Where do you get your motivation from?

kayva91011

I don't know what it is but I can't seem to find the motivation to stick to a diet. I HATE how overweight I am and feel totally and completely unattractive but it seems to not be enough.

For instance I ate decent all day at work... Came home and binge ate on a 1/2 carton of ice cream. -.-

I work in Labor and Delivery, 12 hour shifts and with 2 kids and I just feel so emotionally/physically drained so I turn to food.

Where do you find the motivation???

I see all these people who lose all this weight and it's so awesome! Why can't I find that?

DeguelloTex

It sounds like maybe it just isn't important enough to you right now.

Liftng4Lis

Try pre-logging your day's and take each one as it comes. Don't look at this as a diet, look at it as a lifestyle change.

lemonlionheart

So you want to be thinner, but you don't want to put in the hard work. Welcome to the club, haha :P

Might I suggest that rather than focusing on the long-term goal, maybe just take it one day at a time? Figure out a way you can reward yourself for reaching small milestones, for example if If I log under my calorie goal every day for a week, I can go see a movie or something. Even just today, make it your goal that you will just last one day staying at your goal. Then focus on tomorrow when it comes. You can take reassurance in the fact that if you are doing it right (ie logging accurately and consistently with a food scale) it WILL work. Eventually the results will be reward and motivation enough to keep going.

I'm not sure where you're at with your logging accuracy, but if you've just started you might want to read some of the linked posts about logging and using a food scale at the top of the forum (here). A lot of people lose motivation in at the beginning simply because they are logging wrong, and give up because it's 'not working' when in fact they just need to make a few adjustments.

ETA: +1 to Lis' suggestion of pre-logging. Maybe when you do this you can work a serve of ice cream into your daily calories. Many of us have ice cream, chocolate or cake every day and still lose.

460mustang

I guess I'm lucky living alone equals less temptations. I still have ice cream, potato chips, deserts, soda and other high calorie stuff in my house, but I choose to limit my intake of those foods so it fits into my calorie budget. I chose to eat more protein, and low calorie carbs. You have to do some research and find low cal foods that you like and will fill you up, or find some low cal snacks. I liked sugar and that was my main weight gain problem. So I cut back on my sugar intake and don't crave it anymore. It take a few weeks, one thing I did was buy some 85% cacao chocolate and when I got a sugar grave I would eat some 85% chocolate.

Kalikel

When you're ready to lose, you won't eat a bunch of ice cream, because you'll want to lose more than you want to pig out. You'll be like, "Yeah, that ice cream would taste good, but I don't want those calories. I want to lose weight." Until you get to that point, stop kidding yourself and beating yourself up for failing to do something you didn't really want to do, anyway.

"I want to be thin" is very different than "I want to do the hard work of losing weight."

When you're ready to do it, nothing will stop you! So just wait for that.

mitchknowles8

i get my motivation from being constantly doubted by everyone, especially females doubting my ability in a successful relationship, i just shove that stuff down my throat constantly to meet my calorie intake, when i loose motivation i just think of the girls and other people in my life who constantly doubt me, than i shove more quality food down my mouth through a basic mind set of everyone doubts me.

OldAssDude

I can tell you what I did to get motivated.

I am a 57 year old male, 5 ft. 9 in., and weighed 225 pounds.

About 6 months ago or so, I got an activity tracker. I thought it was just a gimmick at first, but it turned out to be the best thing (IMO) for being more active and losing weight.

I get my 10,000 steps in per day, and I scan my food in MFP. I set it to lose 1 pound a week, and that is exactly what I have been loosing. I am down to about 196 pound (29 pounds lighter) now, so I'm about half way to my goal of 170 pounds. I also bought a bicycle, and ride anywhere between 5 and 10 miles at least 3 times a week. It automatically does all the math for me so all I have to do is log my food, and stay below my calories remaining.

If I want to eat some pizza or a cheese steak, I walk a couple miles, or ride my bike 5 miles. It is so easy, I don't know why everyone does not do it.

Hope this helps.

catgurl_reeree

I find my motivation comes from a fear of getting ill in the future, like diabetes, cancer, heart attack etc. So I'm doing my best to eat mostly healthy foods, exercise, and catch early sleep that, and my fiance is coming over from Australia in like 3 months, so I wanna nock his socks off :P

bpetrosky

kayva91011 wrote: »

I don't know what it is but I can't seem to find the motivation to stick to a diet. I HATE how overweight I am and feel totally and completely unattractive but it seems to not be enough.

For instance I ate decent all day at work... Came home and binge ate on a 1/2 carton of ice cream. -.-

I work in Labor and Delivery, 12 hour shifts and with 2 kids and I just feel so emotionally/physically drained so I turn to food.

