Need Help Staying Motivated to Reach 100lbs Goal

DupreeTheTRex

It’s been about a year and two months since I decided to take control of my weight. I had one too many scares that sent me to the hospital that made me decide to try to lose weight again.

It’s not like I hadn’t had success in the past; I had lost weight before. The problem is it seemed impossibly hard to lose weight. I ate a heavily restricted diet, reduced my caloric intake to the extreme and spent hours daily at the gym. Despite all of that effort I would inevitably stop after a couple of months and regress into my old eating habits, gaining even more weight than I had before I started losing.

I took things much slower this time; my goals were much more realistic. I cut the gym out completely and instead took part in physical activities I enjoyed doing (i.e walks with my wife, labor intensive projects around the house). I also ate what I wanted, when I wanted, within moderation. To my surprise, I still lost weight. Turns out all I had to do was just monitor my calories in/out like I had done in the past without trying to take any shortcuts.

For a year and two months I’ve been losing weight steadily. I take monthly pictures of my progress, and have been slowly fitting into all of my old clothes. I haven’t cut my hair or shaved my beard either; something I decided to impose on myself until I hit my target weight.

The pictures aren’t as exciting anymore and I’ve run out of small clothes to try on. My hair is becoming to get on my nerves and I just want to cut it all off. I’m having trouble staying motivated; my losses aren’t bringing me the joy they used to.

Just wondering what sort of tips anyone might have for staying motivated?

My next goal after hitting my target weight is to get used to eating at maintenance. I’ll be monitoring my caloric intake and modifying my total daily calories until I hit an equilibrium. I plan to do this for another year before I aim to shed another 10 lbs.

88olds

Motivation is overrated in the long run. It’s too fleeting to sustain a long term effort. Sometimes we just have to get by without it.

Can you branch out into something new? I lost 100 lbs and I’ve kept it off for years. I’ve been into weight training, Pilates, yoga, tennis, Pickleball, mountain biking and golf. Guitar lessons and even singing lesson. I don’t think I would have done any of that stuff without weight loss. Fact is, as I was getting bigger, my life was getting smaller. I found WL to be liberating. If you aren’t getting the same lift from the scale victories or pics, go out and find some new non scale victories. They are out there waiting.

BTW, since you’re wearing a suit in your avatar pic, I found dress up to be loads of fun. I went from dressing like an unmade bed to the best dressed guy in the office. All thanks to Harry the tailor who taught me how to dress. Retired now I sometimes miss wearing suits. Hard to believe.

Congrats on the loss. Good work. Go have some fun.

annliz23

I have been using weights now (dumbells) to try to keep me motivated.