Dear Kayla,
Hi! I have been doing intermittent fasting since October 2020. I was able to shed weight from 182 to 145. I’m having a cheat week, then cheat months. Now I’ve gained back 30+ pounds. Right now, I weigh 170. I tried doing IF again, but I’m having a difficult time. It’s not the same as before. Can you enlighten me, please, on what to do? I really need your help.
Signed,
bgc
Dear bgc,
First of all, I’m sorry you’re having a tough time right now. Fear not! You can turn this thing around. Every time you have a setback, look at it as an opportunity to learn. If you do that, and you take action to implement what you learned, you’ll find that your plan and results going forward will improve. Obstacles are a part of every weight loss journey, and you’re going to face more down the line.
That was my motivation for writing Overcoming Weight Loss Obstacles. I wanted to give practical advice for all the things difficult times on the weight loss journey, like when you find you’re regaining after you’ve already had some success. (This happened to me back in 2015.) In Appendix B of the book, I take you through the process of running a postmortem, which is what you do after realize your plan died. So let’s let’s go to the scene of the crime.
Take yourself back to when the weight gain began. Hopefully you have been tracking your weight consistently, and you can pinpoint the time. It’s a lot easier to understand exactly what happened and why, when you have records to look at. Memory alone is unreliable. What was going on in your life when the weight gain began? Were there any major changes or stresses? These are times when people are most likely to fall out of new good habits and back into old bad ones.
You didn’t specify precisely what is difficult this go round. Is it that you’re being consistent, but not losing? Go back again to exactly what you were doing. Something has changed. What worked back in October 2020 will work now.
I’m going to take a stab in the dark as to the real trouble you’re having. My bet is that you’re in a hurry. You feel behind. You’re trying to rush the process. And in so doing, you’re doing unsustainable things, which makes consistency harder. Or maybe you’re slowly losing, but you feel that’s not good enough.
You mentioned that you have been having “cheat weeks” then “cheat months.” It sounds to me like your plan was too difficult, and you didn’t enjoy it. Your plan needs to be one that you can see yourself doing for the rest of your life. If it’s not, that means it’s too hard. Here are the next steps I suggest you take:
- Write down your why.
- Write down your plan on a post-it note.
- Track your weight daily and watch how your 7-day average trends over 6 weeks of time.
- Tweak your plan until you find the sweet spot, where your weight is trending down, and you’re feeling great and not restricted.
Remember! You were having success, and as they say, success leaves clues. Learn everything you can from your past success, and everything you can about what went wrong. Use all that knowledge as you build your plan going forward. I wish you the best on your weight loss journey!
Sincerely,
Kayla