6 months after my diet....

[Wolf in sheep's clothing]

So it has been 6 months since I went on my diet kick and lost 45lbs of flab. I thought I'd post an update of what happened since.

As of the scales this morning and I've regained about 20lbs!

Thats disgusting! Where did I go wrong? Dont worry, I already know the answer.

I regained the weight because I had reached my goal.

My original plan was to lose the 45lbs (20kgs basically) because I wanted to impress a girl and by a certain date (which was when she came to town next).

Not only did I lose the weight by the date, I also got the girl. After that, I just went back to the same old eating habits and stopped exercising. That was in July and now I've regained half the weight that took me 4 months to lose. If I keep going this way, by mid-next year I'll be back to where I started.

Time for me to take action again! By April I want to be 80kgs. Back to the diet, cardio and weights. Doing is the easy bit. Starting is the hard part

Only thing is how do I change my eating habits and exercise lifestyle PERMANENTLY. This is why diets fail. Not because you dont lose weight, but because at some stage you revert back to the old fat-gaining lifestyle.

Anyways, I found posting monthly about my progress last time worked well for keeping on track, so I'll do so again. That gives me 3 months to figure out how to stop reverting.

 

[war_eagle]

Wolf, the reason you gained all the weight back is because you no longer had a goal. Without a goal in mind you lost motivation, and thus gained weight again. With that said let me make a suggestion, if you want to keep the weight off always have a goal. Whether its impressing girls, comparing yourself to your bodybuilding icon, or just wanting to be stronger than you've ever been before you need to continuously set and reset your goals.

I suggest you start off with small goals and progress from there. There are too many people that set unrealistic goals, and ultimitaly fail because of them.

 

[Viroid]

Why do you want to lose weight? You are probably doing it for the wrong reasons.

It does have to do with what goals you choose. You want to keep the weight off permenantly? Choose the right goal. Ask yourself what you WANT. And then ask yourslef what goal will help you accomplish what you want. Doing it for a girl didnt work the first time and its not going to work this time.

 

[xyzzy]

1st of all, congrats on losing that weight in the first place, its not always an easy thing to do.

As for keeping it off, you have to be doing this for yourself and find out where you are getting the enjoyment out of. Looks like you liked the weight you took off because now its starting to come back and you are getting bad feelings from it.

So, enjoy the process of keeping off the weight. Enjoy the foods that you choose to eat to reach your goal, and if you start getting bored with your exercise routine then change it around or do something different, but do something you like.

We are all pretty selfish and theres nothing wrong with that; in fact, youll keep that weight off longer if you do it for youself and enjoy it, instead of trying to do it for others or because its a fad.

 

[Wolf in sheep's clothing]

Originally posted by Viroid
Why do you want to lose weight? You are probably doing it for the wrong reasons.

It does have to do with what goals you choose. You want to keep the weight off permenantly? Choose the right goal. Ask yourself what you WANT. And then ask yourslef what goal will help you accomplish what you want. Doing it for a girl didnt work the first time and its not going to work this time.

When I said I was doing to 'get a girl' I was over-simplifying, but you make a valid point. Once I reached the goal and got the girl, the reason to continue with my diet and exercise was gone. Actually, I got started on the diet when my doc told me I had high blood pressure. At the same time I reached my goal, I was re-tested and the high blood pressure (and the need for pills) was gone too - so my medical motivation was gone too.

 

[dualman7]

Can I ask exactly how you lost the weight? I was in the same situation as you basically, and wanted to lose about 20 pounds of fat. I do serious weight training 4 times per week, and doc ardio on my off days. My problem is that it's 4 months later, and on the scale I have actually gained 8 pounds. I look and feel great. For example when I started, I used 35 pound dumbells on the Dumbell Press, now I use the 60 pounders in each hand. Still though, I want to lose fat! I have gaine da bunch of muscle ontop of the fat I had, but I haven't really lost any fat. I basically wen't from a round ball to a firmer SQUARE< but still the same size as the ball. How do I lose weight? What am I doing wrong?

 

[Wolf in sheep's clothing]

If you do a search, you'll find my posts from last year. In them I say how I lost weight.

I stress the I because that is what worked for me. Your case, well that will be a completely different matter. Because of your weight training, your system is building muscle rather than burning fat. Your exercise/diet regime may well be more suited for bulking up where what you might want to do is go into a cutting phaze. I suggest you do some searching on what sort of diet you need for weight training - check out Diesel's two posts on bulking and cutting for starters (that dude really knows his stuff).

http://www.sosuave.com/vBulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18040

http://www.sosuave.com/vBulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18059