3 month meh

swiftyl

Hi all
Does anyone else struggle with 3 month boredom factor? This has been a regular issue for me and weight loss. I get into a new 'thing' and the first couple of months are great. Logging, new foods, exercise etc and then once it becomes routine i get a bit fed up with it. It's the excitement of something new that keeps me interested. Would love to hear how others stay motivated when you've got 100 ish pounds to lose. (I've tried changing exercise and food but just don't have that buzz anymore). Cheers m'dears.

bdbjswbrb

I struggle with the same thing. I've tried switching up the food patterns and exercise, but I just can't my enthusiasm back. Planning and thinking about food starts to get really boring.

tinkerbellang83

Do you maybe change too many things at one time?

I used to yo-yo constantly because I'd try radically overhauling my diet and doing ridiculous amounts of cardio (I've been using MFP since 2011).

I've been logging most days for almost 3 years now, the difference this time around is that I haven't radically overhauled anything (although if you looked at my diet now compared to back in 2015 you'd think I had), I've just made small changes and they've become the new habits, then motivation isn't really required, just habit and discipline. It's just something I do daily like brushing my teeth or having a shower.

So I made changes to start with like switching from using oil in cooking to the 1 cal sprays and over time the changes have improved my nutrition. I take regular maintenance breaks and logging breaks.

I also found it useful to set myself non-scale goals on a weekly or monthly basis usually nutrition, wellbeing or fitness orientated goals like:

• getting adequate sleep
• reaching a certain protein goal (for example 100g per day)
• step counts
• getting yoga or strength training done
• increasing fibre

Other things that have kept me motivated have been finding new activities I enjoy, participating in challenges both here on MFP and on apps like StepBet.

pinuplove

This is where developing new habits helps immensely. Do you get bored with brushing your teeth? Washing your hair? Daily grooming? Don't think of it as a temporary thing. Yes, your weight loss phase will eventually end, but maintenance really isn't all that different, if you want to prevent regain.

tinkerbellang83

pinuplove wrote: »

This is where developing new habits helps immensely. Do you get bored with brushing your teeth? Washing your hair? Daily grooming? Don't think of it as a temporary thing. Yes, your weight loss phase will eventually end, but maintenance really isn't all that different, if you want to prevent regain.

Agreed. Maintenance is a lot harder than the weight loss part for a lot of people, because they don't build habits in the first place!

Diatonic12

No. I really don't get bored with any of this. Motivation and willpower will only carry you so far, I rely on momentum. I've eaten it all back in the past. The memory of rebound weight gain with friends, painful knees, joints, feet, whacked out glucose regulation and all of the rest of it. I remember why I started in the first place and I keep tooling long. There's no such thing as the Finish Line.

lapesadilla

I absolutely do this too. I'm currently working on losing the same 30 pounds I lost in 2017, and 2015, and 2011... I don't do well with incremental changes, I have to treat weight loss like a project I'm working on and really focus on it - and I enjoy doing that, even obsess over it a little. So that lasts around 3 months, then I take a break to travel or lose focus due to some life events and a year or 2 passes and I'm right back where I started. It's disappointing and like you I'm not really sure what to do about it.

swiftyl

lapesadilla wrote: »

I absolutely do this too. I'm currently working on losing the same 30 pounds I lost in 2017, and 2015, and 2011... I don't do well with incremental changes, I have to treat weight loss like a project I'm working on and really focus on it - and I enjoy doing that, even obsess over it a little. So that lasts around 3 months, then I take a break to travel or lose focus due to some life events and a year or 2 passes and I'm right back where I started. It's disappointing and like you I'm not really sure what to do about it.

This is exactly what I was trying to explain, it's like a project. Once I've learnt 'how' to do it I just get bored. I'm lucky at the moment that I'm still plugging away at it and not too tempted to go off the rails, just bored by the lack of 'interesting' or learnable things.

Terytha

I don't really understand that. It's not about being bored, it's about necessity. I brush my teeth not because its interesting and exciting, but because I have to and I always have. I do laundry because I need clean clothes, not because it's fun and new.

I log my food and plan what I eat because I need to.

You have a mindset problem, where you seem to be thinking of weight loss as this exciting new thing you learned how to do, but its actually just doing all the same stuff (cooking, eating, moving around) with one more step added (logging.)

If exercise bores you, find a non-boring thing to learn like sports or dance. The gym isn't the only place to move around.