tension in your hands or jaw, restricted breathing, or heat on the back of your neck, try to name the feelings that go with the sensation. Is that sinking feeling fear, or dread? Is the heat a symptom of anger?
The idea here is to stay in your body and in the moment—with what’s real—instead of going inside your mind where all those unreal scenarios are just waiting to get spun out-of-control.

Minute 2: Reality Check
Once you’re calm enough to start thinking productively, put all those thoughts that are clamoring for attention inside your head through a quick reality check. Here are several very common thought patterns that have no place in reality. Do any of these apply to you?

All or nothing thinking
Example: You go over your calorie limit or eat something on your “forbidden” list, and then decide to keep eating because you’ve already “blown it” for today. Reality: Weight loss is not a one-day event. If you stop overeating now, you’ll gain less and have less to re-lose later. That’s something to feel good about!


Reading your own thoughts into someone else’s words
Example: Someone made a mildly critical or unsupportive remark to you, and you feel completely devastated. Reality: The more bothered you are by such remarks, the more likely it is that you are being overly critical of yourself. When you treat yourself with respect, what others say won’t matter nearly so much.


Either-Or thinking
Example: You make a mistake or have a bad day and feel like a complete and hopeless failure. Reality: No one does well all the time. Mistakes are a necessary and valuable opportunity to learn—if you don’t waste them by getting down on yourself.


Taking care of other people’s business
Example: Something is going badly for someone you care about, and you feel responsible, or pressured to fix it. Reality: People need to learn from their own problems. You aren’t doing anyone a favor by trying to fix things just to make yourself feel better.

Minute 3: Putting Things in Perspective
Most common problems that you face in everyday life are much easier to handle when you keep them in perspective and avoid making mountains out of molehills. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to make sure you aren’t in the mountain-making business:
How big a deal is this, anyway? If I knew I was going to die in a week, would this be something I would want to spend this minute of my remaining time on?
Will any bad things happen if I postpone thinking about this until I have more time to figure things out?
Do I have all the information I need to decide how to respond to this? Do I really know what’s going on here, or am I making assumptions? Am I worrying about things that might not even happen? What do I need to check out before taking action?
Is there anything I can do right now that will change or help this situation?
Am I trying to control something I can't, like what other people think, say, or do?
Have I really thought through this problem, and broken it down into manageable pieces I can handle one-at-a-time?
Use this approach whenever your thoughts or situations begin to feel overwhelming, and you'll quickly find that the mountains that seem impossible at first can quickly morph into what they really are—manageable hills that you DO have the ability to climb. All it takes is three little minutes of your time.

[NOT2fat4fun]

Thanks Jo! - so truth be told - if I wanted to get in my own head and ask why I needed a quick fix I never would have gotten to the place I did. Much easier for me to read something about someone else to get out of my head - and my thinking at that moment!
I appreciate the article - it's a keeper!

[SDC2]

Originally Posted by Desert-Rose7

I can see the point you both are making, however consider this: IF you need INSTANT help, ask yourself why? The amount of time it takes to pop into the computer and look for inspiration could be used to talk yourself down from that moment. And it is a lot quicker. What is triggering you? What is causing the panic, why are you having the issue? And if the issue is causing you to go off plan, have you figured out why?

Here is an article I have found to be helpful.



De-Stress in 3 Minutes or Less
Stop Emotional Eating Before It Starts
-- By Dean Anderson, Behavioral Psychology Expert
What is the single, most common problem that most dieters face when trying to lose weight? Will power? Nah. Temptation? Sometimes. Emotional eating? Bingo! That’s why it takes so much more than good intentions and information about nutrition and exercise to be successful. The ability to manage difficult situations and feelings effectively—without turning to food and eating—is a necessary foundation for a successful weight loss plan and healthy lifestyle.

Fortunately, there are many proactive steps you can take to keep functioning on all your mental cylinders during tough times. These steps range widely from basic relaxation techniques to the development of a reliable support network. Other options include:
Keeping a food journal to help you identify your emotional eating triggers
Cultivating mental and emotional well-being through practices like meditation, mindfulness, massage, and yoga

Developing good problem solving skills
Turning to the Message Boards for help and support when you need it; offering help to others as a way to get your mind off your own troubles and gain a little perspective on things.

But all of these things take time, and there are many instances when you need something you can do right now, to keep yourself grounded, focused and able to make good decisions. After all, you don’t always have time to take a walk, relax in a hot bath or call a friend to talk things over. That’s what we’ll be talking about here—a 3-minute trick for handling stressful situations in the moment.

Minute 1: Stay Grounded
Emotional eating happens when you lose your connection to your grounded self. Stress itself is not what makes you reach for something to eat. In fact, stress is often a good thing and your grounded self knows this! We need the physical stress of exercise to keep our bodies in good shape just as we need the stress of intellectual and emotional challenges to keep our minds healthy.

