The obstacles I give myself
 

I can see some patterns in my dieting efforts that contribute to making it much, much harder to lose weight and much, much easier to gain it back:

1. (Inspired by a similar confession read in a Weight Watchers pamphlet I was reading recently...) Despite knowing that dieting is difficult, long-term, and despite being surrounded by people (at WW) who take two or three years to lose 80 pounds, I think that I am different. I will take half a year to lose 80 pounds. Sure! Also, once it is gone, that weight will be gone permanently and won't come back - and it will be easy!

2. Just because it was small (a very large bite, maybe, of a great-looking, yummy sandwich my husband bought), it doesn't count. I'm guessing all that salami and cheese and mayonnaise and olive oil is somewhere around 50 calories. Sure! Do that a few times a day. Sure! It 'never happened' (almost).

3. I ate it. Even though I track what i eat, I 'forget' that I ate it.

4. When I think dieting is too, too difficult, I think, 'I can't DO THIS!' Of course I can. I have the Weight Watcher stickers that show I lose x amount of pounds. Then I fall off the wagon. And get back on a different wagon (see #5).

5. I change horses mid-stream. I decide it's more important to just exercise a lot. I lose some weight doing that, but it's not 80 pounds. Not even close. And my eating habits take a back seat to the physical activity emphasis - in fact, I justify that I can eat more because I'm more active. Then, for some reason, I skip days of exercising - for the same 'life interferes' reason that I decided dieting was too hard. When exercising recedes in the background, food is already in the foreground and I've really not lost much weight at all. I say, 'I really don't like to do xxxx (some type of physical activity)' the same way I say, 'I really don't want to eat low-fat cheese.' For some reason, that sounds better than the Nike slogan, 'Just do it!'

6. I decide that 'fat clothes' aren't all that bad.

7. I decide that there's a key to dieting that others have overlooked. I decide to give up amounts of X for life and that will make dieting easy and even fun. After some success (cut things out of your food choices and you will lose weight - take your pick of what to cut out - it doesn't matter what...) This means all the stress of dieting comes back. I give up Chinese food, Indian food, Mexican food, I only can go to x kind of restaurant, I can't eat fast food unless I narrow my choices to one or two items, I can't go to this or that kind of get-together because there will be too much alcohol, sweets, carbs, whatever. I feel like the only way I can make the diet work is if I stay home with my own refrigerator packed with select items.

8. None of the eating schemes satisfy the emotional eating, bored eating pitfalls and so I overeat anyway!

I give myself these obstacles. They are there, but when I handle them badly, it's on me!

Hi Kathy!

since you read my story, I was curious to find out about yours, so here I am!
Well, what you describe just sounds human to me. You know, just normal, human attitude. And there is nothing wrong with being optimistic (that you will lose those pounds faster than others, for example :) ).
I have no clue how WW works, I just thought you might find handy a trick I do. I bought a large straw basket and filled it with stuff that I can snack on but is also healthy (and in my case, vegan). So I have in there now apples, clementines, cucumbers, small containers with dried fruits and nuts (but I suspect that is not the best choice for weight loss, still it's better than a burger, as they are packed with nutrients). Now, I live in the Netherlands (but I am Greek), so the climate here allows for fruit to be out the fridge. This way, if I keep the basket close to me, I do not get tempted to go to the kitchen and grab that dark chocolate spread :D

Hi, Kathy,

Thank you for sharing your obstacles and your insights - I found it encouraging to know someone else experiences some of the same struggles that I do (not that I'd wish them on anyone, though!).

In the spirit of this thread, I thought I'd share one my own:

My biggest obstacle has always been my habit of comparing my rate of weight loss to other people's. I'm slowly getting better about it, but I still do it. And, of course, most people seem to lose faster than I do, and I have a tendency to get discouraged about it. It's silly - how fast other people lose has absolutely nothing to do with my weight loss, but yet I compare them anyway. :mad: I get so mad at myself about it! Sometimes, I'm just too quick to think, "Yes, I've lost 90 pounds, but it's taken me 2 years" - as if the worth and value of the achievement is dependent on time, which it's not!

