the honey moon is over

First, you have already lost 10 lbs. As others have said, losing weight doesn't happen overnight. You should be really encouraged that you've already had so much success.

Second, how can you expect to lose weight so fast if you're still eating such unhealthy foods. I'm sorry to say, but your diary is full of junk food: pizza, cookies, ice cream cake... Trust me. I LOVE food, especially sweets. It's my downfall too, but you can't be discouraged that it's not coming off as fast as you would like if you're eating poorly every day.

Calories in, calories out.

My diary is full of pizza and sweets. I'm losing weight just fine.

Set health and fitness goals instead of weight goals. Are you eating at least 5 fruits and veggies a day? Did you know that the latest recommendations are for as much as 9? My eye doctor's questionaire asked if I was getting at least 6.

What kind of exercise are you doing? How could you improve? Is there something else you want to take up?

This is why I like video games - you unlock more content as you progress. I have to keep doing Zumba classes to unlock Zumba party on my Wii. I have to get pretty good at a Wii Fit exercise to unlock harder versions of it, etc. Oh, and now I have to work hard at boxing and sword play to be able to challenge my partner who stayed up late last night unlocking all kinds of levels.

Summed it up...

When I get discouraged and want to give up, I think of this...

Time is going to pass no matter what I do. I can either track my calories and exercise and slowly lose weight, even if it's a half a pound a week, that's still 26 pounds a year. Or I can do nothing (like I have for years) and stay the same weight and be miserable because of my size, or even gain weight. Do I want to be 26 pounds lighter at this time next year, or do I want to be the same weight, or even bigger? Thinking about that works almost every time. When it doesn't, I take a good look at my "fat" pics, that generally kicks my butt in gear

When I get discouraged and want to give up, I think of this...

Time is going to pass no matter what I do. I can either track my calories and exercise and slowly lose weight, even if it's a half a pound a week, that's still 26 pounds a year. Or I can do nothing (like I have for years) and stay the same weight and be miserable because of my size, or even gain weight. Do I want to be 26 pounds lighter at this time next year, or do I want to be the same weight, or even bigger? Thinking about that works almost every time. When it doesn't, I take a good look at my "fat" pics, that generally kicks my butt in gear

This!

I am going to assume that you are here because of a resolution.

In fact, it is average to give up after a couple weeks!

Yay, gym will be clearing out again soon! :ohwell:

When I get discouraged and want to give up, I think of this...

Time is going to pass no matter what I do. I can either track my calories and exercise and slowly lose weight, even if it's a half a pound a week, that's still 26 pounds a year. Or I can do nothing (like I have for years) and stay the same weight and be miserable because of my size, or even gain weight.

This! A million times!

If you view your lifestyle as "missing out" on something, and you're just doing it temporarily, I can see getting frustrated and wanting to go back to old ways. Make it into a sustainable lifestyle, and you won't have a desire to go back to what got you here in the first place. It doesn't have to be all clean eating, exercising for 2 hours a day in order for it to work. You have to see what works for YOU. Hate the gym? Just add in half an hour of walking around the neighborhood a day to start. Don't want to give up sweets? Have a small piece of chocolate every day. Small steps are still steps. It doesn't have to be HARDCORE working out and eating salads in order to be healthy -- that's a common misconception, and isn't sustainable for a lot of people. Small changes that you can handle are the best way to start. Slowly you'll adopt those changes and want to make more.

Good luck!

Ok, I'm not one to be preaching, so I won't, because I just logged back on for the first time in months yesterday (a lot of crap went down during this time, but that's another story).

That said, I know myself well enough to realize that I get bored quickly. I hate to exercise, and have blown more $$$ on gym memberships that I don't utilize because when I get out of work, I don't want to go anywhere but home, so I have to find ways to stay motivated. Oh, and I love messing around with the Wii. I am hoping to get my hands on the Zumba for Wii so I can be clumsy and graceless in the privacy of my own home, LOL...

I have a selection of workout DVD's that I like - belly dance, Turbo Jams, yoga, etc. and alternate using those. I will ride the stationary bike, and switch it up with walking the dogs for 30 minutes when I get bored with the bike. I will leave my desk and climb the 7 or 8 flights of stairs in the building I work in.

Another thing that helps me is finding a buddy. In my case? My buddy is a co-worker who is in the same boat as I am. He's started hitting his gym recently, and that motivated me to get off my tail and start moving. The two of us are competitive by nature and we kind of make it a fun competition. Unfortunately, his schedule and mine are only similar a couple days a week, but even then, it's nice to have someone to whine to when you want the fatty foods and know you can't have them. It feels better to graze on greens when you do it with a friend.

I don't know if this will help you or not, but maybe it will.

Best of luck!

Sometimes progress is slow although I think you've done great so far. Try to remind yourself of why you decided to lose weight in the first place. Track your progress through measurements and photos. Don't starve yourself and don't deprive yourself of your favourite things. Practice moderation. Losing weight shouldn't feel like misery. Sometimes it's hard to force yourself to exercise but think of your end goal and it'll be worth it. Good luck!

I have a son and a husband that need me to be around. My son can't be without a mom at the age of 20 (my mom died when I was that age from a massive heart attack and copd) and I wanna live to see our wedding anniversaries and be with the man I love.