Where do you find the motivation???

I see all these people who lose all this weight and it's so awesome! Why can't I find that?

Are you restricting yourself too much? One big predictor of someone giving up on a weight loss plan is going into it with an all-or-nothing mindset (i.e. "I will eat to this plan exactly, and if I mess up it's all over"). Adding unnecessarily strict restrictions in amount or types of food makes the "mess up" event highly likely.

Take a moment and think carefully how you approach it. If your weight loss goal is too aggressive for your stats, you are probably giving yourself too few calories/day. You may be able to relax your target so you have room for a reasonable serving of ice cream or some other treat from time to time.

I hope this helps you move forward. Best of luck.

Jmgkamp

I don't know that I ever got motivated until I was a couple of months into this. Originally I just took the approach that I could eat whatever I wanted, as long as I didn't exceed my MFP calorie limit.

My approach hasn't changed all that much. But I can tell you this - seeing the changes got me there and has been what's keeping me motivated. I'm down 45+ pounds, three sizes, and I have no desire to go back to where I was when I started.

If you want ice cream just plan for it. I find that for me, I'd rather forego breakfast and lunch so that I can eat when I get home and at night, those are my hungrier times.

Oh yes, and I'm NOT on a diet. I've just changed the way that I eat.

heidipat

I found if I have a tub of ice cream I will eat it so I buy the ice cream sandwiches because then I will only eat one. When it comes to chips I buy a bag of chips and zip lock bags when I get home I portion the chips out. My husband and daughter do laugh at me but if you are a mindless eater this helps. I like to also log my meals at the beginning of the day too it helps me realize for this I need to give up that. Hope this helps you just remember we all have been there and struggled it helps if you can find someone to encourage you even with my family laughing they still help me count stuff out.

SLLRunner

DeguelloTex wrote: »

It sounds like maybe it just isn't important enough to you right now.

Weight loss has to be a top priority. As an overweight, sometimes obese, individual my entire life, I learned in my 40's how important weight loss was. I forgot this for awhile and gained some weight back, then started using the MFP tools. Now, weight management is my top priority every single day.

Liftng4Lis wrote: »

Try pre-logging your day's and take each one as it comes. Don't look at this as a diet, look at it as a lifestyle change.

I log every day, and most weekdays I log ahead. I plan my meals, but I am flexible enough to where I can change stuff out. I work hard to stay within my weekly calories, which means I will eat under some days, and eat over other days. But, mostly, I plan this all out.

My motivation to maintain my weight is because I no longer ache and hurt carrying around 44 extra pounds. I can breathe and move, and my running has improved 100%!

Plus, I my clothes feel comfy and I look fantastic!

kayva91011

catgurl_reeree wrote: »

I find my motivation comes from a fear of getting ill in the future, like diabetes, cancer, heart attack etc. So I'm doing my best to eat mostly healthy foods, exercise, and catch early sleep that, and my fiance is coming over from Australia in like 3 months, so I wanna nock his socks off :P

The fiancé thing made me laugh out loud. That's very good motivation!

ElizabethKalmbach

I'm not so much motivated as I'm a creature of habit. Therefore, I have (over several years) made myself a pile of better habits. I am in the habit of walking home from work (3.87 miles). I am in the habit of eating hummus and veggies for lunch. I am in the habit of pre-cooking healthy meals on weekends, so that I have good food ready on days when I feel like dropping when I get home. I am in the habit of keeping 80 calorie fruit bars in the house for when I want a treat. If I want ice cream, I have to put on pants and go out to an ice cream stand to get it. I am in the habit of buying whole grain foods instead of refined options.

And so on. I just changed one thing every couple weeks -and as each item got easy to the point that I no longer thought about it, I changed something else. It's a very long game, but it will last my whole life, instead of 3 months while I get down to a weight I want...

brendak76

Most of us think of motivation as a feeling - we are ready, energized, and strong to do whatever weight loss plan we decide. But these feelings and emotions will come and they will go. We will wake up and not feel ready or energized or strong. We will feel tired, teary, defeated and weak. Those feelings, too, will come and go.

For weight loss, it comes down to habits, I believe, and those small things you do every day no matter how you feel. Like showering and brushing your teeth for example. I do those whether or not I'm having a good day or bad day. Same with weighing my food, if it's a habit, I do it no matter how I feel.

It can also be too overwhelming to start to weigh and log everything at once. So start with the ice cream after work. I had to do this with peanut butter. I told myself I'm still going to eat it, but I will at least weigh and log it. Take it one food, one hour, and one day at a time.

