Need motivation to lose weight again

Kuzofruit

I've lost 50lbs before and almost reached my goal weight of 180 but gained it all back and some extra pounds on top of that. I was depressed due to my family and financial situation. I ate junk food and stopped exercising. It's been a couple of years since then. And now after walking/standing for a long period of time I get foot pain. My doctor advise me to lose weight to fix it and now I'm here. How do I get motivated to losing weight again?

RoseMarie713

I’m 200+ and by happy weight is 170. I’m trying a 1300 cal low carb high protein way of eating for the past month.

Lietchi

Kuzofruit wrote: »

I've lost 50lbs before and almost reached my goal weight of 180 but gained it all back and some extra pounds on top of that. I was depressed due to my family and financial situation. I ate junk food and stopped exercising. It's been a couple of years since then. And now after walking/standing for a long period of time I get foot pain. My doctor advise me to lose weight to fix it and now I'm here. How do I get motivated to losing weight again?

Is motivation really what you need, though?

I mean: yes, you need to want to lose weight. You need an internal drive, whether it's health reasons or other reasons.

But to lose weight, relying only on motivation is a poor strategy, IMHO.
Motivation is not constant: some days we'll be like "hell yeah, feeling great , I'm going to kick some *kitten* today", other days we'll be tired, stressed,...
Think of brushing your teeth, doing the laundry,... they're things we need to do, but I doubt many of us are motivated to do them. We do those things because we know they're necessary and out of habit.
So I would suggest tackling weight loss the same way: building on habits. And habits are easier to create gradually and when we're not choosing punitive strategies.

I don't know if you want to pursue calorie counting as a method, but if so, I would suggest starting by just logging your intake as it is for a week or so. And then choosing 1 or 2 small changes to reduce your calorie intake. It could be reducing soda intake, or replacing it with sugar free. It could be adding some vegetables to your dinner or some fruit to your breakfast. Or reducing the number of snacks you eat. Whatever seems appropriate for your situation when you look at your food diary.
Some goes for movement: you could aim for a 10 min walk each day, for example.
Any change that seems small and manageable. And once you've done that for a few weeks, you can build on that and make another change.
Avoid making big changes overnight or choosing unpleasant strategies such as eliminating your favorite foods, aiming for an overly aggressive weight loss rate or forcing yourself to do exercise you dislike.

I hope this helps, don't hesitate to ask questions if you have any

RoseMarie713 wrote: »

I’m 200+ and by happy weight is 170. I’m trying a 1300 cal low carb high protein way of eating for the past month.

This is exactly what I would qualify as a punitive, unpleasant strategy Both the low carb aspect as well as the low calorie count. But great if it works for you. The trick is to find something that works for us as individuals, since we're all different.