The number one killer of ALL diets - Complacency

Bshmerlie

I've lost motivation. I'm not talking about the motivation to stay fit or watch what I eat...I'm still doing that. I'm talking about that "little" extra that pushes you to continue to lose weight. I've lost 76 pounds since last April and my goal was to lose 100 pounds in a year, but I've gotten to the point where I'm feeling that's good enough. Sure I'd still like to lose another 30 pounds at least but at this point those are just vanity pounds. I feel fine with how my clothes are fitting and I'm a lot more active then I've been in the last 15 years. I'm 45 years old and I'm never been one to obsess with appearance anyways. I've just been stagnating over the last two months. By absolutely NO means do I think I'm on a plateau. I haven't been weighing my food diligently but I tend to eat a lot of the same foods and I know exactly how to keep track of my calories without a scale.
I still weigh myself everyday and over the last 9 months I've trained myself how to eat proper size meals so there is No risk of gaining the weight back. I'm just finding it hard to get back that drive to start losing again. Has anyone else reached the point where you feel fine with where you're at even though you didn't reach your ultimate goal? Did you stop or keep going? I want to keep going or do I? I'm a firm believer that you'll finally lose weight when you really want to. I'm not sure I really want to at this point. Which kind of sucks. It's a very fine line of losing weight or maintaining and I'm pretty much just standing there on that line. I need a push.

jeepinshawn

Bshmerlie wrote: »

I've lost motivation. I'm not talking about the motivation to stay fit or watch what I eat...I'm still doing that. I'm talking about that "little" extra that pushes you to continue to lose weight. I've lost 76 pounds since last April and my goal was to lose 100 pounds in a year, but I've gotten to the point where I'm feeling that's good enough. Sure I'd still like to lose another 30 pounds at least but at this point those are just vanity pounds. I feel fine with how my clothes are fitting and I'm a lot more active then I've been in the last 15 years. I'm 45 years old and I'm never been one to obsess with appearance anyways. I've just been stagnating over the last two months. By absolutely NO means do I think I'm on a plateau. I haven't been weighing my food diligently but I tend to eat a lot of the same foods and I know exactly how to keep track of my calories without a scale.
I still weigh myself everyday and over the last 9 months I've trained myself how to eat proper size meals so there is No risk of gaining the weight back. I'm just finding it hard to get back that drive to start losing again. Has anyone else reached the point where you feel fine with where you're at even though you didn't reach your ultimate goal? Did you stop or keep going? I want to keep going or do I? I'm a firm believer that you'll finally lose weight when you really want to. I'm not sure I really want to at this point. Which kind of sucks. It's a very fine line of losing weight or maintaining and I'm pretty much just standing there on that line. I need a push.

It is a life long journey, feel free to pause and go onto maintenance. Losing 70lbs is no small feat, but you are pretty close to your goal, if it were me I'd gut it out and try to reach the goal.

tiffkittyw

Try booking a vacation for motivation. My husband told me this weekend he likes how I look at my current weight (5'4" 131 lbs) I can barely squeeze into a pair of size 8 jeans (still a little tight for all day wear). I think that at first like you I thought I'm good, I can eat more. This week I've already logged a daily average of 1,600 calories a day when my TDEE is only 1,800-2,000 a day. I then decided to book a trip to Mexico for our anniversary. Thinking about wearing a bathing suit every day should be enough to motivate me to stay with reaching my goal weight.

kshama2001

This is the third time I've hit the point where I want to lose 30 more pounds. The other two times I maintained for a while and bounced back up. However, I stopped logging and weighing regularly. Am interested to see what others have to say on this topic.

vingogly

I lost 50+ pounds a couple of years ago, then got tired of weighing myself and recording my foods. Some of it crept back on, but I was happy that I had internalized new behaviors that kept me pretty much on a plateau for 2+ years though I hadn't lost everything I wanted to.

Last summer, I decided to complete the process, but since then I'm recording everything without fail, and I plan to do something I've never done before: gradually up the calories when I go into maintenance until I reach a maintenance weight, and continue logging everything until it becomes second nature (or for the rest of my life, whichever comes first). I might be one of those people who need to be eternally vigilant -- and I'm OK with that.

