Serious decline in motivation

You have two choices here. You can continue losing these last few slowly and steadily. OR you can be one of the people that comes back in 6 months and says, "I gained it all back, here for round 2!"

What's it going to be? :flowerforyou:

Wow! This is awesome! I am so glad you posted this.

I can totally relate. As someone who has gotten to goal weight twice and gained it back, being "big" again and feeling like it is an uphill battle to get back down again is so demotivating. I have been back on MFP for two months and the scale basically bounces back and forth between the same numbers week after week. The whole process has just become stressful for me. I feel like an odd science experiment trying to figure out what to eat to lose (the cals in/cals out equation is NOT working for me).

I am sorry but I find this hard to believe.

1. Are you logging every single thing you put into your mouth (counting the sugar in your coffee to the ketchup on your burger)? I have heard of some people not logging liquids (that would be a huge mistake)

2. Do you have a kitchen scale and do you use it? When not practicle to weigh are you measuring everything? Accuracy is key.

3. Are you picking the proper selections in MFP (For instance there are listings for pizza at 110 calories....sorry but pizza has much more than 110 calories per slice). There are listing for a piece or slice of cake (dont use these, your piece or slice may be twice the weight).

4. Are you sticking to your calorie goals and trying your best to stay close to your goal calories? Are you overjudging your calorie burns at the gym and eating back what you thought you burned?

Your body will burn fat if you are not eating enough food to fuel your body.....its quite simple really. MFP determined that I burn 2750 calories in a day, I told them I want to lose 2lbs a week (2lbs x 3500 Cal = 7000 cal defecit), 7000 /7 days is 1000 defecit a day. I have been eating 1750 calories a day now for 19 weeks and have lost 40.5 lbs and consistantly 2lbs a week so I would say its pretty accurate. It gets old hearing people say they are gaining weight even though they are in a calorie defecit.....its impossible. People can not spontaneiously produce matter from the air they breath. If your gaining then you are not in a defecit. Simple as that.

I always had this problem. I lost the weight, not even all of the weight but enough to feel happy, and then I got comfortable. I realized that I thought of weight loss as a temporary thing and thus my weight loss WAS temporary. This time around I realized I had to change my lifestyle and stop thinking of my eating habits as a diet and start thinking about it as the new way I eat and the new way I will eat forever. I made a commitment to myself to stop thinking about being thin and start wanting to be fit. Once I adopted that mindset, I became so excited about my life and the changes I knew were going to happen within the next year..

I don't know if this will work for you, but just analyze your past behavior towards losing weight and realize that you shouldn't be doing this for anyone else but yourself so no one has the right to tell you to stop if you are not happy with the results yet. Understand that when you lose a lot of weight, your body's needs are different so readjust your eating if you want to keep losing weight and mix up your workout routine (really challenge your body) and you will see results again. If you don't do weight lifting, I highly recommend, it's incredibly the transformation your body goes through after just a few weeks and that is exciting and keeps me motivated. Don't go by the numbers on the scale because body weight is so much more than just fat and muscle (think about everything that is inside your body) and know that you could be getting smaller without getting lighter (as muscle weighs more than fat)

I hope this helped.

I also am having this problem, with the fear of "one wrong move" (figure of speech) and I'll gain everything back..:indifferent:

Remember that "one wrong move" won't undo all your work. You would have to make many wrong moves to do that.

OP, it's entirely your decision what you eat. You've lost weight so you have a good idea of what you should do. You'll know if you're making a wrong turn before you make that turn. Just avoid phrases like "just this once" and don't think of your new lifestyle as the "thing you're doing to lose weight". Instead think of it as the norm and that weekend binge is "the thing you do to gain weight".

If you need a little breather switch your intake to maintain for a bit. Use that time to help establish your new norm before trying to lose any more weight. And if you really need motivation, fill a backpack with as much weight as you lost and carry it around with you for a day.

I feel like an odd science experiment trying to figure out what to eat to lose (the cals in/cals out equation is NOT working for me).

Yes, it is. It can't not. If you are 100% sure that you appear to be at a caloric deficit, perhaps you have a medical issue that is distorting what you think is the in and/or the out. There's no way you can maintain weight over time while at a true caloric deficit.

Slow is good. Slow is maintainable, realistic, practical.

I also am having this problem, with the fear of "one wrong move" (figure of speech) and I'll gain everything back..:indifferent:

Remember that "one wrong move" won't undo all your work. You would have to make many wrong moves to do that.

OP, it's entirely your decision what you eat. You've lost weight so you have a good idea of what you should do. You'll know if you're making a wrong turn before you make that turn. Just avoid phrases like "just this once" and don't think of your new lifestyle as the "thing you're doing to lose weight". Instead think of it as the norm and that weekend binge is "the thing you do to gain weight".

If you need a little breather switch your intake to maintain for a bit. Use that time to help establish your new norm before trying to lose any more weight. And if you really need motivation, fill a backpack with as much weight as you lost and carry it around with you for a day.

The backpack theory is an excellent idea for motivation! Thanks!!

Yeah whenever I think all of this is not worth it, I pick up the weight I lost and carry it around for a bit. If you're like me and you have lost a lot of weight already and still have a good amount to go it's great motivation.

Also, crazy as it sounds, whenever I'm getting weak, I read these forums (which is a lot heh). When you read about people having the same struggles somehow it puts things in perspective. We're all human, nobody is perfect, we're all just trying to do our best and sometimes (most times) it's not easy.

I can totally relate. As someone who has gotten to goal weight twice and gained it back, being "big" again and feeling like it is an uphill battle to get back down again is so demotivating. I have been back on MFP for two months and the scale basically bounces back and forth between the same numbers week after week. The whole process has just become stressful for me. I feel like an odd science experiment trying to figure out what to eat to lose (the cals in/cals out equation is NOT working for me).

And likewise with weight - calories in/calories out says nothing about why the person is taking in more calories than they are burning. Is it underestimating intake? Is it overestimating output? Is it both? If the first, where is the underestimation happening? If the second, where is the overestimation happening? And those questions can further get into issues like satiety, metabolism, cravings, etc..

That's why the first responses are almost always "open your diary," "are you weighing your food," "how are you figuring caloric burn," etc.