Thanks for starting a great thread and a place to vent and share. :)

Good tip! WW is basically counting calories and eating less, moving more. Every few years, they 'tweak' the plan a bit. Now, the emphasis has shifted to fresh fruits and veggies, so I'm eating more of those than ever. They do fill you up! I do keep more bananas, apples, and any other discounted nice fruits around for snacking.

Bouncing off some comments and the initial post, HONESTY is what is needed. Once we are honest with ourselves, truly HONEST, it becomes easier. 90 pounds in two years is SO WONDERFUL! I'm at 42 pounds in two years! And I keep having to reassure myself that slow loss is best for me. Yes, others around me can just boom, lose 10 pounds. Not, me. I claw and scratch for every single pound. It might be a pound a month. I just roll with it. I have to, that is where my honesty with myself HAS to happen or I will lose the TRUTH for me. But getting off the bus and walking downtown last night in my new dress to meet my husband for dinner(that I paid 10 dollars for at Ross) I felt confident and HONEST.

Ninety pounds and forty-two pounds - you've both got me beat! This past week, the person who weighed me at WW said, 'This makes a five-pound loss!' What she doesn't realize is that I've gone to WW for so long that I have actually lost 24 pounds over the years I've been doing WW - and then going to other diets, and then returning to WW!

I congratulate you both for stepping out of your own way to lose the weight. It's a slow process for me to take it off and keep it off.

When taking little side-trips to other diets, I do lose weight fast in the beginning, I admit.. Then, whatever the diet is proves to be too challenging. I'll add number 9 to my list:

9. When I realize a diet clashes with my lifestyle (or the need to exercise clashes with my lifestyle), I quit it. I think, I'll just go back to WW. Which I do. But any reduction of calories is going to mean 'tweaking' ingredients of recipes I commonly use, learning to deal with emotional eating, cutting my portion size down. I know this already. It's not an intellectual exercise, choosing what variety of diet. It's just doing those few things, and if they were easy for me, I never would have gotten fat!

Thank you both for the kind words, and big congratulations to the 2 of you for your successes as well. Both are big achievements.

Frenchhen13: 90 pounds in two years is SO WONDERFUL! I'm at 42 pounds in two years!

And you know what? That is every bit as awesome! I really enjoyed and related to what you wrote about honesty - often, it truly is harder to be honest when it comes to giving ourselves the recognition and props we deserve than it is to downplay our achievements.

Kathy13118: It's just doing those few things, and if they were easy for me, I never would have gotten fat!

Ain't that the truth! There's a saying that is humorously relevant to weight loss, and it definitely applies here: Q: "How do you eat an elephant?" A: "One bite at a time." ;) It is difficult. I have always found it better to take it one day at a time as opposed to keeping a very long-term view. Especially in a moment of weakness, I find it easier to power through it by realizing "I can work out today," or "Right now, I can resist the urge to eat even though I'm not hungry." Usually, I don't even consider the long-term goal; I just focus on the moment. Prioritizing all those little things that add up to success is no small feat, either, but I think being mindful of every moment has played a big part in my success. Not sure if this helps or not, I'm just sort of "think/writing out loud." :) I think simply being aware of your obstacles is about 75% of the battle, and it's great that you posted and shared them. You certainly motivated and inspired me, and am sure you've done the same for many others. Just be sure to be honest with yourself and give yourself the credit that's due! :)

Obstacle #10:

Not realizing and living with the truth that 'What I have done in the past is what has got me to where I am now.'

I could reflect on this every single day and it would keep me grounded in my current dieting efforts. No one forced me to 'cheat'; no one put me in an IMPOSSIBLE position. I have free will and I could have stuck to my resolution about eating breakfast in that restaurant that featured gargantuan portions and butter over everthing! I could have stayed home while everyone else insisted we ALL had to go. Since when does my value as a person in relationships depend on how sociable I am, dining out, no matter how delicious that restaurant's food may be?

That's just one example of a dieting mistake. It's my diet. Not my family's diet. I didn't tell them what they could or could not eat. But when it came to telling myself what I already knew, I caved and gave in to what turned out to be a feast.

I DID that. I have free will and I used my free will to go along with the crowd. Because I knew I'd enjoy the food - for the moments it took to eat that food, anyway! But it set me back in my dieting efforts. I can't blame anyone else. It wasn't that I was on the wrong diet. It wasn't that someone forced me against my will. It was all me.