Shanel0916

I completely understand OP I lost about 22lbs between Sept. and Dec 2015 and now I'm just here trying to find the feeling of motivation to lose the other 9 pounds and reach goal. I'm not satisfied with my body completely though but some of the things may never change even with weight loss unfortunately, I am satisfied with my size in clothing though.

stealthq

Keep in mind, I've never been clinically overweight and I'm short. So my perspective is skewed.

30 lbs seems like an awful lot to keep in vanity weight (unless goal is borderline underweight). I lost about 25 lbs to get slightly below mid-BMI and it made a world of difference to the way I feel. I would not want to carry more than that as extra weight if I knew that all I lacked was a little extra discipline.

That said, after losing steadily for a long time, I'm all in favor of taking a break if you feel it would help. I just would not do it thinking 'this is it, I'm done'.

missblondi2u

I've had similar thoughts, so I understand. I've lost 50 of the 75 pounds I set out to lose, and I feel great. I no longer have the kind of urgency to lose weight that I felt when I started, so I've definitely let things slip a little with weighing/logging. I'm still eating at a deficit most of the time because I'm still losing, but I'm just not putting in that extra effort so much these days.

I'm not at the point where I want to stop yet, but I'm starting to feel that not getting all the way down to my "goal" might not be a terrible thing. I've realized that I'm very comfortable with 1500-1800 calories a day, so I think I may just lose to the point where my maintenance is within that range.

tomteboda

Our goal weights are rather arbitrary. I think it's fine to say "I like where I am now"

callsitlikeiseeit

ive lost 80. have 30 more to go.

im much more relaxed now than i was. im (generally) happy with how i look, even though these last 30 are far from 'vanity' pounds lol

if i only lose a pound or two a month.... im okay with that. its not a race. im much more interested in living life, and having a good time and being HAPPY than obsessing with a number

Rachel0778

tomteboda wrote: »

Our goal weights are rather arbitrary. I think it's fine to say "I like where I am now"

+1. Nothing wrong with revisiting your lower goal weight at a later date if your opinion changes.

lemurcat12

Bshmerlie wrote: »

I'm just finding it hard to get back that drive to start losing again. Has anyone else reached the point where you feel fine with where you're at even though you didn't reach your ultimate goal? Did you stop or keep going? I want to keep going or do I? I'm a firm believer that you'll finally lose weight when you really want to.

Good topic.

I had this same experience last year. My original goal was 120, which I adjusted to 118 due to BF% estimates, but once I got down to 125 (or bouncing between 125 and 130) I stopped caring so much. I fit into my smallest clothes from when I was 120 before, and just kept giving myself excuses to eat at maintenance. Finally I decided that pretending to keep a deficit and not was driving me crazy, and just doing maintenance for a while was a needed break (I was losing for 13 months, lost 95 lbs). So I did, and it's been a year, and I THINK I'm ready to start losing again, with that as a secondary goal to my fitness/training ones, however.

What worked for me was thinking that I'm not done, I haven't abandoned my goal, but I'm taking a break or focusing on something else for a while. Those other focuses were (1) see if I can maintain without logging (I pretty much can so long as I am mindful and keep weighing myself), (2) continue to try to get more fit through weights and exercise, even if not losing weight, and (3) set other goals.

I actually think this kind of approach may work better for me -- the idea that I'm always working on fitness in some way -- then the idea I was done that I had last time I lost lots of weight. (I did maintain for a while then too, about 5 years.)

jemhh

It's fine to take a break, even a long term one. My only suggestion is to keep working on other fitness goals so you don't back slide a bunch.

I lost 52 lbs. in 2014, getting me 4 lbs. inside the healthy range for my height. In 2015 I bobbed up and down 5 lbs. or so, as I chose to focus more on strength but did a few short cuts when my weight went up a bit. At the end of 2015 I felt refreshed and ready to really finish off my weight loss so here I am in 2016, working down another 14 lbs.

