When does motivation kick in?

jpearson1289 wrote: »

So, this has been and uphill battle most of my life (15 years at least). I find this motivation and go for it and do so well then it suddenly disappears. I went from 242 to 205 then sat around 212-215 for a long time then spiralled bbackup to 261 and then back down to 238 and now I'm at 241. it's been gone two years. I'm still trying and I still get little spurts of it, but the eat right go do something every day feeling is now a struggle, I feel useless... and I find myself giving up in the gym more than I should. I get the over whelming anxiety that I'm doing everything wrong and nothing will help. My fitness levels have gone down hill in the last year even though I'm working with a Trainor I can no longer jog a mile or do actual push ups (I get like 1/4 of the way down) and it's frustrating. I want this for myself. I want to feel better physically and mentally about me. Why can't I find that motivation in my soul and get it to stick around with out having a significant other who comments on my weight in negative ways (yes I'm single now) or a reason like fitting in a dress and not feeling like I ruined someone's wedding pictures because I was the 250lb bridesmaid.
My weight is negativity affecting my health and making my fibromyalgia worse.
Anyone else who is frustrated & has found ways to get past it and change into a positive state of mind when they are struggling for ling term success?

I struggled a lot at first. I told myself what I couldn't have and then wanted them even more, and then I'd binge on them. Now I allow myself anything I want, and log it all. When I gave myself permission to have any foods I wanted, my cravings and bingeing went right down. I found, to my surprise, I preferred more nutritious food. What I discovered, is the harder I made this lifestyle change, the less it changed. I had to relax and not stress about what I was eating, and instead concentrate on eating at a calorie deficit. I do exercise sometimes, but if I'm not feeling it I won't stress about it.

It seems to me your mindset is the biggest issue here. You're struggling unnecessarily because you have this idea that you must eat 'right' and do some structured exercise. If you don't want to do that, find exercises you enjoy that don't have to be structured, that you don't have to do at a set time. You can eat what you want as long as it's inside your calorie totals. If you don't want to cook all the time, there are healthy ready meals, protein shakes, healthier sandwiches, bespoke boxes like Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers and Slimming World products at the supermarket, and most major supermarkets do their own healthy ranges as well.

There's no point being down on yourself. Being overweight isn't a moral failing. Some people get fat, some people don't. Losing weight and maintaining that loss has nothing to do with who you are as a person. You're not a bad person or a failure if you find weight issues a struggle. You're just a human doing the best you can each day. A little therapy might help you to raise your self esteem to the point you can begin to make changes to your eating.

Try not to make it too complicated, and stop berating yourself for struggling to have a different lifestyle or not having this magical 'motivation' that you think you're supposed to have some inexhaustible supply of. None of us has that. Weight loss, health, lifestyle change, is more about making different choices each and every day. Being too hard on yourself will only make the process harder than it needs to be. Be kind to yourself, and make small changes you can sustain over a long time.

A little success is motivating, but you can also find yourself using success as an excuse (I lost xx pounds, I can have this treat.) Instead of trying to find motivation, I tried to set myself up for new habits. I am NEVER motivated to work out before work when the alarm goes off, so I work out in the evenings. However, after working all day, I am often not motivated to work out then either. BUT! Here's the part that works- "It's just what I do." It's non-negotiable. I just go. Same as flossing, grocery shopping and laundry, all the other things I am rarely motivated to do. But we do them. Before I realized it, I found myself driving to the pool on autopilot. And more often than not, once I get started working out, I'm motivated to give it my best because I'm there. It's been four years. I'm still not always motivated (and the days are getting darker earlier, and the rain is coming), but I'll keep going because it's what I do.

I too struggle with this right now and it seems that I just am being stubborn with myself by saying that now is the time I said enough is enough and simply just make myself stick within my calorie goal everyday. I also keep telling myself just get through today and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. I’m also making a schedule to workout and as some other have wrote above..just make myself do it..sorta how I just make my kids go to their hockey practice or to swimming..just go because you signed up. Feel free to add me as a friend!

Mostly, I decide to be motivated and then I make myself act that way. But there are some further/finer points -

When I log what I eat, I lose weight (or maintain, if that's what I'm trying to do). When I don't log what I eat, I gain weight (or sometimes maintain, if I'm already at a high weight). That's the way it seems to work for me.

There are things that I do deliberately for motivation. Reading other's success stories on MFP, reveling in my own small successes so far, projecting my future weight loss (I could be a Size what by Christmas?), browsing online for cute clothes available in my by-Christmas size but not my present one, etc.

Goal-setting exercises help me too. What do I hope to achieve by losing weight, how will I know when I have achieved those things, what is standing in my way, how can I remove those obstacles, etc.

There's a thing somewhere in Shakespeare about "screwing your courage to the sticking place." Sometimes I have to screw my motivation to the sticking place, too.