What helps you stay motivated?

What keeps me going is the fact I'm getting older. Wanting to continue to be able to play with my youngest kid (5) the same way I did when my oldest (19) was his age. Competing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu also helps keep me going. I need to keep my weight in check and eating well helps me to be able to test myself 4-5 times a year in local competitions. Maybe find something other than eating "healthy" just to eat healthy to keep you motivated?

I don't always feel motivated to exercise. I don't always feel motivated to count calories or weigh food or put down the packet of food when I've eaten enough for the day. I've had to accept that fact. That feeling of motivation is not always there. It's not always exciting.

However. The results of doing those things are important to me. Being healthy, hopefully avoiding the diabetes and heart disease that run in my family, managing my depression and anxiety, being fit and active, hopefully entering old age fit and active and independent, being comfortable with my appearance, being able to fit into the kinds of clothes I like etc... these things matter to me and make it worth it to do what needs to be done.

I also lack motivation to go to work sometimes. When my alarm goes off, I rarely feel like jumping out of bed and rushing to work. If it's a horrible day I'd much rather stay in bed. If it's a nice day, I'd much rather spend it doing fun things for myself. But, having a job is important to me. Paying my bills, and having that financial security, and developing my career etc are all important to me, so it doesn't matter if I feel motivated day to day. It doesn't even matter if I like my job or not, I can't wait to feel motivated, I just have to get on with it.

A lot of it's about habit. Do you only brush your teeth when you feel motivated? No, you have the reason you do it (oral hygiene, not having your teeth fall out, not having bad breath, whatever) and then you have the fact that it's a habit to get up, go into the bathroom, brush your teeth, all without really thinking about it.

Often, when you're seeing big changes on the scale and your clothes are getting too big, and people are complimenting you... can be exciting and has a momentum of it's own. That novelty wears off though, especially when you reach your goal and are no longer seeing significant changes. Once you're in the maintenance phase, you need the results to be important enough to keep you doing what you have to do. Patience is not the word. Healthy weight management is a life long process, so make it a process that you can live with. Don't be "on a diet", counting the time until you can get back to "normal". Create a lifestyle that becomes your new "normal", that you can live with forever. Make it habitual.

In short:
1. identify solid reasons for doing what you're doing. Doing it for vanity's sake is enough for some people, but for a lot of people, that can be put on the back burner quite easily when it all gets too hard or boring. People who are doing it for health/fitness reasons (perhaps on top of vanity reasons) seem to find it easier to keep that momentum going.

2. Don't be super restrictive - have a smallish calorie deficit, keep eating food you love to eat, do exercise that you enjoy doing so it doesn't become a chore. Have rest days. Make it work for you so you don't feel like you're on a diet and you don't feel like you have to fall of any wagons.

3. Create habits. Make tracking your food a habit. Make exercising a habit. Make getting your fruit & veg in (or whatever) a habit. Make it so that you do these things without even really thinking about it.

I have three stacks of pants in my closet. One are too big, one just right and one too small. My weight went up and down a lot with kids. I keep aiming for that smaller stack. I try on the pants when the scale isn't moving and when I can fit into another pair of pants that keeps me from binging or losing hope.

Right now, keeping track of my Measurements keeps me going.
It changes all the time for me though. When I run out of reasons I look for more.

I been putting in that work! What will my friends and family say when I look the same. I am all about fitness and moving. I want to fit a the clothes I never have and be a model. Why stop now?

I agree with jestermfp. Ehen I first started I wrote down all the reasons for losing weight when I need motivation I go back to it and reread it. I also look at my before and after pics and remind myself I dont want to go back there

My motivation is actually pretty vain... so I can rub it in my fat family's faces. They keep trying to diet and failing, giving some stupid excuses when they fail. I wanna show them it can be done easily with focus and control. So far, it's been pretty easy.

For me, it was a combination of things. I love long-distance cycling but found that the hills around where I live were really slowing me down, because I was carrying 50-60 extra pounds. But I also was told my my doctor that my cholesterol was on the border and my blood pressure was getting too high, despite bicycling over 2000 miles a year and being fairly fit aerobically. And then, I was getting tired of sitting on the sofa in the evening and having to deal with a bulging gut making me uncomfortable. Remembering what it was like to be thin, a couple decades ago, helped me keep up my motivation.

The fact that I feel good overall..and I look better in my clothes!!!:bigsmile: