Totally lost motivation and hope

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Carly666666
Carly666666 Posts: 8
in Introduce Yourself
So I was doing really well. I was going to gym 6 days a week and having two personal training sessions and eating pretty well. I also quit smoking and eased right back on drinking. With all this hard work my weight wasn't shifting so I stopped going to gym so much, started smoking again and am drinking on a nightly basis again. I feel like crap and now I'm sick which is another excuse why I can't go to gym. I really badly want to lose weight but desperately need some motivation :( Does anyone have any tips for when they fall off the wagon?
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  • jsoaper01
    jsoaper01 Posts: 99 Member
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    Gather yourself and restart again.
  • rks6902
    rks6902 Posts: 29 Member
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    Brush yourself off and get right back on. I deal with that too and lose motivation when I do not see results and it drives me nuts. If you are not feeling well enough to work out at least track your food and maybe take a walk to get some kind of moving in.
  • dls06
    dls06 Posts: 6,774 Member
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    I agree don't use it as an excuse to keep it up. Pick yourself up and stick with it.
  • durhamity
    durhamity Posts: 174 Member
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    You are never more than 1 meal away from perfect nutrition. :tongue:
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,238 Member
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    Get back to it again. BTW it is hard for us to help if we can't see your food diary.
  • MrsCon40
    MrsCon40 Posts: 2,351 Member
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    You are never more than 1 meal away from perfect nutrition. :tongue:

    EXACTLY!

    Yes, you just have to start again. Now. Not 5 minutes from now - NOW!

    Everyone here wants you to succeed! :flowerforyou:
  • LauraLLee
    LauraLLee Posts: 210
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    If you dont keep trying you will never do what you have set out to do. So get back up and try again!
  • edyarn
    edyarn Posts: 12
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    Yep I agree! Just start from where you are :)

    And feel free to use your MFP friends for support - that's what we're here for!
  • SanbiaPepper
    SanbiaPepper Posts: 1
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    Everyone falls off a horse at one point or another, its never stopped anyone from horseback riding after a quick break. Get back on that horse and continue on that goal.
  • nanmj
    nanmj Posts: 1
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    as one of my fav songs by aaliyah says, "if at first you don't suceed...dust yourself off and try again, you can dust it off and try it again." The morning begins a whole new day!
  • melcowenfitness
    melcowenfitness Posts: 221 Member
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    For me, the motivation came when I saw the results. Like you, I was going to the gym, eating well (or so I thought), but my scale was not budging. Started P90X, learned a lot about my nutrition, made changes little by little, and have lost 28 pounds.

    You just need to find what works for you. I credit my weight loss to great workout programs AND better nutritional habits.

    Hope that helps! Let me know if you want more details.
  • anacsitham5
    anacsitham5 Posts: 814 Member
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    Only a suggestion, but don't try to do it all at once. It's too hard. I started losing weight first. When that became easier, then I added in exercising. Now I'm working on cutting out diet pop/soda. All baby steps but I never would have succeeded if I tried to do it all at once. It would have been too overwhelming. Try again. Don't give up. It will definately be worth it.
  • cathys01
    cathys01 Posts: 221
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    Tomorrow is another day and another chance to start all over again. Take a moment, step back and remember why you joined up and wanted to lose the weight in the first place; just get those thoughts into your head and hopefully, it will help you. A bad time will pass if you let it go. Good luck and all the best.
  • TheDomenick
    TheDomenick Posts: 1
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    I've found it difficult to quantify progress in terms of health, and it's easy to get demotivated when your weight or whatever measure you're using isn't changing despite your hard work. When i look in the mirror, I see the same pudgy guy I saw when I started working out.

    The one thing I've found that keeps me motivated is pictures of my progress. It definitely keeps me motivated and excited about taking care of myself.

    I weight the same amount in both pictures in this blog post: http://hamsy.tumblr.com/post/1601250085/progress5
    What you see in the mirror and even on the scale can be very deceiving; you need to find other ways of motivating yourself.
  • bluemax87
    bluemax87 Posts: 71
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    So I was doing really well. I was going to gym 6 days a week and having two personal training sessions and eating pretty well. I also quit smoking and eased right back on drinking. With all this hard work my weight wasn't shifting so I stopped going to gym so much, started smoking again and am drinking on a nightly basis again. I feel like crap and now I'm sick which is another excuse why I can't go to gym. I really badly want to lose weight but desperately need some motivation :( Does anyone have any tips for when they fall off the wagon?

    What do you find fun or entertaining? You like music, right? What about that song you're trying to teach yourself on guitar? can't get it out of your head? If you have an iPod or mp3 player you could go for a short jog while listening to the song. You could use the workouts as a reward for something. Or use the completeion of the workout as the reward. Not too long ago, humans were capable of running antelope to death (google "humans running antelope to death"). At the end of the hunt, humans got dinner and a sense of self-accomplishment because they brought home food for the whole tribe. The hunters that chased the antelope down were 'heroes' because they kept the tribe fed for another few days. This feeling of happiness and accomplishment has been engrained into our DNA and almost everyone who goes to the gym feels a sens of accomplishment afterwards.

