How do you keep your focus?

anacd · March 2018

Hello everyone,

Happy Monday

I'm here to try getting some ideas and inspiration from you. One of my biggest struggles when it comes to losing weight, is keeping my focus. I usually start well with eating healthy and exercising, but I soon lose my motivation/focus and end up gaining back the weight I lost or, at best, not losing any weight. In order to reach my health weight, I need to lose about 50lbs. So my question to you is: How do you keep yourself motivated and focused to achieve your long term goals? If you went through this, please feel free to share your experience.

cwolfman13 · March 2018

IDK...my doctor basically told me that I was on my way to an early grave, so that did the trick for me...especially since I had a 2 year old and an infant at home at the time. That was over 5 years ago now...

ETA: I also figured out a long time ago that an all or nothing mentality wasn't going to work and was unrealistic and it didn't matter if I got a bit off track today as long as I was on track for the most part. I didn't do a super aggressive calorie cut and I didn't have an overly restrictive diet...I eat lots of healthful foods and some not so healthful foods without avoiding things I enjoy all together.

kdbulger · March 2018

I think everyone has times when they struggle to maintain their focus. Nobody's journey is linear.

Some things that help me significantly when I struggle (which is most often with food more so than exercise), is to focus on the non-scale benefits of my new lifestyle, as well as the reasons why I started. Fact of the matter for me is that when my exercise slips, my mental health does too. When my nutrition slips I feel physically unwell, too, so that's an incentive to get back on track.

Consistency is a concept that keeps me going too. One day off-plan is no big deal *as long as the other 6 in the week are on track*.

I check in with a facebook group of friends with health/fitness goals. We post sweaty selfies after every work out.

Perhaps the littlest but also strangely motivating thing has been my myfitnesspal log-in streak. While I'm logged in, I almost always track what I ate recently, and that keeps my habit rolling.

I also have a bunch of curated quotes that speak to me. I keep them in a notebook that is most often with me:

"What we practice grows stronger" - If I want to get stronger, I have to practice fitness. If I want the healthy lifestyle to come naturally, I have to practice the habits until they feel natural.

"If you don't sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice" (for me this is about taking the time to focus on my fitness goals and meal/food prep, versus feeling terrible all the time when I don't!)

"Keep showing up for yourself" - you know how some days you don't want to go to work (or insert whatever) but you have an obligation to show up, so you do? Obligate yourself to show up. You are worth the effort!

"You may feel like giving up because your goal seems so far out of reach but remember this: The time will pass whether you spend it working towards your goal or not" - I often think of how I will feel at the end of this year if I have given up, versus if I am actively working toward it and miss by a little (okay), versus if I crush my goal.

"It's a slow process, but quitting won't speed it up." - When I feel like I'm not progressing fast enough, or if I have compared my journey to someone else's, this one really helps. If I'm making progress forward, it's okay! As long as I'm not going backward...

ladyhusker39 · March 2018

I make a plan and I follow it. No motivation required. I have a job to do so I do it. Remove the emotion and it gets a lot easier.

sschauer513 · March 2018

You must find your why to do this and keep it on top of your priorities in life. Somedays that is easier than others but if your why is important enough that is your motivation. For me I didn't want to die early and wease going up a flight of steps anymore. Different for everyone but the secret is find your why then finding the how is here.

kdbulger · March 2018

ladyhusker39 wrote: »

I make a plan and I follow it. No motivation required. I have a job to do so I do it. Remove the emotion and it gets a lot easier.

More and more, as time goes on, I find this is what I'm doing.

kommodevaran · March 2018

At some point, after I started to lose weight this time around (2013), I stopped focusing on eating healthy and exercising. I lost 50 pounds too, and have kept the weight off for three years, the longest ever, for me. Before, I would always regain, because I couldn't keep it up. Now I just live a normal everyday life, happy, pretty effortlessly - of course I pay attention to what I eat, choose nutritious food, plan and prepare balanced and varied meals - but the black/white, all-or-nothing thinking is gone. I weigh myself daily. I move more, daily.

SteamPug · March 2018

I dunno about maintaining motivation, because motivation in itself isn’t something I really believe it, but what keeps me turning back is knowing how tragic it would be if I undo all the hard work I’ve put in so far. I can’t deal with the idea of making all that work worth nothing.

bikecheryl · March 2018

kdbulger wrote: »

ladyhusker39 wrote: »

I make a plan and I follow it. No motivation required. I have a job to do so I do it. Remove the emotion and it gets a lot easier.

More and more, as time goes on, I find this is what I'm doing.

Yep.... one step, one meal, one day at a time BUT I NEVER TOOK MY EYES OFF MY END GOAL.

I made a spread sheet that helped me to remember that.

I put in my starting weight and weigh in dates every week after. My plan was to lose 2lbs per week, so I entered my theoretical weight for each week.

When I was really struggling I would look at it and think..... ya, it's hard right now, but by June I'll weigh this much, and by my birthday this much and by Christmas this much.

I had 130 lbs to lose and was really focused so the first few months I lost more than I had scheduled but there were other months I didn't lose as much cause well ....... life happens right?

After 11 1/2 months I'm 2lbs ahead of schedule.... and still have my eyes on my end goal.

cwolfman13 · March 2018

Also to add...motivation is something that can be beneficial in getting started...but nobody is 100% motivated all of the time...it's not realistic. It's an emotion. It ultimately comes down to discipline and forming healthy habits.

We all do things on the daily for which we aren't necessarily motivated. I'm rarely motivated to clean the bathrooms or weed the yard...but I do those things because otherwise my house would be a *kitten* show. Your body is your house...take care of your house so it doesn't go to *kitten*.

gloriadw41 · March 2018

Bikecheryl- you are so inspiring to me! I love your excel spreadsheet! There’s something about seeing it on paper that can keep a person on track. I kept track similarly for a year and lost 50 lbs. When I stopped keeping track I started gaining it back. I’m going back to tracking and I’m going to try your spreadsheet method! I love it!

How do you keep your focus?

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