Quickly losing motivation, I need help!!!!

Well first and foremost, congratulations on a 32 pound loss in 4 months! That is incredible! I felt myself slipping into a comfort zone a few weeks ago and getting kind of complacent with where I am currently. I was losing interest as well. For me, I snapped back into action when one of my FB friends started a Fitness League and was recruiting folks to join. That was the little push I needed to re-focus and regroup. I would say stay active on the message boards and in the news feeds. Read stories of other people's successes, it helps to motivate me to want to reach my goals. Encourage and motivate people on your friends list, that kind of keeps you focused so they can cheer you along as well. More importantly, just be real with yourself. I have to look at myself in the mirror and confess that I am not happy with my body right now. Although I'm super glad to be down almost 20 lbs from where I started, I have another 20 lbs to go and I want to get there. Remind yourself of the "treat" that waits for you at the end of all this. Whether it's fitting into a bikini, fitting into that little black dress, vactioning in the islands or just living your life without concern for heart disease, diabetes, stroke or any other things that overweight people may struggle with. Be encouraged and push through; you can do it!

For me, it has been learning. When I start to feel discouraged, I spend some time on the internet learning about different things to do with health and nutrition and it literally scares me back into eating healthy! For me, I had to figure out why I was eating bad and doing harm to my body in the first place. Now the pounds are coming off easily and I don't feel deprived because I WANT to be healthy....FINALLY.

How many calories are you eating every day? Do you need some friendly support? If so, add me and I will do my best to be encouraging!

I could have written this post myself! I have also lost 30 pounds and have another 40 to lose, but my weight has been fluctuating within 3 pounds over the past two months. I'm still managing to make it to the gym. I have kept my motivation to keep active because I feel so good and so strong when I realize what my body is able to do now that it couldn't six months ago. I started off huffing and puffing on the elliptical at Level 3. I can now work at Level 15. Lifting weights has also gotten easier. Just keep reminding yourself how good it feels to be fit and strong.

However, it's the food I'm really struggling with. It was easy in the beginning; it's almost as if all my cravings for sweets and junk went away on their own. But now they're back with a vengeance. I consistently go over on my daily calories, and I find myself slipping in to old ways of thinking and some mindless eating. Just keep logging everything, everyday. I've promised myself that starting today, I will be honest with what goes in my mouth and how much I consume by logging everything again. That's how I started this journey in the first place. I just told myself I'd log my food intake out of curiosity and to bring myself awareness of what I actually put into my body. I didn't necessarily set out to lose weight. But after being aware of my food intake, I became motivated to lose weight.

Please feel free to add me as a friend. We can support one another. Becoming healthy and fit is a journey, and I finally accept that there's no final goal to reach because once I do get to 145 pounds or whatever magical number on the scale, I will still have to work hard to maintain healthy eating and exercise habits. This is for life. We will slip up along the way, but we need to keep going.

Look again at the reasons you wanted to lose weight in the first place, and that's where you'll find your motivation, Truth is though, most of the time, motivation isn't enough. You've got to make a commitment. There are times when weight loss is (almost) fun. When you see the scale going down a couple of pounds a week, and you feel thinner, and people comment on the changes - all of that feedback helps keep the momentum going. For a while. Most of the time, weight loss (and maintenance) is difficult, boring and tedious. The novelty wears off. It's no fun constantly restricting yourself, especially when you haven't got as much of that feedback. Is it still worth it the effort though? That's what you've got to decide, and that is what will determine your success.

One thing to be aware of is that all this doesn't stop when you reach your goal. You don't just have to do this until you've lost the weight, at which point you get to go back to normal... you have to still continue to live in a way that enables you to maintain the weight loss. If all of your motivation rests on seeing the scale go down, and go down quickly, then what is going to motivate you to keep the weight off? My experience with maintenance is that it's a lot harder than the weight loss phase.

Think about the other areas of your life. Are there things that you do that you don't really want to, because the results are important? Maybe you're lucky enough to love every part of your life, but millions of people go to work every day to jobs they don't really like, because it's important to them that they can pay their bills and put food on the table. People get up early with their kids, or put effort into cooking a meal for their family, or spend hours of their free time studying, or sit through their child's boring plays/recitals/sports days etc and all kinds of other stuff they probably don't want to do, because ultimately the results are worth it. Weight loss is one of those things. It's not fun, but if the results are important enough to you, you'll make that commitment.

In the meantime, try to find other things to keep yourself interested so that you aren't reliant on the numbers on the scale. Take measurements of your body, and progress photos if you don't already. They can be a huge boost if the scale isn't moving. Set goals related to exercise, whether it's doing something faster, or for a longer time, or entering a race, or learning something completely new.

Create a lifestyle that you can actually live with, so you're less likely to want to quit. Eat the foods you like, and don't cut your calories too drastically. Do what you can to not feel that you're "on a diet". Consider building in diet breaks where you eat at your TDEE for a couple of weeks, both for psychological and physiological benefits. http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html

Thank you,

I will look for new ways to exercise, I also hate running but really should give it a chance as I think my hate of it is through not being able to have any stamina to do it like I see with runners out there. Thank you for your encouragement and showing me its natural to go through this, This is the 1st time I have ever been dedicated to losing weight and don't want to slip in and out of it if I can help it.

By all means, give running another chance (I love it!) but don't feel you have to pursue it if you really don't like it. Find something you love, or at least, can tolerate more easily. Runners "out there" have stamina because they get out there and run. 2 years ago, I had no stamina, little strength, and was incredibly unfit. A year ago, I was stronger and fitter, but could still only run for about a minute at a time. Now, I run for about an hour, 3x a week. It just took practice and time.