    Get yourself up out of your house and go do something! Find something fun and just go do it! go for a jog around the neighborhood and see all the people who live close to you. Go for a hike up a trail somewhere nearby and enjoy nature. If you have mountains nearby, go climb them! If you have lakes or ocean nearby, go for a swim. After you're done with a hard workout, treat yourself to a massage or simply a protein shake or maybe just a rental from the local movie store or netflix... that little bit of sacrifice you made to beat your body up deserves a little bit of reward!

    before long, the workout itsself will be it's own reward!
  • LuluGirl140
    LuluGirl140 Posts: 364 Member
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    I was just like you at the beginning of this year!!!

    So, I joined MFP in January, and started doing the Insanity workouts. I was counting my calories and logging everything, and I gained 5 lbs in January. I didn't understand what I was doing wrong. I was under my calories every day, because I was burning 500+ calories/day, 6x/week. However....I was eating very poorly. I would stop at McDonald's and get a large coffee (with several creamer and sugar), and either the oatmeal or the parfait. This is how the rest of my day would go. So, while I was under calories, it was bad calories. So I gave up and went back to my old habits. Then I did alot of research. I found that although the parfait and oatmeal seemed healthy, they really weren't!!! So I started back up in April. Now granted, I haven't lost all that much weight, but I've lost tons of inches. I started Insanity again, and this time I'm being smarter about what I'm eating. Plus, I'm eating more frequently. For example: I have a protein shake for breakfast (8am). Then at 10am I have a piece of fruit. Then my lunch at 12 (usually a subway sandwich, or leftovers), then I have a granola bar at about 3, then another piece of fruit at 6, then another protein shake at about 8 - 9, depending on when I'm done with my workout. I have dropped a pant size, and feel that these are getting loose now too.

    Please don't completely give up. Research! Don't just look at the calories you're eating, look at the fat, carbs, etc. Look into healthy foods, snacks. Drink lots of water!! At first I had to really force myself to drink it, now I prefer it! I don't let myself drink less than 8 cups/day, and I try and get it all in before I leave work for the day. Remember, this isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle change. You want to be healthy so you can be around a long long time. It's not going to be easy. It won't be overnight, but you can do it. There's LOTS of motivation on here, so you came to the right place! Chin up, start fresh tomorrow!!!
  • TheLaser
    TheLaser Posts: 338 Member
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    *Focus on how far you've come!

    *Focus on the non-scale victories (compliments from people noticing, clothes fitting differently, etc)

    *Take this slump as a time to learn about new foods, new exercises, and new daily strategies. Instead of going to the bar one night, you could spend that time learning

    *Give yourself a reward goal

    *Give yourself a little "pet project," e.g. substituting in one healthier, low-cal food per day, taking the stairs, etc)

    *Build exercise into your daily routine so that you can't avoid it and it feels off to do something else (I drive to the pool every day at the same time) Meet up with a workout friend to keep yourself to a commitment.

    *If you don't feel like exercising, tell yourself that you'll only do it for twenty minutes (or ten, or x amount of pushups, or whatever). Chances are in that time you'll start to like it and keep doing it. If not, then you've at least done the twenty minutes!

    *Make new friends on here and keep yourself accountable

    *Make little changes at a time that you can actually achieve so that you have achievable goals ahead of you and a sense of accomplishment when you do achieve them.

    *Instead of feeling demotivated because of slips, use the slips to learn about yourself -how can you do it differently next time, what triggered the problem, etc. Planning your "slips" will make you feel much more in control.

    Good luck!
  • lmaiviet
    lmaiviet Posts: 3
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    Quitting is the easy part. Put down the cigarettes and put your gym gear on now and go for it. Another suggestion is to go to sleep in your gym gear and when the alarm wakes you up in the morning you're dressed and ready to go so you have no excuse.
  • HungryTuna
    HungryTuna Posts: 141
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    I just went through a similar situation myself... I'd been doing well with Power 90 then moving onto P90X for several months now.
    The last two weeks I took off was a big mistake. It's been hard to get back in the swing of things, but I'm trying, even if it's a little bit at a time.

    Take it one day at a time and do your best on that given day. Relax and make your next meal the best meal of your day. Exercise can be done anywhere if you get up and move around a bit. Do some squats while waiting on dinner to cook, or bust out some push-ups on the counter in the ladies room.. I sneak in little exercises where I can thorughout the day so I can remind myself to stay active.
  • TDGee
    TDGee Posts: 2,209 Member
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    Falling off the wagon happens, Don't STAY under the wagon. Get up, dust yourself off and keep moving forward.

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