What is your why?

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Jbarbo01
Jbarbo01 Posts: 240 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
When I read or listen to stories from people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off; the one constant piece of advice is that they say you need a strong answer to the question of why you want to lose weight. What is your why?

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  • Lucille4444
    Lucille4444 Posts: 284 Member
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    I am not sure that is true. There are many who regain despite health risks and social difficulties and when they come here to try again, their posts show they are aware of the good reasons for the original loss; it is hard to lose weight and more difficult still to keep it off long term.
  • CoffeeNCardio
    CoffeeNCardio Posts: 1,847 Member
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    I don't know that having a good reason to do it is really all that motivating, I found more that hating myself before was the more powerful motivator. I hate feeling weak, looking bad, feeling bad. Fear of going back to that has by far been my most powerful motivator to keep going. Starting over would be so awful I can't even allow myself to think about it. Before I started, my motivation was less tangible. I just started logging one day, eating what and how much I normally did, and then slowly I got that number down to a deficit.

    Honestly I think weight loss failure is more directly attributable to misinformation than to lack of motivation. If motivation and good intent was all that was required to lose weight no one on earth would be overweight. It was finding CICO for me. If I had known it was gonna be this easy (no weird food, no diet plan, no money out of pocket, no strict exercise regimen) to lose weight I would have done this years ago.

    I do keep one thing in mind though, which I guess could be a reason: What if I have daughters? I went through high school fat. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Being female has enough obstacles to overcome on it's own in this world, and skinny parents (naturally or otherwise) make for skinny children, so I really have to get myself under control before I have any more kids so they'll be spared what I was not.
  • Danimri84
    Danimri84 Posts: 262 Member
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    I have a few.

    I've been fat my whole life and I'm sick of it.
    I lost 70 lbs a few years ago, and gained most of it back. I'm angry at myself.
    My son is nearly 6 and there are almost no pictures of the two of us together. It breaks my heart. I want to have professional photos taken of the two of us.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    why?

    i was tired of being fat.

    seriously, thats pretty much it .... i wanted the body that matched my personality.

    its getting there ;)
  • ald783
    ald783 Posts: 688 Member
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    I don't think my "why"s are/were compelling and I wasn't having any health problems. I think it helped once my motivations for losing were only partly vanity based instead of entirely- for example I work out now both to look good but also because I love how it makes me feel. And so I've actually stuck with it for years, as opposed to my college MO where I'd hit the gym hard for a few weeks at a time to look good for spring break or something.

    I just feel better healthier and lighter and fitter. I'm sure losing weight helped ward off plenty of future health problems, and it's nice to fit into clothes and not feel like I'm constantly moving up and down sizes from yoyo-ing around all the time. And not worrying about comfortably fitting into an airplane seat is a plus. There were a lot of reasons. Finding reasons and motivation are important but I don't think that's what carries you. Sometimes you need to just do it even when you're not feeling inspired to, because you know your body will thank you.
  • acheben
    acheben Posts: 476 Member
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    My "why" isn't that great. I was tired of being fat. I was tired of hating how I looked in pictures. I was tired of not knowing what to wear because I didn't have anything that I thought looked good on me.

    One of my great friends had been successfully loosing a ton of weight using MFP and I realized that if she could do it, why couldn't I?
  • Tedebearduff
    Tedebearduff Posts: 1,155 Member
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    Jbarbo01 wrote: »
    When I read or listen to stories from people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off; the one constant piece of advice is that they say you need a strong answer to the question of why you want to lose weight. What is your why?

    I think it's more that you need to be ready to lose the weight instead of the why, there is a "click" moment, at least for me there was. Until that day I didn't really do much of anything, I'd half *kitten* it like you see people on here, lose 20lbs gain it back .. lose the same 20lbs blah blah blah. It wasn't until everything clicked one day I made a decision and just stuck to it. After that day (may 5th 2012) I've never really looked back.

    To answer the actual question, I guess my why is that I realized I didn't want to die when I was 30 years old.
  • helenrosec1
    helenrosec1 Posts: 82 Member
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    When I first tried to lose weight in my 20's admittedly it was to look good, fit into clothes and so others would like me and that was hell. All I cared about was losing weight and getting thinner and I was never happy no matter how much weight I lost. Now 20 yrs later its more about getting to a healthy weight, doing it slowly and healthily and yes still to look good, but for myself and no one else. I'm actually enjoying it too.
  • Aeglean_goals
    Aeglean_goals Posts: 6 Member
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    I had a TIA event. It's like a mini-mini self correcting stroke. As a why, it's a doozy.

    Not the recommended route though.

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