Men! What motivated you? I need your help!

Divorce him. He'll suddenly find motivation.

True story.

Or he will be happy because his wife is no longer nagging him!!!!

OP: Seriously, this is HIS journey, not your journey for him.

Your quiet example of fitness (and you look great!) is the best thing that you can do. Make the household condusive, but not overbearing, with regard to fitness.

our motivators are all very personal. Mine: family heart disease and i have kids... someone else wants to look better than his peer group, someone else is training for a marathon....

As they say, 'the teacher arrives when the student is ready'

Good luck and keep up on your journey!

Got to find something that's "real." This nebulous "I want to be more fit" didn't ever do anything for me. My list of motivators:

1. Being able to play with the kids in the back yard for more than 47 seconds without getting tired.
2. Being able to walk into *ANY* store in the mall and buy clothes (W31x32 pants are harder to find than you'd think...I've made my goal but missed it, too!)
3. I can now go sky diving if I really want to.
4. Find a non-food fitness goal - for me, it was running a long-distance race. Not a 5K, a *LONG* distance race. Think Half-Marathon. then PAY FOR THE ONE YOU WANT. Get money involved, it's the ultimate motivator.

And do what you feel is "OK." 80-90 percent of your work is going to be calories in. Not so much specific macros or how much exercise, but calories in. Keep eating things you like, things you want. Keep your calories in check. Pre-measure and put things away. Make it difficult to take a second helping and keep things under control.

That's it. My list of "**** I did to lose the weight."

On the issue of using MFP, my wife suggested it to me and I scoffed at her because it sounded like a huge pain in the butt. I thought I could exercise enough to eat what I wanted. It took me not getting the results I wanted to eventually turn back to it. So he may come around given some time.

On the issue of motivation, my wife was my motivation. She said she loved me and was attracted to me no matter what. I honestly wish she would have told me that I was getting fat and gross. That would have probably motivated me to get it in gear much sooner. Luckily I was smart enough to know the truth; a beer gut is not a turn on. I realized it was my obligation to work as hard as possible to be healthy and attractive for my wife and myself. Laziness is not an excuse.

It started with learning to love working out again. I used P90X at first and although it about killed me at first, I learned to love it. Now P90X and other videos are not at all the best way to improve your body composition (see heavy weight lifting for that) , but they can be helpful for people who need some motivation. My wife was very supportive and would make comments about me looking sexier; that was a huge motivation to keep going and not fail. Now I'm an avid runner and lift weights regularly. Watching what I eat and working out are just an easy normal part of my routine now.

Men are different than women. So what I'm about to say doesn't work at all for women. So your husband gets pissed off about having trouble losing weight? Good. Tell him to channel that anger into strength lifting heavy weights. Channel it into resolve to stay within a calorie goal. At first your mantra must be "I will not give up." And he must understand that results take time. Early results take months; transformations can take years. Don't let him be like some of the naive people on here who think that because they lost 10 lbs of water weight in the first few weeks, they should expect those results to extrapolate for the next 3 months. I didn't even look at a scale for 3 months and I'd suggest he do the same. When your pants start getting loose you'll know it's working.

I had my wife take a picture of me and used the picture as my phone wallpaper. That was enough for me. I joined MFP and started walking everyday on my breaks. I took up cycling on the weekends and haven't looked back.

Ultimately he is going to have to want it for himself.

Love the fact that you are trying to motivate him to better himself. But until he decides that he wants to do it, there is nothing that you can do. You have to be self motivated to lose weight as I have learned the last 2 years.

I agree with this. Trying to motivate someone else to lose weight can be a tricky thing, and it's very easy to overstep and cause resentment. If you're going to be successful, you really need to find your own motivation. For me it was when I realized that I was avoiding social situations with friends because I was embarrased about my weight, and that I couldn't walk around the block without getting winded.

I'm not sure how much weight that your husband needs to lose, but something as simple as going for a walk every day is a great way to start. My dad is diabetic, and is borderline obsessive about going for walks. As soon as he found out that I was walking, it became our daily routine. It's been a great bonding experience, and I find that I'm far less likely to skip the walk when I'm going with someone else.

If he's going to check out these forums, you might want to point him to this thread:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/760588-guys-only-show-me-your-before-and-afters

Simply amazing transformations. Hopefully when I've reached my goal I'll be able to add to that thread one day.

I joined after my wife's recommendation (the day after she did), but I was ready to lose the weight anyway (and to be honest, I didn't really think it was going to work, but figured what did I have to lose?).

If it's being on MFP that he is avoiding, there are other services/sites that track calories in a similar fashion, you can direct him to one of those. Check out NerdFitness.com (I love that site), where he has several posts talking about the importance of tracking how many calories you eat and how many you burn, and how much help these sites are.

Also, my wife & I have found that it is SO much easier to do this with both of us working together. So if he won't do it for himself, maybe tell him, "Look, this is hard enough for me, but if you would help and do it with me, I think that would make it much easier. Can you help me with this?"

It never really was a question of motivation. In truth I never cared enough to do anything about it until four years ago when I did something I had always wanted: I bought a motorcycle. My obesity however made learning to ride a much more difficult and dangerous task than it had to be, and when I finally accepted that losing weight was something I had to do to become a competent rider, I simply just... did. There just wasn't any question of motivation.

instead of trying to drastically change his life style slowly start changing his eating habits. More like portion control and incorporate water into the mix. if hes into soda and juice don't take it from him but try to keep him within a certain amount a week. when he begins to see a change then include him into your workouts or find something that makes him move around and work from that.

don't just blindly follow Taubes. you need to independently verify his assertions.

If you read my post, you see that I don't say "follow Taubes". I said that Taubes work is what got me started. Aside from the mythology of obesity, which he doesn't do a great job with, he has a lot of good information about how metabolism works. Understanding how insulin is used by the body, how carbs and sugar are metabolised, etc. was very important in understanding my own personal issues with weight gain and loss.

I also very clearly said every body and metabolism is different. What works for me may not work for someone else.

I suggest Taubes as a starting point since he clearly explains how the body works in ways that others don't.