For those of you with significant weight loss....

I am literally right there with you. Sometime in October my willpower and can-do attitude went right out the window. I'm in the Midwest- don't know if it changing seasons, impending holidays, work travel, burnout or a bit of it all. It has been a fight to exercise and maintain calories pretty much every day. We can do this. Maybe just need a little extra encouragement and a listening ear?

I have to say it was much easier to workout in the spring and summer. This fall I pretty much hit a "hibernation" wall. And I'm pretty sure winter isn't going to be any easier.

Really anything can get us off track, but it's finding the reason we wanted to do this in the first place and get back on that horse. Now that I've hit goal I have the motivation to keep where I am (I refuse to buy bigger clothes), but it's easy to say "I'm not losing any more, I can skip the gym or eat the cookie"...

My new motivation is my new found muscles and the fact that if I don't lift every other day I get stiff and miserable. I don't do cardio like I should or did, but my strength training is going pretty well - I don't sit on the couch until it's done!

i just went thru that. i took the summer off MFP and gained back 8 lbs. i came back 2 weeks ago and have been struggling since. altho this week hasn't been too bad. my motivation? xmas parties starting soon lol. just hang in there.....if you want it bad enough you will do it!! good luck! :flowerforyou:

I started this journey in October 2010 and lost 64 pounds.. I stopped in April 2011 and didn't get back on the wagon until Dec 2011.. I still struggle on a day to day basis but I look at how far I have come and refuse to give up..

Have you ever fallen off the wagon, what was the motivation to get back on? I've lost 61 lbs, but really have been having a rough time for about a month. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm only up about 3 lbs from my lowest weight....but I feel like I don't have the same motivation I did the first 8 months or so.
I don't want this to snow ball. I look at before and after pics and am so happy with my progress, I love the compliments, I love the way I feel. But for some reason, I'm so hungry all the time an I just can't seem to say no.
Just wondering if anyone has been in my shoes and turned it around to lose more, I just feel doomed, like I'm going to fall into old habits and gain it all back like I have so many times.

You might need to just take a break from the calorie deficit for awhile. That's okay too, it's not going backwards.

Remember you don't have to be perfect. None of us is perfect at this.

There is nothing easy about this journey. Don't give up. Keep your eye on the prize. You do not have to be perfect to do this. You just have to have more good days than not. A bad day is not the end of the world. Tomorrow is a new day. Just pick it right up again. Be kind to yourself and don't ever punish or beat yourself up, just keep moving forward, one step in front of the other.

I felt this way many times on this journey. Amazingly I still feel this way at times even in maintenance when everyone tells me I shouldn't. We are all human. We have good days and bad days, all of our lives. The tools you find and use to get out of a funk will serve you the rest of your life, and you will always need them. I call it sharpening your sword for battle and you will always need to keep your blade sharp for the rest of your life. We may get to relax at times for a few moments, but life is a bit of work until the end.

There is nothing easy about this journey. Don't give up. Keep your eye on the prize. You do not have to be perfect to do this. You just have to have more good days than not. A bad day is not the end of the world. Tomorrow is a new day. Just pick it right up again. Be kind to yourself at all times and never beat yourself up.

Being on a calorie deficit is hard. You can't do this journey on will power alone. You must set up your environment for success. Have a team around you in your real life, not just online. Get trigger foods out of the house. It will take some sacrifice and it's not easy. You might have to say no to some social events sometimes.

Too many changes at once can be hard on some people. I've always eaten healthy so it easy for me to simply eat less. Eating at a calorie deficit is hard on people; even a small deficit puts your body in a state of flux with hormones and such. Everyone is different. Some people can handle a deeper calorie deficit than others, this is not right or wrong, it just is. Stress in your life affects your hunger hormones; lack of sleep, fatigue, job stress, family stress, financial stress, etc. Add in emotional eating issues and it gets even more complicated. Most people can only handle so much change/stress at once, they try to do too much and fail. Sometimes it might be a better strategy to eat at maintenance and make some small changes first, it really depends on how much stress you are taking in at the moment.

For me it's all about a calorie budget. I had less of a budget available when I was losing weight, more to spend now that I'm maintaining and all the tools I used for weight loss come into play for the rest of my life maintaining.

When you have accumulated excess fat, you have accumulated a debt. It is hard to pay off the debt (you have less calories to spend). If you are sitting next to someone your same gender and height and they are not overweight and you are, they get to eat more than you (have more calories to spend) because they are debt free. You have less calories to spend because you are paying off your debt.

Wishing you the best! -Bobbie

You just described my last month. I didn't care what I ate and didn't exercise for 2 weeks. This week I decided no matter what I was getting back on the wagon and making it thru the holidays. My major motivation is to stay off my diabetes medication. I don't have to go back to the doctor until February, but I have to have my A1C checked. That is a three month average of my blood sugar. I still have about 25-30lbs left to lose and I don't want to give up now. Somedays I think that I am happy with what I have lost and would be ok if I don't lose any more. But I am not giving up. Stay strong and committed. Remember how much better you feel now than you did before. You can do this.

I quit worrying about it. Look, you have lost a lot of weight. If the number is important then fine, there will be disappointment. But the key is how do you feel. For me, I realized that if I don't lose 90 pounds because I feel better at 85, then I should probably stick to 85. Keep eating healthy, keep eating period, keep working out. Your motivation should be a better you, not some random number. I don't know about you, but I would be pissed if I screwed up all my hard work getting healthy and skinny.

Side note: even though my ticker doesn't say it, I started at 250 in April 2011 and am currently comfortably residing at 165. I really do feel better at 85 pounds lost.

My goal has never been weight loss. It all started for me because of type II diabetes. Getting off all the various meds and getting healthy has been my focus since day 1. The # on the scale is irrelevant to me. I focus on inches lost, body fat % dropping, getting stronger and improving my overall physique. The weight loss is just a nice side effect. I consider myself falling off the wagon if I started slacking off. If I started to need to take medications again because the diabetes, high blood pressure, etc etc return.

Just take it day by day.

Lost over 100lbs and kept it off.

I have had moments when I would slip up but fall of the wagon and gained a lot back? No, the most I've gained back is like 5 lbs that wasn't water weight. For the most part I'm still losing. I just need to remember what is important to me. I have a sign I made on my fridge that says "Are you bored or hungry?" It usually makes me think.