Machka9

I'm a numbers person. I like keeping logs of distances cycled and walked. I work in statistics with databases. Graphs and charts fascinate me. Math interests me.

But I hadn't really thought about that when I started here, and I wasn't exactly sure where my motivation was coming from.

Then the other day, my husband pointed it out when he said, "It's all about the numbers for you". Yeah, he's right. I like logging my calories and watching the numbers get so high, but no higher. I like looking at the graphs and charts here. I like logging my exercise times. And I like watching the number on the scale go down. It's all about the numbers.


Not everyone is a numbers person ... you've got to figure out your own personal motivation. But that's what works for me.

Oh and a couple weeks ago, I achieved my goal to lose 15 kg. I'm taking a logging break right now, but in about 3 weeks, I'll start again and see if I can achieve a new goal. An even lower weight is within my grasp.

Machka9

Further to this ...

I've done some thinking about motivation in recent months while I've been here.

What is it that suddenly motivates me to lose weight ... and stick with it until I reach my goal? I've done this a few times over the past 6 or 8 years. Prior to that, I had no trouble at all keeping the weight off because my activity level was high enough, but then my activity level dropped and I put some weight on. But 3 times, I've called a halt to the gain and have lost weight (including this time). And I'd have to say, it is the number on the scale. I hit a certain number, and that's it ... I must lose. Then it is fascinating to me to track all the calories consumed and calories burned and watch that number go down.

One particularly fascinating little experiment for me was this ... I had to drink 500 ml of water before a CT scan about a month ago. So I got up in the morning, went to the toilet, and then weighed myself. Then I drank the 500 ml of water, return to the scale, and weighed myself again. I had gained 500 grams. I "knew" that would be the result ... I've read it, I've been told it ... but it was fascinating to me to see it happen.

I don't know, maybe being intrigued by that sort of thing is silly ... but it is how I am wired.

And it's the same thing for me when it comes to my sport. I'm a long distance cyclist, and I have done some incredibly long distance events. Ultimately, they all come down to numbers for me. When I'm cycling 400 km, I do mathematically calculations all along the way ... half is 200 km, a quarter is 100 km, an eighth is 50 km, a sixteenth is 25 km ... and I have little personal celebrations, "Yay!" every time I reach one of those mini-milestones.

I even do the same sort of thing when it comes to further education. I just wrote my final for my first course of four courses for the graduate certificate I'm working on. I'm 1/4 of the way through. A mini-milestone.

I think it comes down to something like this ... if I can ride 25 km and still feel OK, then I should be able to ride the next 25 km. I don't think of the 400 km as one ride, I just think ahead to the next 25 km. Same with my education. If I have finished one course, and my world didn't end ... then I should be able to do another one. And the same with weight loss ... if I have lost 5 kg, and it was a bit challenging but nothing too extreme, then I should be able to lose another 5 kg. And if I've lost 10 kg and I'm still functioning all right, then should be able to lose another 5 kg.

Anyway, all this probably explains why I work and have education in areas like database admin, accounting, engineering tech, etc. etc.

pollypocket1021

1. Intrinsic. For the first 4 months or so, I didn't tell anyone I was trying to lose weight or make healthy choices. I made a commitment to myself every day. I decided to do this January 1, and have logged in every day since then.
2. Extrinsic. Having really awesome friends on here that cheer me on (and whom I can cheer on as well) has been very important to me.

I'm OR, not L&D, but I get the difficulty of shift work and the fact that the bodily health of the staff is not a priority. But little changes add up. Once you get a few little successes under your belt, recommitting every day will be easier.

gadaniels72

I have a whiteboard on my fridge. It lists some of the things I want to be able to do when I'm at a more normal weight, things I am physically not capable of right now. I read it at least once a day.

Pre-logging my day's food also helps tremendously to keep me on track.

lemurcat12

Machka9 wrote: »

I'm a numbers person. I like keeping logs of distances cycled and walked. I work in statistics with databases. Graphs and charts fascinate me. Math interests me.

This is me too.

Another thing is that once you start losing that becomes the motivation and it becomes easier. Getting through the first few weeks before you have faith in the process or are seeing results -- which is where it sounds like OP is -- can be the toughest part.

I think focusing on process instead of scale goals can help you get past that stage, OP. Like decide why you are doing this (health, to look better, etc., but be as specific as possible). Then, at least this is what I did, write down some specific goals for one week, one month, 3 months, 6 months, so on. Some of them will be weight loss related if that helps you, but for me having other goals and imagining myself doing them helped too--fitness goals (I will run a 10K or "this week I will run 3 times") worked for me, but also stuff about "this week I will cook dinner and bring lunch every day" or "I will have veggies with every meal" or "I will stay below my calories every day."