Bshmerlie

missblondi2u wrote: »

I've had similar thoughts, so I understand. I've lost 50 of the 75 pounds I set out to lose, and I feel great. I no longer have the kind of urgency to lose weight that I felt when I started, so I've definitely let things slip a little with weighing/logging.

Yes, this is pretty much where I'm at right now. Although I have absolutely NO worry about regaining the weight back because I never did anything drastic to lose the weight in the first place. Plus I still weigh myself everyday so there is no risk that it could secretly come back. I'm thinking maybe what TiffkittyW said about being in a bathing suit will bring back some motivation. I do have a couple of beach vacations planned for this summer plus a cruise so maybe that will give me a push. Or maybe as I get closer to my 1 year weight loss anniversary I'll get that competitive feel again.

blues4miles

kshama2001 wrote: »

This is the third time I've hit the point where I want to lose 30 more pounds. The other two times I maintained for a while and bounced back up. However, I stopped logging and weighing regularly. Am interested to see what others have to say on this topic.

This is what worries me the most when I get to maintenance. I never made it to goal but lost weight and then got complacent. Sure I knew how to do everything. Stopped logging. Boom weight came back on. Not quick enough that I panicked and did something about it. Now I have to lose that weight all over again. Though I by no means find losing weight easy, I am very scared of maintenance or of the long term.

victoria_1024

I could've written this! I've lost 80 lbs and I'm five lbs past my original goal. I maintained for a couple months and decided I wasn't happy yet so now I'm 5 lbs away from my new goal but I reeeally struggle with caring! I'm still tracking and some days I'm out of calories and I'm like ehh I can eat a cookie. Or 3. I'm working out an hour every day and I know I've made changes in my body because of focusing on fitness but definitely lacking motivation for diet.

I have events coming up like being in my sisters wedding and Disney world that I try to use as motivation. I also joined some Facebook healthy eating challenges to keep me engaged.

lucyee

This definitely happened to me last year. I lost about 40lbs over six months, had 20lbs to go to get to GW and just kind of lost momentum. I was starting to feel mentally wearied from always considering every mouthful, and like I was sacrificing my life a bit by not going to the pub with friends, not wanting to go out for dinner very often etc... So I took a break for about six months, ate around maintainance, kept up exercising, and got my social life back a bit. After Christmas I finally felt ready to crack on and lose the last 20lbs (actually 10lbs now - 10 already lost ) and I'm feeling so much better and more motivated for taking the extended break!

nordlead2005

I hit that point at 185lb with a goal of 175lb (started at 220lb, so 35lb at that point). I'm now 172lb and hitting that point again (my new goal is to get to solid 6-pack abs, which should be only a few lb away at this point).

Take a diet break for 1-2 weeks and then get back to it. A diet break gives you both a physiological and psychological break from dieting. This is a good read on it - http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html/ - they even found that with planned diet breaks that the dieters had no problem getting back on the diet.

Even then, when you do get back to it it doesn't have to be a race to the finish. My current "goal" is 1lb/week, but I typically average closer to 0.5-0.8lb/week which is fine by me at this point.

sanfromny

On the head with this!! I started at 220lbs just wanting to be under 200, then under 190 so on and so forth. I actually got to 150 (had 15lbs to go to be in healthy range) then I just got complacent. Everyone kept telling me how good I looked and that was enough for me. But I put on almost 20lbs in less than 2 years so I'm back and although my first goal is to get back to 150 (11lbs to go now) My ultimate goal is to finally hit the healthy range. I plan to do that before the holidays hit again, hopefully wayyyyyy before that!

starwhisperer6

In the last two weeks 4 or 5 people close to me have done then "ok that is enough don't loss anymore" thing and I let it worry me that I should stop. But I am 6 pounds away from my goal (which is still in healthy weight for my height not underweight) so I am reminding myself that they are just either not use to seeing me this weight, or they are jealous of my weight loss, so I am trying to make myself keep on pushing one. It does get hard to motivate when you are comfortable.

