I feel like I've lost my motivation...

I find the more junk I eat and the less exercise I do the more tired and sluggish I feel...bad food and less exercise may be the reason you're not sleeping well. Just commit to doing 2 days of exercise and eat healthy, then you may build up the energy you need to keep you going and increase your motivation. Seems simple right? I've been there and know it's not easy. Just try to do at least 2 days, and I bet you'll find the motivation to keep going.

The first few months are always the hardest. But once you get past those, and into a regular routine the eating, and the exercising will become part of your norm.
You have done so well in making good choices, and you can continue to do so. You just have to find it within yourself to continue with it on a daily basis, and remind yourself why your chose to live this lifestyle, and why you want to do better for yourself, and your family.
And about those morning workouts, I am the same way. I think it has to do the same with the cold weather. Chin up lady, I am here for you, and I can even drive upstate to give you that kick in the rear (LOL) to get your back on track if need to be!

I am having a hard time right now keeping up with the healthy lifestyle. I don't know what happened to my motivation.

I haven't exercised since last Wednesday. Part of that problem is that I wake up tired in the morning, even though I go to bed around 10pm to get up at 6 am. I always end up waking up around 4-5 am and having a hard time falling back asleep, so I need to find some way to fix that because I would like to wake up in the morning refreshed and ready to go. But even if I'm tired, I still need to push myself to get up and I haven't been doing that. It's been hard for me lately, and I don't know why.

My other problem is the food. Part of me is doing good and trying to keep on track, but then there's the other part that says I have no willpower. For example, I go out to eat with my family and it feels like I don't have the strength to get something healthy-ish from the menu. I want to order the burger & fries, and sometimes do. The other part is making dinner for my family. I feel like we have the same thing all the time, and I'm getting bored of it.

Ugh...I need something to kick my butt into gear and get me back on track!

Thanks for listening to me vent!

Nobody besides you can keep you accountable for your actions. I was in that phase a long time ago too, but you just have to sit down and look over things, and evaluate what is more important to you. Is it being in shape and healthy or just eating whatever comes your way. There is no easy way to do it, you can't get anywhere without struggle, but in the end its how hard you tried that matters.

Just focus on what you want every single day, switch your attention from your tiredness to what you want.

hope that helped

I am having a hard time right now keeping up with the healthy lifestyle. I don't know what happened to my motivation.

I haven't exercised since last Wednesday. Part of that problem is that I wake up tired in the morning, even though I go to bed around 10pm to get up at 6 am. I always end up waking up around 4-5 am and having a hard time falling back asleep, so I need to find some way to fix that because I would like to wake up in the morning refreshed and ready to go. But even if I'm tired, I still need to push myself to get up and I haven't been doing that. It's been hard for me lately, and I don't know why.

My other problem is the food. Part of me is doing good and trying to keep on track, but then there's the other part that says I have no willpower. For example, I go out to eat with my family and it feels like I don't have the strength to get something healthy-ish from the menu. I want to order the burger & fries, and sometimes do. The other part is making dinner for my family. I feel like we have the same thing all the time, and I'm getting bored of it.

Ugh...I need something to kick my butt into gear and get me back on track!

Thanks for listening to me vent!

Nobody besides you can keep you accountable for your actions. I was in that phase a long time ago too, but you just have to sit down and look over things, and evaluate what is more important to you. Is it being in shape and healthy or just eating whatever comes your way. There is no easy way to do it, you can't get anywhere without struggle, but in the end its how hard you tried that matters.

Just focus on what you want every single day, switch your attention from your tiredness to what you want.

hope that helped

well said!! I was feeling like this last week and I was just struggling with my workouts. And then I just forced myself to get motivated because i do not want to UNDO everything that I have worked on.

The thought of starting over was enough for me to keep going.. so I'm going!!!

Do you belong to a gym? When do you exercise?

