Getting Back on the (Weight Loss) Wagon

Want to lose weight? My story has been featured on CBS' The Doctors, CNN, and The Huffington Post. Learn how I lost over 125 pounds (100lbs in 6 months!) by clicking here.

Hi Shawn,

I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while now. I originally came across it probably about 18 months ago when I was starting what I like to think of as my “final” diet and I was literally googling whatever I could find to serve as inspiration. I added a lot of different fitness and weight loss blogs to my RSS reader that day but I have to say that when I decided to clean house a little while ago.  There are only about 2 of them.

Needless to say yours is one of them.

I think I came to the party in a slightly different way than a lot of your other readers in that I was already aware that counting calories was the key to maintaining a healthy weight and I knew from experience that cutting out everything that I enjoyed just couldn’t work long-term. What I needed more than anything was the inspiration and it helped a lot to hear stories not from a personal trainer who knew everything there was to know about gym exercises & nutrition but someone who was essentially going through the same things that I was. 

Eighteen months later and the diet is still going but I’m gradually getting used to how it’s happening – I concentrate for a while, lose a little bit of weight, then get distracted by a birthday party or something like that and essentially fall off the wagon.  However, thanks to some advice I read that contradicts the norm and recommends you weigh yourself every day I’ve stopped dieting at times but I haven’t put any weight back on and so it’s gradually all disappearing.

Now, why am I emailing you & sharing all this information with someone I don’t actually know? I’m trying really hard to get back on the wagon & stick with it consistently for the next months as I’m planning on going overseas in December and as shallow as it may sounds it would mean a great deal to me to be able to wear a bikini on the beach & be able to look at the photos of the holiday with just happy memories and no inner voice pointing out that I’m bigger than anyone else in the picture.

To help me with this I’m finally committing to MyFitnessPal (now that it has so many Australian food products in its database!) and I was wondering if I could add you as a friend. I’m trying to encourage my mum to join me but there aren’t many people I know who are trying to lose weight like this and I think it would definitely help to have that little bit of accountability.  Having said that, I’m not sure if you use it anymore as I know you don’t count calories as much as you used to…

I still have an account on MyFitnessPal, but I use it to socialize these days, not to count calories. MyfitnessPal and tools like it (SparkPeople, MyPlate, etc), when used successfully, are designed to teach you how to count calories and be a resource and guide for you on occasion once you’ve started maintaining your weight loss.

It’s not something you’ll need to log into on a daily basis five years from today.

With that said, at this stage I’d highly recommend signing up to a calorie counter like MyFitnessPal to count calories.  It sounds like you’re having trouble having your new lifestyle “take hold” so to speak, so getting into a routine and watching everything you put into your mouth is important for you for the time being.

Getting back on the weight loss wagon after being thrown off so many times is incredibly difficult.  It’s a lot easier staying off the wagon and not caring about what you do or what you eat.  It’s also hard to get back on the wagon as you’re admitting to yourself that you’ve failed and you have to start all over again.

Just don’t look at it as a failure.  Getting back on the wagon is a success.

So many people live their lives off the wagon — they’re too scared or too lazy or too frustrated to get (back) on it.  Take pride in the fact that you have the courage and initiative to buck the trend and take a stand to reach your goals.  Isn’t it an awesome thing that you’re able to control your body, actions, and life as a whole and do what you want to do?  Free will is in amazing thing.

This isn’t the lottery — this is your life.  You’re in complete control of whether or not you take a step or four toward reaching your goals today.

Go reach them.