Obstacle #11
 

11. I forget that calorie limits are like a budget.

Today, I weighed in at WW and saw that I was up half a pound. Ugh. I headed straight for McDonald's, for a Big Mac meal. I threw all the 'eat this instead of that' talk right out of my head, and just WENT for it! I had been thinking about a big hunk of saturated fat all day. I was going to have it, come hell or high water. So I did... have the Big Mac meal.

When I approached the drive-up window, I thought, 'Last chance to change your mind and just get a coffee, go home, and have some cottage cheese and baked potato with high-monounsaturated-fat margarine.' I thought, 'Dang, I will deal with the consequences later' and I ordered the Big Mac meal.

This reminded me of how I always pay my credit card bill in full. I hate being in debt. Why is it that I can respect the dollar more than I respect the calorie?

If I don't have money, I can whip out my credit card, but I've already made paying in full my habit. If I can't afford the calories, I basically act as if I am the bank AND the banking customer, all rolled into one. Sure, it's just money, we'll work out some kind of payment plan.

It hasn't sunk into my psyche yet: calories don't work that way. I can promise to exercise my butt off to make up for some Big Mac attack, but there has to be a support group for people like me who make empty promises and don't follow through when it's 'work it off time' and the pounds are still there. Oh, yeah... Weight Watchers. Well, one day at a time, right?

That's a good point, Kathy. I am a pro at playing mindgames with calories, but I am nowhere near that fast and loose with my bank account. If it can be rationalized, I rationalize it. I convince myself there's a way I can compensate, or this once won't matter. But I do that time after time after time nowadays. I understand that achieving and maintaining control in this regard involves a whole new mindset, but it sure seems a slow time coming.

Obstacle #12

12. Not paying attention to what fitday can tell me.
Recently, I noticed that the reports fitday produce show a consistent pattern of x% protein, y%carb, and z%fat. The results vary but slightly when I ask for the report for the last month, last two months, last four months, etc.

If I look at these ratios (and the way I tend to eat calories within a certain range), I can see that, like a homing pigeon, my brain + my body + my emotions conspire to give me just those results from food choices. No matter what I THINK I'm trying to achieve at the time.

It may be true that small changes over time can effect larger changes. But I am fooling myself if I think I'm not keeping myself going forward exactly on an even keel, and this is keeping my weight relatively stable. My goal is to lose weight, not stay at my same weight.

Lesson learned: focus. The tools are there to see what I change and what the results are: that's what the reports can do for me. It's going to take some real effort to adjust my diet. Real effort as in focused, concentrated attention. One meal's not going to do it - more like 2 or 3 weeks' worth of food choices.

#13. Noticing portion sizes and not making changes according to what I see. When I see a plate of food, I see X food and Y and Z foods on the plate, and it's as if my brain computes 'good food' or 'bad food' for each. Although I really believe there are no 'bad' foods, I still automatically put foods into categories. What makes a huge difference is portion size, and I rarely, if ever, act on this knowledge.

I have a habit of using both halves of a large pita bread (8 gms fiber) to make a sandwich. This morning, I used just one half and hoped that I can make this a habit. Baby steps! BTW, the sandwich still had a substantial filling of vegetarian bologna (I cannot taste much difference at all in the lack of fatty meat there) and a slice of non-fat American cheese. That's all good, but I think the best thing about the sandwich - it did taste very good, with some Dijon mustard - was its portion size!

Obstacle #14
 

#14. I forget that this world is, as I navigate it, obesogenic, from what I can SEE.

I have to make the effort to notice that EVERY website that shows food, including diet websites, makes the food portions look large and luscious. I was visiting a diet website that featured a picture of pancakes, with some topping that included strawberries. There were at least two pancakes and they were stacked, they were not bare (they had a cream-type thing or a butter-type thing on top) and it looked like a LOT of food.

Now, it may not have been a lot of food. But the photograph was staged in such a way to make it seem so. That's just not real life, not for the me-who-seeks-to-slim-down. Every person or website or magazine or newspaper depicting food seeks to make the food portion LARGE, or at least appear large. This is the standard.

Breakfast in a diner: the food spreads across the plate like the map of a vast continent. A cup of soup looks like a BOWL of soup used to.

All of this has worked its way into my conscious mind. Unless it's the case of spending $20 for a minuscule appetizer made of smoked pigs' cheek in a posh restaurant, 'small' looks ugly and mingey.

I don't think I'll ever forget an elderly friend who told me of her visit to a young friend who worked in the athletic department of a college. In the morning, the young friend made blueberry muffins and presented exactly one on each plate, with hot coffee for the morning beverage. My elderly friend was horrified. Just one little muffin. You have to put out a platter, with an array of food, with butter!

I thought it was odd, too. Don't think I've EVER been served something that way at someone's house. In context, my elderly friend was slim, watched her calories, would never have WANTED more than one muffin, and her young friend likely knew it. But, but --- it was the principal of the thing!

Obstacle #15
 

15. I think I can concentrate on a task. And I can. I know this because I focus on a very time-consuming task, sit down and devote myself to it (usually I load up a DVD or have some drama streaming to my computer in the background) until a lot of the task, or all of it, is accomplished. Then I wish that tasks were smaller, but what can I do about it? I seem to choose tasks that involve a lot of work - a demanding course, sorting all the clothing that is to be given to a charity, filing months of papers, etc.

However, I notice that I cannot focus other times - and this is news to me because I'm just noticing this now. Perhaps I have always been this way. I became aware of the tendency when I read, 'How to Live on 24 Hours a Day,' by Arnold Bennett.

This is an oldie, but a goodie. Arnold Bennet died in 1933, yet this book's reputation endures. In the book, he attempts to train the reader to manage his or her time optimally. Unlike modern time-management books, the message delivered is not to multi-task.

He says, 'When you leave your house, concentrate your mind on a subject (no matter what, to begin with). You will not have gone ten yards before your mind has skipped away under your very eyes and is larking around the corner with another subject.'

I began paying attention to my own mind-wandering tendencies and found that I mind-wander 24/7!

I pray (it's an activity encouraged by my religious upbringing, and in my old age, I've revived the childhood habit) and find myself thinking of other things while I pray. While driving, I think about some issue that seems important and I notice that while thinking about that, I also try to fit in forty other observations and random thoughts that have nothing at all to do with it. I try to rein myself back in to the topic at hand and almost immediately, something else pops into my mind to think about.

I'm going to have to work on this one particular skill until I can feel that it works for me - after all, focusing on what I need to do to not overeat is a task, intending to exercise and then following through is a task. Breaking down bigger issues into smaller tasks is natural, but: my mind wanders!

Obstacle #16
 

Redefining.

If you eat 2 grilled cheese sandwiches, homemade with plenty of cheese and butter, and you don't count calories, or watch calories, or appreciate the effects of calories, do those calories count as a meal or a snack?

These luscious sandwiches were made when a formerly overweight blogger was growing up. She ate them alone, and nobody knew she ate them. She says that eating these sandwiches contributed to her obesity and that is hard to argue with. She ate dinner as usual and no one ever knew she ate that snack.

I am sure that I have very similar episodes in my past (even the not-too-distant past) but instead of thinking the secrecy of the eating was the problem, I think the naming of the eating is the problem. It's not a snack because it's not meal-time. Because calories count, and there are more than a few calories to two grilled cheese sandwiches (even one grilled cheese sandwich), it's a meal.

If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? If there are two luscious grilled cheese sandwiches on your plate and then you eat them and they are gone, but it's a mere 3 p.m. in the afternoon and you ate lunch at 12, and dinner is at 5, did those sandwiches make a meal? I say yes. I say, that was a very early and a very caloric, BTW, dinner. Maybe it took less than 5 minutes to eat, even two minutes, but it was a meal.

I say that now. I don't think I ever said that to myself in the past. If I did, I didn't keep that in my head long enough to help me through the next snack attack.

Obstacle #17
 

Update for 2014:

Bringing the list of 'Obstacles I give myself' up to date:

I can see some patterns in my dieting efforts that contribute to making it much, much harder to lose weight and much, much easier to gain it back:

1. (Inspired by a similar confession read in a Weight Watchers pamphlet I was reading recently...) Despite knowing that dieting is difficult, long-term, and despite being surrounded by people (at WW) who take two or three years to lose 80 pounds, I think that I am different.

2. Just because it was small (a very large bite, maybe, of a great-looking, yummy sandwich my husband bought), it doesn't count.