And definitely work in non-food-related encouragements. I'm someone else who really feels good just checking off accomplishments or tracking and seeing improvements, but I also bought myself a pair of jeans in one, two, and three sizes down and being able to fit into those jeans was a reward (it was the one item that I decided was worth wasting money on clothes I wouldn't wear long). Other things like a massage or manicure or a new perfume or face cream or some such also can work.

I'm also an emotional eater, so figuring out how to respond to a hard day without it being food related also was something I had to think about and try things--going to workout often helped, but also listening to music while cooking is something I find enormously relaxing and a way to de-stress or fitting in some reading time or--I admit it--playing around on MFP.

Finally, I found the structure in place at MFP with the societal network/friends and some of the group challenges was helpful when I first started.

strong_curves

Looking at myself naked in the mirror. Now that I'm getting smaller, I'm looking better so that motivates me even more.

softblondechick

I have a hypodermic needle on my fridge and table.

I don't want to be diabetic.

professionalHobbyist

I have seen a few die from the fork.

You get treated differently as a fat person. Ask any single fat person.

At a point I wanted to get the life I always wanted before it was too late!

The time is now. My life is now.

Each day is a decision to eat right and exercise! So now I look at being 10-15 lbs from target back when it was so very far away.

If you grit your teeth and just do it. In a month you will have some success. In two months that much more, in three months a habit and a good feeling

Nobody can give you the desire

This is a save your own butt sort of thing.

Machka9

Another bit of motivation for me was a cycling jacket. It fit when we bought it about 4 years ago, but gradually over 4 years it got tighter and tighter until I couldn't do it up. So I figured we'd just buy me another one, and when I went online and looked at the prices, I had a small coughing fit. It had gone up quite a bit!! Or maybe we got the jackets on sale before.

So then I figured that losing weight was probably less expensive than buying a new jacket, especially when I had a perfectly good, hardly used one already.

About 6 weeks into the process, I could do the jacket up ... just. About 8 weeks in, it was wearable. And by about 10 weeks in, it became quite comfortable.

cavia

I spent my 30s sick, weak, in pain and steadily getting bigger. I hit bottom when the scale read 190lbs. Nothing else mattered but getting stronger and getting smaller. The stronger and smaller I got, the better I felt, not just physically but emotionally as well. I only focussed on the next pound and didn't look beyond that because the only pound I could ever tackle was the next one. I recognized that this was going to be a long-term endeavor. I work 12h shifts also OP in an ICU setting. It was like a switch went off for me and I just got down to doing the work. I never cancelled a pt session and I quickly stopped balking at weighing my food when the scale started moving downwards. It quickly turned into a new way of life. That was over two years and 48lbs ago.

flinx1241

Fear of dying young. Want to be around to see my boys grow into men. Everything else is gravy...

vixtris

kayva91011 wrote: »

I HATE how overweight I am and feel totally and completely unattractive but it seems to not be enough.

That should literally be your motivation right there. I also like looking through the success stories forum and seeing other peoples success, it makes me excited for when I get there lol. Setting reachable goals and obtaining them is motivating too!

drywall_painter

I am motivated by the way my clothes fit and and my desire to avoid depression that seems to get worse as I gain weight and I become uncomfortable with myself. I recently was injured and gained 10 pounds, I started getting down on myself, I even deleted my MFP account. I'm slowly pulling myself out of it now

tomatoey

I have less motivation to lose some weight that I regained than I did when I lost most of my weight.

I think the best antidote is good planning / prep - stocking up on foods that help, and avoiding foods that tempt you (at least for now).

My motivations are vanity and health, same as last time. But what kept me going last time was the fitness side. I used to get a lot out of it on multiple levels. But I can't do a lot of those activities, and the ones I can, not to the degree I did before.

So my progress is way more reliant on the diet side, which is the part I hate. I'm having to figure out some ways around it. I'm going to try reducing carbs and upping fats so I can feel fuller on fewer cals.

tomatoey

kayva91011 wrote: »

I don't know what it is but I can't seem to find the motivation to stick to a diet. I HATE how overweight I am and feel totally and completely unattractive but it seems to not be enough.

For instance I ate decent all day at work... Came home and binge ate on a 1/2 carton of ice cream. -.-

Also if this is going on, look at your diet again. Maybe you're having that much ice cream because you're not eating enough calories through the day. In which case, decrease your deficit to .5 lb / week. And look at your macronutrients again, see what ratios fill you up best.