it's going to take over a year, how to get motivated?

Try making smaller goals and rewarding yourself along the way. Non-food rewards are the best rewards, since you don't have to track them. I have just a few pounds to go before I reward myself with my new riding helmet. The bigger goal will still be there, down the road. You just need a few mile markers along the way to keep you going.

A year will pass whether I lose weight, gain weight, or maintain my weight. I ask myself which outcome will make me happiest.

Smaller goals, one change at a time...and realize the year will go by whether you start this journey or not. Do you want to be right where you are now in one year? You can do this...just get started!

Hey, you sound a bit like me. I was a swimmer (not very good, but still...) in middle school. Then I got injured and couldn't find any mojo to do anything anymore. I have gained so much weight in the last year (about 10 kg) and just want it off. Sort of now... I recognize the feeling of losing yourself. I want to regain the girl who ran a 10k because of stubbornness, the girl who could swim 4 miles and think nothing of it, the girl who always took the stairs, the girl who rode her bike everywhere.

Right now my life is a bit hellish because of work-related stress. I find that doing exercise helps so much with that particular thing, and is worth it just because of that. I feel like crap if I eat wrong, still I do it because of convenience. I try to change this too.

My way of motivating myself is thinking that "I love myself, I love my body enough to try to take care of it". I feel good after doing a "run" in week 3 of the C25k programme. It makes me feel like I'm doing something good. And it's something I can just do without having to think. I read on a blog I really like that her first step after losing herself in a similar way was to think "I will be the sort of person who takes the stairs" and "I want to be the sort of person who exercises" and so on. It's about giving yourself a pat on the back every day because you are actually trying. You are doing good.

Set up small goals. Try going without sweets for four weeks. That is what I'm going to try to do, but allowing sweets once a week (my friends like dessert and I hate feeling left out) and exercising to burn of the extra.

Feel free to add me if you like. We are the same height, so probably a similar build.

Definitely short term goals. But you also have to step back and look at the big picture long term occasionally too - a year from now do you want to still be where you are now, overwhelmed by the prospect of how long it might take? Or do you want to have owned that year, making progress and great strides in your health, fitness, having lost weight, become stronger, leaner, more flexible, challenging yourself with new and awesome things, reaching goals and milestones throughout that year?

A year from now you don't want to be saying "I should have started a year ago", you want to be saying "Look how much I have accomplished in a year!!".

You can do it!

Don't focus on the time it will take, it will always seem overwhelming and you'll find excuses (or I did). Think in very small goals. They seem puny and unimpressive sometimes, but they add up quickly. For me, it's a day by day thing, and some days, a minute by minute thing, but it's working, and it will for you too!

I have a sign posted at work and at home that says "a year from now, you'll wish you'd started today. make things happen!"

Good luck!!

think of how NEXT summer you will rock that bathing suit.

ugh. I wish. I can never wear a bathing suit again.

OP, git 'er done NOW so that this doesn't happen to you. You don't have THAT much to lose in comparison to some people, and you HAVEN'T actually been 'fat' for that long....so your skin may still forgive you. Start now for the sake of the bathing suit. lol.

The year is gonna pass either way.

I need to correct your thinking, it will take you much longer than a year. It will take you the rest of your life if you intend to keep the weight off. I don't say this to be discouraging, just the opposite. You need to have the mindset of someone who wants to be healthy for the rest of her life, not just for a year. That's part of why it's important to develop new habits slowly, to make sure those new habits are livable.