Complete Lack of Motivation.

KharismaticKayteh

Hello, everyone! My name's Kat, and I've had an account here with MFP for... geez, a couple years now, I think. It's good to see you here!

When I joined this site, I joined because I was working a somewhat stressful job, battling depression, and holding myself down by staying in a miserable, awful relationship. I think my weight before I started my job was around... maybe 132, and I noticed my weight had jumped to 145 in a short amount of time. Looking back on it, that's really not devastating. I shouldn't have let it upset me. Shortly after starting here, I had some ups and downs - I think the heaviest I got was 155 or 160 (my uncertainty shows you how little I actually care about the numbers now).

I was eating pescatarian, I was counting calories, and I was working out every single day - might have just been working out on the Wii Fit, but don't hate - I got BUSY with it. I saw some change in my weight, and I was always grateful when I did. Sometimes I randomly gained a couple pounds, unsure of what I did to contribute to it, but I didn't usually get too upset about it. After seeing a random spike in my weight, I would just continue working out because... well, for one, I enjoyed it, and for two, being angry and huffing about a couple extra pounds is much less likely to burn them than working through the slump and getting my *kitten* in gear was.

Reaching my goals required making some serious life changes too. My relationship had lasted nearly four and a half years, about a quarter of my short life, and it was time to call it off and find something that would make me happier. Just by leaving that relationship and spending my time around people who actually cared about me and not spending every single day angry and arguing with someone, I dropped from 150 pounds straight down to 130. I don't know exactly how quickly it happened, but it was a very quick, very sudden change. It also made me very happy, because it was simultaneously the easiest way to lose that weight, but also seemed like the healthiest. I know it doesn't sound healthy, but if you only knew what that relationship was like, you'd agree that cutting ties was much healthier than just working my body hard every day.

All was great. Some of it still is great. I'm now in a phenomenal relationship with a wonderful man, with whom we'll be celebrating our first anniversary this Saturday. I'm more independent, more or less. I'm technically unemployed and just do housewifey work, though I also make some money on my own time by selling photography. I'm also very fortunate because there's no qualms over me being unemployed - I work around the house, my boyfriend appreciates it very much, and he couldn't be happier to be our breadwinner. I genuinely enjoy the cooking and cleaning and babysitting the kitties.

However, I stopped working out every day. I stopped meditating daily. I stopped doing yoga daily. What happened? I don't really know. I think my schedule just changed - I went from staying at home every day to leaving to see this guy every day, and so many other life changes happened in a brief amount of time, that I just stopped doing those things. I've gained back a lot of my weight - I maybe weigh around 145 now - and honestly, I'm happy with my weight. I'm as happy at 145 now as I was at 130 or 125 a year ago. I'm at the point now that I believe I am *damn* gorgeous, regardless of how many pounds I'm sporting. I rock at 125, and if you think I'm not gonna rock twenty more pounds, you're dead wrong.

That's not the problem though. The problem now is that I'm no longer motivated to do so many other things I loved. I used to take photos and do crafts. Now, if I want to make some sort of income, I *must* take photos and make crafty things. And I have so many great ideas. I have so many *fun* ideas. I just can't bring myself to do them. I'm restless at night, and I stay up late, then I sleep until late afternoon. I so often feel like I've wasted my day, I've wasted opportunities, even though I still have plenty of hours to do them. I have nothing but time on my hands, but I so easily squander what hours I do have in a day because "it's not enough". It's all or nothing, I won't settle. And it's really a very childish mentality. Why should I continue to be unhappy and feel like I contribute nothing to existence, to other people, when there's so much time to change it?! Why would anyone just choose to make themselves unhappy that way? How silly.

Anyway, I feel that a lot of my lack of motivation is due to... you know, I'm really not sure, but I know I was hella motivated when I was working out every day, first thing of the day. I was on top of it. As soon as I woke up, I always had a glass of water, a bite to eat, and I started working out. I worked out with a glass of water beside me, and I drank like a fish. Sometimes I lost weight, sometimes I gained weight, but my body always burned, and I was always proud and accomplished because *I kept moving*. I did something that lots of people easily don't have the gall to do every day, and I pushed myself through my bad days. I'm an incredibly unmotivated person, so to do that every day and for as long as I did was truly an accomplishment!

That said, I want to start doing that again. I don't care about my weight, I don't care about my calories. As long as I feel good about my body and I'm treating it well, why should I care? I just want to be the best me I can be. And even if working out and keeping my body active has exactly zero to do with my photography and my housekeeping and my art, if it's what gets me going, how can it be a waste of my time? I hope that this isn't a hit-and-run post, where I'll just disappear for another stretch of several months.

If you don't mind, reader, I would be really grateful if you would help keep me on track! Message me, ask me how I'm doing, ask me if I'm coming any closer to reaching my goals. . And if any of you need the help, if you need a buddy to motivate you to do the same thing, I'm here! Nothing keeps me motivated like knowing someone else needs me to be.

- Kat