I've looked at your food diary a little bit and it seems to be a bit erratic. There are days when it seems like you hit your food goal or close to it, and then other days when you have a turkey breakfast sandwich in the morning, a Healthy Choice at lunch, and then chocolate snacks... and that's all. You could be feeling tired because you're not eating enough nutritious food. It looks like there is a lot of prepackaged food in your diary. Don't get me wrong, it's necessary sometimes. Prepackaged food is CONVENIENT overall and sometimes seems more affordable than making food yourself. However, it's also loaded with preservatives, additives, sodium, you name it. From personal experience, I find it much better if I plan out my meals for every day and have healthy, fresh, homemade food. I have more energy... my body feels better.

I think the key to your problem is that you don't have a a food plan. Your food diary is all over the place. I used to make all sorts of unhealthy choices before I started planning my food. Since I have started planning my three meals a day plus 2 snacks though, I can more easily make the decision to avoid unhealthy foods.

Good luck!

@ Aregensb,
I don't belong to a gym. I'd love to join the YMCA, but can't afford it right now. I workout at home, in the mornings before work. I usually do DVD plans. Right now, I'm doing Supreme 90 day.

I know my diary is out of whack. I'm not trying to make excuses, but I do wonder if it's the wintertime with the bad food choices type deal. This is the first winter where I've actually tried vs just saying "I'll start on New Years." The problem I am having is that when we don't have leftovers from dinner, I buy the healthy choice meals so I can have something healthy to eat at work. I don't know what else to eat, and I try not to order out with my coworkers due to money and the places they order never have any "Healthy" food, and it's hard to track. The same with breakfast. I eat breakfast at my desk at work, so I need something quick & easy to prepare so I can eat. Any advice on that would be great. I would love to be able to do homemade food, and I would love to have recipes for stuff I can prepare in advance as time is limited in the mornings.

I appreciate everyone's help!

Okay DVDs are also good. I was asking about the gym to see if you had access to any large weight systems.

Perhaps switch back to 30DS or Ripped in 30. Maybe that's also a reason you don't want to get out of bed to do the DVD - maybe you just don't like it as much as the others.

Other than that, I'd say to try really hard to get your food diary in order. It doesn't have to be difficult or time consuming to make your meals. I saw that you like oatmeal in the morning. You could get some old-fashioned oats or steel cut oats and make a big batch. I've done that before so all I need to do is measure out my portion and microwave it. I also shake up some milk with chocolate protein powder and add it to the oatmeal. You can do the same thing with cereal. I use high fiber bran flakes. You can also go for a breakfast of greek yogurt, or lowfat yogurt and ricotta cheese with berries or nuts. If you like eggs for breakfast, you can softboil or hardboil some eggs and stick them on a sandwich, or do some scrambled or fried eggs... or an omelette!

As for lunch, I will either 1) make a dinner that has leftovers so I can pack that for lunch or 2) pack a BIG salad. My salads will include something like: 2cups (94grams) of romaine lettuce, 1/2cup of black beans, 1/2 sliced and peeled cucumber, 1/2 to 1 whole vine tomato, 4-5oz of some kind of lean protein (chicken breast, leftover med rare tuna steak, etc.), an egg, and an olive oil based vinaigrette (you can make a vinaigrette out of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, white wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar... many different kinds depending on your taste!). Sometimes I'll add an ounce of cheese as well (mmm cheese).

For dinner, you can really do just about anything. Seared salmon or tuna, chicken, pork chops... Just try to get about 4-5 oz of protein and get your carbohydrates from delicious veggies! Veggies I often will eat are roasted asparagus, steamed broccoli, green beans, a side salad, a greek salad made from cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and a little feta... there are quite a lot of options out there. You can also make some rice as a side dish. Brown rice is the most nutritious, but I know not everyone likes it.

Protein will keep you feeling full. Eating frequent, small snacks will also help if you have room in your diet for it. For example, I will eat half a cup of lowfat cottage cheese with almonds, carrots (or some kind of veggie - red pepper, radishes, etc.) with hummus, an apple with peanut butter, yogurt with nuts or berries...

There are a lot of easy, quick, healthy recipes out there on the internet, and I know that people on mfp are very willing to share their recipes as well. Best of luck to you!

Edit: one more thing - if you don't have a food scale, it is definitely worth it to invest in one. I bought one about a month ago and I use it EVERY DAY. It's easier for me to measure by weight rather than by volume for salads, veggies, etc.