What motivates you?

What motivates me?
- I want to be fit and healthy so I can show myself that I am stronger than my cravings and reaction to emotions.
- I want to be fit and healthy so I can gain the esteem and self-confidence to demand respect from others who put me down or use me as a self-validation tool to make themselves feel better ("I may have lost my job, but at least I' I'm not FAT like her." or "She's FAT, she can't get any better, she'll stick with me and I can treat her like *kitten*."
- I want to be fit and healthy so I can look back in my older age/or if I'm sick and remember there was a time in my youth that I was fit, healthy and able to physically maximise my enjoyment of my youth, my body, and my opportunities
- I want to be fit and healthy so I can use it as a means to cultivate OTHER good habits along the way such as - running, waking up early, enjoying a wider variety of foods, self-discipline...

My main motivation is that I just don't want to be this fat anymore. I mean, I WILL NOT be. I'm not just wishing I wasn't, I'm doing something about it. I will stay healthy. I will be able to buy prettier clothes. I will be able to appear in photos and not avoid them.

When I started, when ever I got cravings I told myself that this-or-that food will NOT disappear from the world. If I still want them lets say, in a year, I will have them. This is not my last chance to have a burger or a pizza or a cupcake. But for now, I am choosing to not have them. And the cravings went away in a month or so.

When I noticed I am actually losing weight and not even suffering for it, it encouraged me to keep at it. I'm half way to my goal, 33lbs gone, 33lbs left, and I am confident that I will get there by this time next year. Since I'm feeling fine, I just keep doing what I'm doing, and the time will pass.

So. Find a way to eat healthy in a way you can keep up (counting calories and eating what you like in moderation is pretty easy), find some exercise you LIKE doing (if you hate gym don't go to the gym! Find a dance class or go for walks or what ever you enjoy). This will make this change of a lifestyle easy and do-able instead of being some kind of a temporary fix. When you feel good, your weightloss turns into a hobby, and it stops being a chore.

You can do this! You only need time and patience. No tricks.

Seeing results, although it's true that it takes a while. But biggest motivation was to be healthier after problems with blood pressure. My MD says if I keep going I can come off the BP meds altogether, that is my goal!

I want not to mind to be photographed again. and I want to be fit. and it want my insides to match my outsides.
I miss this person

My thighs. Sometimes my stomach, but my thighs are huge motivators. I would wish their grossness on anyone, but it's too bad you don't have them for motivation. They work.

Also, being healthy. There are many things I'd like to eat that I don't because I'd rather be healthy.

There is no guarantee I won't end up with joint or cardiovascular issues, but I'd like to avoid them if I can, so I do what I can. Eating healthy is the biggest part of that, so I stick with it.