3. I ate it. Even though I track what i eat, I 'forget' that I ate it.

4. When I think dieting is too, too difficult, I think, 'I can't DO THIS!' Of course I can.

5. I change horses mid-stream. I decide it's more important to just exercise a lot.

6. I decide that 'fat clothes' aren't all that bad.

7. I decide that there's a key to dieting that others have overlooked.

8. None of the eating schemes satisfy the emotional eating, bored eating pitfalls and so I overeat anyway!

I give myself these obstacles. They are there, but when I handle them badly, it's on me!

9. When I realize a diet clashes with my lifestyle (or the need to exercise clashes with my lifestyle), I quit it.

10. Not realizing and living with the truth that 'What I have done in the past is what has got me to where I am now.'

11. I forget that calorie limits are like a budget.
(Update: I now realize there's room for everything in a weight-reducing diet. It's just that it's a SMALL room....)

12. Not paying attention to what fitday can tell me.

13. Noticing portion sizes and not making changes according to what I see.

14. I forget that this world is, as I navigate it, obesogenic, from what I can SEE.

15. I think I can concentrate on a task. And I can.

However, I notice that I cannot focus other times - and this is news to me because I'm just noticing this now.

I'm going to have to work on this one particular skill until I can feel that it works for me - after all, focusing on what I need to do to not overeat is a task, intending to exercise and then following through is a task. Breaking down bigger issues into smaller tasks is natural, but: my mind wanders!

16. Redefining.

If you eat 2 grilled cheese sandwiches, homemade with plenty of cheese and butter, and you don't count calories, or watch calories, or appreciate the effects of calories, do those calories count as a meal or a snack?

I am sure that I have very similar episodes in my past (even the not-too-distant past) but instead of thinking the secrecy of the eating was the problem, I think the naming of the eating is the problem. It's not a snack because it's not meal-time. Because calories count, and there are more than a few calories to two grilled cheese sandwiches (even one grilled cheese sandwich), it's a meal.


17. Instead of focusing on 'good foods' and 'bad foods,' double my attention to habits and behavior. It's easy to say 'change your habit' but I don't think I've spent even 1/10 of the time looking at habits that I've spent looking at food. There are TONS of books on amazon about habits and, basically, managing resources.

Habit is powerful. All the positive (and negative) reinforcement leads to some automatic behavior that falls right off the radar. Yet, people are influenced by advertising which aims to change their behavior and it's worth examining how that influence works and using it to my advantage!

This is discussed a lot on diet forums, usually because people blame advertising for selling us the wrong kind of stuff.

I live in a house without a TV, don't listen to the radio (well, OK, sports stations), don't get a newspaper delivered to my house, don't subscribe to any magazine other than 'Entertainment Weekly,' and I frequent dieting forums. But I still gravitate toward food that I will eat in larger portions and will put weight on me JUST because of calories in larger portions. Once again, it's all on me - I'm the one eating large portions! No one forces me.

I was listening to an old NPR podcast about the power of habit. The author of a book about habit said that certain things change our habits without our even realizing it. Going on vacation and becoming pregnant were two he mentioned. My kids are grown so I'm not about to try the second, but the first seems to work against me.... vacation means trying new restaurants. I think my next vacation, I will have to get out and really walk, do some reading, and then enjoy just one meal: dinner. My husband's the 'Where should we go for breakfast?' guy. It's going to be a challenge to make this change. Interesting thing about HIS habit: at home, he doesn't eat breakfast.

I love your list, Kathy. It's important to recognize what trips us up. Habit is a big one, and so are the large portions of decadent meals that we come to see as normal through advertising and restaurants. I guess they are two sides of the same coin: physical habits and mental ones. Best of luck to you as you work to improve these habits and keep the good ones from being derailed by life events (another one I struggle with too).

The above part reminded me of a suggestion I read recently to counteract the subconscious effect of unhealthy food ads with pictures of healthier foods at home. I've just made a giant photo of delicious fresh vegetables my desktop background. We'll see if that helps remind me to buy veggies that make good light snacks and make me crave them over sweets and fried foods. It's already kind of making me want to drive to Whole Foods. :) Don't know if pictures of small meals will help too or just make you hungry for a "snack."

It's a guest room! :D