How to lose weight

Hello, and welcome to the MFP Community!

Unfortunately, motivation is pretty much a solo sport, in my opinion/experience. If we have reasons to lose weight, those are personal reasons . . . and they're either important enough to keep us going, or they're not.

Back when I said I wanted to lose weight, but didn't do the things I knew were necessary in order to lose, I knew in my heart that I was lying to myself. If it really meant the intention, I'd do the necessary things.

The one piece of advice I'd give is not to over-rely on motivation. Pretty much no one can keep up something that requires white-knuckled intense, unpleasant effort for weeks, months, years . . . maybe forever, for some parts of it, if a person wants to stay at a healthy weight long term.

Too many people arrive here wanting to lose weight fast, and plan to eat in ways they don't enjoy, that involve totally eliminating some foods they like (but could moderate if they tried), that cut calories to levels that result in excess appetite and fatigue . . . then they add punitively intense, unpleasant daily exercise on top of that.

That won't work. At least, it won't work for long enough to lose a meaningful total amount of weight, let alone keep it off.

Don't try to lose weight fast. Try to lose weight as easily as possible: Shoot for a moderate weight loss rate, foods and eating timing that you enjoy that keep you energetic and full enough most of the time, enjoyable ways of moving more (or at least tolerable, practical ways, either formal exercise or added daily life movement).

It'll take some experimenting, but I'm betting you can make a plan that requires a minimum of motivation, discipline, or willpower. Sure, it'll take some. Use bursts of motivation to adopt one positive, manageable change, and practice it until it's habit. Then coast on autopilot with that until the next burst of motivation, when you can find the will to make another change. Keep going patiently and persistently. Don't stop. That can work.

A slow/easy weight loss can get a person to goal weight in less calendar time than an extreme plan that results in deprivation-triggered over-eating, breaks in the action, or even giving up altogether.

Personally, as a hedonistic aging hippie flake, I have limited motivation, willpower, or discipline. If those were essential every minute, I wouldn't have lost from obese to a healthy weight, and stayed at a healthy weight for 8 years since (after 30 years previously of overweight/obesity).

Give it some thought.

Regardless of what you decide, I wish you success: The quality of life improvement is more than worth the effort!

One thing that helps is realizing that it's not a spring, but a marathon. Don't be among those that have motivation for a few days, eat far too little, crash, then give up because it's not working anyway. Chose a sensible, slower weightloss goal and eat the food you enjoy eating, weighing your intake carefully and not restricting too much. Then it becomes a part of normal. Yeah, you might lose a bit slower, but the chance of you giving up is a lot bigger, and hence you lose more.