Two Years On...

[tonguesintrees]

Two years ago today I decided to stop being quite so fat and unhappy, and began actively trying to lose weight by keeping track of my foods and exercising. Over the course of the first six or eight or twelve months, I had some success. I lost 50 pounds, I lowered my blood pressure, and I was putting healthier food in my body more often. I was able

Comments

[lhazzie]

Echoing in part the previous comment - ignore the app and concentrate on making good food choices based on what is healthy rather than because of the calorie content, and continue to exercise because it boosts your mood and not as a chore you hate.

I am impressed that you stuck with tracking for two years. The longest I've ever managed is about 8 weeks! I've learned over the last 10 months or so that I can in fact maintain weight without tracking if I just continue to make conscious decisions about what and when to eat. I pile the weight on if I take my eye off the ball, and tracking apps help me to get back into the habit of noticing what I'm eating and to remind me which foods really aren't ok to graze on constantly. But I can never keep up with tracking for long. I can lose weight with them, but the big thing for me has been realising that I can slacken off the strict tracking and as long as I still make good food decisions (and actually notice eating - mindless grazing is a big problem for me) I won't just pile a load of weight back on. Despite always assuming that I would.

Eating things that are good is good because of how it makes your brain feel and helps your body to work, rather than because of what the scale will say. Getting weighed occasionally is a check in of whether it's still working and if I need to be a bit intense for a few weeks, but I have no getting weighed schedule - it's when I see the scales and think 'ooh, I might get weighed'. I have noticed that my mood and energy levels can be affected by what I've been eating, (and mood and energy obviously also influence what I feel like eating!), and that's helped me to remember to good stuff, because the effect is more immediate than weight gain down the line.

Exercise is even more a mood thing for me -having had problems managing depression and anxiety for much of the last three years (though I'm on a good streak at the moment, yay), it is amazing how good the endorphins are. But once I get into a thought pattern of feeling obliged to exercise then getting negative thought cycles about not doing exercise, and beating myself up about that, then it's time to step back, question that thought pattern, and remember that I can take a break if I'm not up to it, but that ultimately, even doing just a tiny bit will help me to feel better. Once I take the pressure off myself, I usually find it's suddenly a lot easier to do!

So, yeah, if the tracking is making you feel worse instead of better then pack it in - but remember that packing in the detailed tracking doesn't stop you from making conscious decisions about your food and exercise, and should help you to separate out what makes you happy about the health choices, and hopefully you can take new enjoyment from thinking about how food and exercise make you feel without worrying about goals and numbers and tight control.