Nine times out of ten, what really leads to emotional eating is getting caught in a "mind storm" of worst-case scenarios, projections, misinterpretations, and all the emotional overreactions that come with these thoughts. This "storm" turns a manageable challenge into something that makes you feel helpless, overwhelmed, ashamed or afraid—and sends you to the kitchen to find something to stuff those extreme feelings. When you can stay grounded in the moment of stress, you have many more options.

Here are some simple ideas to keep you grounded when something (or someone) pushes your buttons and your feelings start to spiral out of control:
Take a few deep breaths. (You can also count to 10, if that helps.) If the stressful situation involves someone else, take a timeout and agree to continue the discussion in a few minutes.

Remind yourself where you are.
Take a look around, noticing and naming the colors and shapes in the space around you.
Notice the physical sensations you are experiencing. Whether it's a sinking feeling, turmoil in your stomach, tension in your hands or jaw, restricted breathing, or heat on the back of your neck, try to name the feelings that go with the sensation. Is that sinking feeling fear, or dread? Is the heat a symptom of anger?
The idea here is to stay in your body and in the moment—with what’s real—instead of going inside your mind where all those unreal scenarios are just waiting to get spun out-of-control.

Minute 2: Reality Check
Once you’re calm enough to start thinking productively, put all those thoughts that are clamoring for attention inside your head through a quick reality check. Here are several very common thought patterns that have no place in reality. Do any of these apply to you?

All or nothing thinking
Example: You go over your calorie limit or eat something on your “forbidden” list, and then decide to keep eating because you’ve already “blown it” for today. Reality: Weight loss is not a one-day event. If you stop overeating now, you’ll gain less and have less to re-lose later. That’s something to feel good about!


Reading your own thoughts into someone else’s words
Example: Someone made a mildly critical or unsupportive remark to you, and you feel completely devastated. Reality: The more bothered you are by such remarks, the more likely it is that you are being overly critical of yourself. When you treat yourself with respect, what others say won’t matter nearly so much.


Either-Or thinking
Example: You make a mistake or have a bad day and feel like a complete and hopeless failure. Reality: No one does well all the time. Mistakes are a necessary and valuable opportunity to learn—if you don’t waste them by getting down on yourself.


Taking care of other people’s business
Example: Something is going badly for someone you care about, and you feel responsible, or pressured to fix it. Reality: People need to learn from their own problems. You aren’t doing anyone a favor by trying to fix things just to make yourself feel better.

Minute 3: Putting Things in Perspective
Most common problems that you face in everyday life are much easier to handle when you keep them in perspective and avoid making mountains out of molehills. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to make sure you aren’t in the mountain-making business:
How big a deal is this, anyway? If I knew I was going to die in a week, would this be something I would want to spend this minute of my remaining time on?
Will any bad things happen if I postpone thinking about this until I have more time to figure things out?
Do I have all the information I need to decide how to respond to this? Do I really know what’s going on here, or am I making assumptions? Am I worrying about things that might not even happen? What do I need to check out before taking action?
Is there anything I can do right now that will change or help this situation?
Am I trying to control something I can't, like what other people think, say, or do?
Have I really thought through this problem, and broken it down into manageable pieces I can handle one-at-a-time?
Use this approach whenever your thoughts or situations begin to feel overwhelming, and you'll quickly find that the mountains that seem impossible at first can quickly morph into what they really are—manageable hills that you DO have the ability to climb. All it takes is three little minutes of your time.

Great article Jo. I've never quite thought about how to deal with emotional triggers in that way. I would add to the last part, "Am I going to feel better or worse in 1/2 hr. if I give in to the temptation?", "Am I going to feel better or worse in 1/2 hr. if I resist the temptation?".

You've got me thinking. I think my biggest trigger is boredom. I am going to see if there are some articles about eating out of boredom. (I know, I need to get a life...but I think it is a real problem for many. ) Also, going back to the original purpose of this thread (HELP!!! Need motivation to get back on track) it would be fitting to post an article about how to find motivation when you have none (i.e. how to turn that switch back on when it is off). I will research that.

[Carolina_Girl]

Originally Posted by Gr8t 8

Hey everyone! its been forever since I have been on the boards maybe since feb. but anyways, I started medi last Nov 08 and was dedicated to the program till May and lost about 80 lbs. I went on vacation in May and went off the program for the first time. since then i have been back and forth, pretty much maintaining around 160. my goal is 120 so i still have 40 lbs. to lose. How do i get that mind setting back? I cant find it. It depresses me because i did so great when i started it and stuck with it 100% even during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Please send me some motivation to get back on my healthy weightloss and lifestyle program!!!!

Eventhough I have not officially started with Medi Weightloss yet (calling tomorrow for first appointment) it seems you have really come a LONG way! Congrats to your success so far! If I were in your shoes, I'd pick up where you have been maintaining and start again. Those last 40 lbs will not be too far away! Seems you have done extremely well and can finish where you wanna be, just run with it! Good luck to you!