lorrpb

Certainly feel free to take a break or revisit at a later time or be happy with where you are. After losing 130 pounds I'm 20 from my goal. Weight loss is slower and I look so much better. I could "live with" how I look now. Then I see the remaining globs of fat and think I really would like to get rid of them if possible, so I'll keep going as long as I can.

chimaerandi

I maintained for a year, year and a half. I was planning a wedding and that took up a lot of my time, and I didn't want to fight with it at the time, and I had been losing for two years, I'd lost 30% of my original body weight, I mean, it was okay to cut myself some slack and enjoy myself. I only gained 5 pounds, and only because of the holidays, and I've already lost it and then some, starting in January toward loss again. I only have 10 pounds left to my original goal! But when you get so close, it's slow going, and I don't regret at all taking that break to let myself chill and just enjoy all the progress I'd made.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying your new body as it is. Take a break! Eat at maintenance, enjoy yourself, regroup. You'll know when you're ready to go at it again!

Bshmerlie

I've actually had a real easy time maintaining over the last couple of months and I'm very comfortable with how much I'm eating. Maybe I'll take up some exercise program to burn some extra calories and lose a little bit that way. Even if I only lose a couple of pounds a month by Xmas time I'd be down by another 20 pounds. Maybe working on building muscle and getting into better shape will help motivate me.

crosbylee

I needed to find this thread and have bookmarked it. I started at 219 and have been bouncing around the 200 mark, sometimes under for a bit,then right back to 200. I have managed to hold it there, but I have a long way to go for my goal. I have the complacent bit down to a science right now and am having a hard time motivating myself back into gear. I am starting to come around a bit, but it is tough. I hope to lose at least another 20 this year. If it takes losing just 20 a year, then so be it. I knew this would not be a fast loss, it will take me years to get where I want to be.

SideSteel

only linking this because it may be relevant:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/SideSteel/view/maintenance-mindset-and-motivation-805526

samgamgee

This is so me. About 24 lbs down with 16 to go, and there's this little voice going 'you look fine, you're well into a healthy BMI, you can run for 40 minutes, it's not worth the effort of losing more'. I've been doing this for almost a year and logging is becoming a chore! I need to remind myself that I might look 'fine', but I have the potential to look even better. Do I want to wear summer dresses that I haven't worn for seven years? Yes, and I want to wear them this summer. I need to focus on that.

blues4miles

SideSteel wrote: »

only linking this because it may be relevant:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/SideSteel/view/maintenance-mindset-and-motivation-805526

Good timing, thanks for posting.

tulips_and_tea

Bshmerlie wrote: »

I've actually had a real easy time maintaining over the last couple of months and I'm very comfortable with how much I'm eating. Maybe I'll take up some exercise program to burn some extra calories and lose a little bit that way. Even if I only lose a couple of pounds a month by Xmas time I'd be down by another 20 pounds. Maybe working on building muscle and getting into better shape will help motivate me.

This was going to be my suggestion as well. I think it's time to take your main focus off of the number on the scale and onto what your body is capable of now. Find new activities and set fitness related goals. That is the #1 thing that helps me with maintenance. Good luck! Be adventurous and think outside the box.

mjffey

Rachel0778 wrote: »

tomteboda wrote: »

Our goal weights are rather arbitrary. I think it's fine to say "I like where I am now"

+1. Nothing wrong with revisiting your lower goal weight at a later date if your opinion changes.

Make it +2. ☺

ragenhay1

I am only half way to my goal but I have always said my goal is flexible. It all depends on how I feel when I get there. I'd like to be 140-160 but I'm not set on a specific weight just a healthy range. The deciding factor will be how I feel and how my clothes fit. I've always felt focusing on a number is not the best way to go about it.

Need2Exerc1se

tomteboda wrote: »

Our goal weights are rather arbitrary. I think it's fine to say "I like where I am now"

I want to agree with this. And I do agree mostly. But, my road to being overweight comes from a lifetime of gradually liking myself at a higher weight. And it's what has kept me 10 lbs from my goal. Being really happy with yourself is a good thing but it can also hider progress.