When I ask a question who answers me?

Answers
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I'm new to groups but lookig for encouragement and motivation. So I was reading some of what was in the discussions. What kind of motivation does this group provide? I've never done group discussions so please bear with me as I learn how this all works. Thanks.
Maggie in PA.
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While there are groups too, you posted in the community boards, so you're just talking to other MFP users. Most of us are looking to lose weight or have lost weight and are looking to maintain. A minority uses MFP to try and gain weight.
I find the community helpful just to 'keep my head in the game' - I've lost 75lbs, regained just about 10lbs which I'm trying to lose now. It's the only place I have to talk about weight management on a regular basis.
There's a bit of everything here - Americans and Europeans mostly, all kinds of reasons for wanting to lose weight and all kinds of ways of eating.
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Just other users. So no one paid to engage, and no one with any obligation to, just other members who care about their own journeys and fitness and who like to engage with other people. So it's definitely a "you get back what you put in" thing, a lot of people seem to think that this is a resource where they can treat it a bit like Google and just get the answers they need, but your best interactions will come from actively engaging.
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I'm not sure that the Community here provides "motivation", but I'm a motivation skeptic in general. I feel like motivation is a solo sport: It needs to come from within.
That said, there are things here that can help, maybe. For me, reading some of the threads about other people succeeding helped keep my spirits up while I was losing weight. These are a couple of examples that helped me:
That photo one's been going on so long that some of the older photos have disappeared from the internet, but you can skip ahead to more recent pages and find some.
I'm in year 9+ of maintaining a 50-pound weight loss now, but earlier on, I got a lot of good ideas from others who were successful at goals like mine, and further along the path. I don't think there are any universally perfect tactics, but other people can give us things to consider and try, see if those tactics work for us.
I find this Community very different from other social media type sites where I've been active: Overwhelmingly, I think most people here truly and sincerely want to help others succeed. There are a huge variety of communication styles from tough love to warm'n'fuzzy, so not all posts will suit everyone, but I think folks' hearts are the right place. Also, unlike some other sites, the staff and moderators tend to nip trolls and scammers in the bud, as long as we report the baddies.
I've also found this Community, and the MFP editorial content (like Blogs) more level-headed and science-based than is generally true on the internet at large, where marketing and mythology abound, so can be hard to sort out.
Just my opinions, though.
I endorse that idea of getting involved and participating here as helpful. I'd also suggest reading some of the posts in the "Most Helpful Post" part of Community topic areas. There's good stuff in there, IME.
Best wishes!
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