If i was still at my weight back in 2011 when I first got preggo (I was 243), I wouldn't be where I am today. Had I not rejoined MFP after my son was born, i wouldn't be down 35lbs. (I lost weight during my pregnancy because i was so active went from 243 down to 219 and then was 204 after he was born and then gained a pound due to breastmilk and then a month after he was born I couldn't breastfeed anymore). So what that I don't lose 50lbs a year? I look at all my NSVs and realize that I am gaining confidence and doing things I never thought I could and honestly that outweighs that darn scale any day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I look at my kid and my husband and know that I am doing everything in my power to be around for them, that is my motivation, along with being able to breath everyday (I do have asthma that unfortunately with my genetics put me at risk for it turning into copd).

I'm sorry, but I'm confused. It says you just joined this month, and we are less than 2 weeks into the month. It says you've lost 10 pounds out of your 95 pound goal - that seems great for 2 weeks work, how can you already be out of motivation? Isn't seeing the number on the scale change motivation? Isn't all the stuff you posted on your wall motivation?

1. Make a commitment to yourself, make a commitment to your husband, make a commitment to your family, just make a commitment to someone.

2. Find something, anything, to do for exercise that you enjoy and get to it. I found my boot camp classes and I loved going (and I still go nearly 2 years later). They are great because I leave feeling sore and tired (less so now that I'm in better shape) and that is like a continual reminder throughout the rest of the day that I worked hard to improve myself so why should I eat poorly and undo that. About a year and a half ago I also started running and it has become an extremely important part of my life. Find your boot camp, find your running - whether it is zumba or yoga or lifting weights, just find something that you enjoy doing to make yourself healthy and dive in.

3. Find something to think of to help you get through your weak moments when you are tempted by food. For me, it used to be the thought that I had already wasted much of my adult life overweight and if I wasn't going to change now, then I was going to have to accept being overweight the rest of my life. I didn't want that, and thinking of that during moments of weakness gave me strength. Now that I've reached my goal and slid backwards a little, my new motivation is the old "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels". So this is embarrassing, but last summer when I hit my goal and I had reasonably nice abs, I loved running my hand down my belly and feeling them - I never thought I would be able to, not in my wildest dreams. I've got a little layer of flab after I had to take some time off for a back injury and then the holidays hit, but I'm working to lose those 10 or so pounds again to get my abs back for summer. I enjoyed feeling them more than I enjoy eating even my favorite food.

4. Set intermediate goals for yourself so that you can have "victories" along the way. Whether it is treating yourself to something after every 25 pounds, or training for a 5k or a triathlon, if you have something to celebrate now and then as you make your way towards your final goal, it won't feel like such a long journey.

5. Get yourself a good support group or other type of motivation. Early on in my journey I entered a weight loss (actually fat loss) competition at my gym and my competitive nature took over from there and I took 2nd place overall. As luck would have it, at the end of my journey there was another competition at the gym based on before and after pictures and it gave me the motivation I needed to lean down the final amount to have abs for the pictures. I won that one. You can make friends here on MFP to keep you accountable, or maybe you need something a little closer to home. Is there someone at work that has been talking about losing weight too and you two can either do the journey together or even have a little contest if you are the competitive types?

If you are ready to give up after just a couple weeks, maybe you aren't really ready. But if you really want the change, you need to dig deep and find it in you. It's going to take months, maybe years to lost 95 pounds, you need to accept that and accept that it has taken you 50 years to build the body you have, you can't expect to build the body you want in 2 weeks.

Don't do what you feel like doing. Do what you know you should be doing. That is all.

This!

It's hard, but so worth doing.

Kim, I know exactly where you are coming from. I, too, have a very slow weight loss. I'm having an average of 5-6k a week calorie deficit, but some weeks I don't lose any weight at all, and some weeks I even gain. I know that I have to change my mind set to the fact that this is a lifestyle, but still - I have goals - modest ones of just losing 1# a week, and when I work so hard and deny myself the things I like to do and eat, and I still don't lose, I get discouraged too. I figure that's ok as long as I don't let myself give up. I can have a momentary pity party, but then get right back to my goals.

Everything else has already been said here - there are some great ideas on how you can boost your motivation when you are in discouraged mode. I hope you put some of them into play if you haven't already. I have to say, I do ok alone, but one of the best motivators is to have a buddy do this with you - is there anyone like that? Your husband? One of your children? A close friend? Yes, there may be logistical challenges, but try to think past them and see if you can't come up with a plan that works for you both. My bff, bless her, would meet me at 5 in the morning. She could have done her walks after work, but I have 3 kids to get dinner and homework, etc., so that would never have worked for me. So she walked in the morning with me. It can be done, you can do it, and 10 pounds is an AWESOME start. It took me 8 weeks to lose 10#, and then I gained 3 back over the next two weeks! So it was 11 weeks before I was down 10 for good.

Thanks everyone. I was feeling down because I had been working on this for two months before my first post. I appreciate all the truly excellent advice. Y'all are right, this IS a lifestyle change, not just a diet. And I do love the soreness that accompanies a really intense workout. And my clothes are fitting better! Today for the first time since last summer I was able to put on and wear a pair of size twelve pants! True, they were a little snug, but I was able to wear them! I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've found my motivation again! Thank-you all again!

Another thing to think about... the faster you lose weight the higher chance you'll have saggy skin to deal with and the greater the chance you'll gain the weight back quickly. Not a guarantee of course as we are all different, but that's something I try to focus on when I get discouraged and think I'm losing too slowly. On several occasions, I have lost serious amounts of weight in the past, but I've ALWAYS lost it quickly, like ~30 pounds a month, and I always gain it back plus some. Until recently, the thought of losing less than 20 pounds a month was ludicrous to me and seemed like torture... until it dawned on me that this was a lifestyle change that I needed to make, not just a way to lose weight quick.