How do you stay motivated?

And when you see results and they tell you how good you look and ask what you've been doing..... you say....

To stay motivated, i look on here at before/after pictures patiently awaiting my chance to post my results.

I enjoy the small things and don't sweat if the scale doesn't move.

I think you have to allow yourself some "fun" meals. If I thought I could NEVER have pizza again in my life, it would depress me endlessly. Maybe once a week, you can have a night off from healthy eating, etc. but I'd limit it to the meal and not the entire evening.

I don't know if you can count this as motivation or not, but I just make myself work out 4 times a week. I know going in that I have to do that and I just do not allow it not to happen, even if I'm working out at 10 p.m. Usually I do a workout on Saturday and one on Sunday since I"m off on weekends and this only leaves 2 times I have to find a way to work it in during the week. That helps a lot, but even if for some reason it doesn't happen on the weekend, I make myself do it during the week. One thing that helps is that I work out with coworkers here at work (I'm a teacher) and it's good for accountability as well as making it fun.

That is really good planning on your part to have the lunch that you do. It is hard to eat healthy when those around you don't. My husband is underweight and keeps all kinds of goodies on the table right in front of me. I keep my mind focused on my goal...ME! I have to do this for my own health. I had a heart attack and open heart surgery at the age of 44. My motivation is to keep my health from getting any worse and start to feel better physically and mentally. I am embarassed to go out in public even after losing almost 100 lbs. I look at my before, during and current photos and that really keeps me motivated, because I will NEVER go back to weighing 304 lbs. I wish you luck in your healthy lifestyle change. You really can do this. Feel free to add me.

Hi! Sometimes it only takes something very small to motivate me, The wallpaper on my phone is a fitness advertisement with a quote on it : "You can feel sore tomorrow or you can feel sorry tomorrow". For some reason just seeing that picture helps me shove my excuses out of my mind and get myself to the gym because it has so much truth to it in my opinion. Also, I have been going to the gym steady for a month now and it seems that my body craves my workouts and I actually want to go Now I just need to concentrate on the food aspect, which is the toughest part for me.

Hope this helped a little! Take care

Sometimes a vacation is needed. Also, think of it as going opposite directions. You know what that kind of eating does to you. Eating a healthier meal will get you to your goal(s) a lot faster. One day, the roles will be reversed where they are trying to drop pounds and get healthy and you will already be there living a healthy lifestyle.

Also, if you have don't like your sandwich, make home made tacos. There are recipes out there that can have tacos ranging from 150-225 calories. Keeping searching for something you enjoy and is healthy. It's out there even if you have to create it.

Staying with topic How Do You Stay Motivated? I come here to read stories like this and look at before and after pictures of people. Seeing ordinary people succeeding is major motivation for me. I think it is amazing how people choose to change their life and the results are 10, 20, or even 100 pounds of weight loss.

Best wishes on your efforts!

When I'm dreading a work-out I remind myself that excuses are what helped me to gain all this weight. I have to say to myself (sometime outloud lol) "You've made excuses for too long. No more! You will feel so much better about yourself once this work-out is over"
The first thing I do when I come home from work is change into my work-out clothes and put on my sneakers. That way, I can't even use that as an excuse! I already have the proper clothes on, so I might as well do my work-out.
I also haven't given up any foods I love. I jsut eat them less often or try it a new way. I still eat my favorite food (mashed potatoes) proably 1-2 times a week. I understand now that if I force myself to give up the foods I love then I'll just relapse and fail.

I stay motivated because I no longer have shorts that fit.

I stay motivated because I don't get winded walking up two flights of stairs anymore.

I stay motivated because a month ago I couldn't do 25 squats and now I can do over 200, sometimes even 100 at a time if I push myself.

I stay motivated because there's a pile of jeans, tee's, tanks, and bathing-suit pieces that I was wearing last summer that I fully intend to wear again this summer and it's all on me and how hard I work that determines if this intent will be realized.

I stay motivated because I have to. There is no other option.


It sounds like you're craving foods that you consider to be tastier then your sandwiches, and that's okay! It's okay to crave, and look at a chocolate fountain with envious eyes while you mentally picture yourself swimming in it's chocolate-y depths and practically inhaling t's melty goodness. We enjoy eating things that taste good, it's not complicated. So spicing up your new diet (and I use diet in terms of a permanent change in how your eating-not a short term fad) will leave you more satisfied and craving less of what you consider to be better tasting foods.

You can still have a delicious sandwich with low-fat products, it doesn't HAVE to be this bland life-less lump of bread and a single slice of lonely un-flavored meat. Turkey and chicken are two meats that are lower in fat, but high in protein and purchasing a flavorful lunch meat like oven-roasted turkey can pack lots of tasty bird flavor into a few slices of meat. The particular kind of lunch meat I buy, Oscar Mayer slow roasted turkey breast, is naturally lean and 50 calories per serving (serving size on the package is listed as 6 slices) , less then 1gram of sodium (480MG), only 1 gram of fat and 9 grams of protein.

The Selects oven-roasted roast beef come's in pretty decently, at 60 calories per serving (again, this is all based on 6 slices), with slightly less sodium, 2 grams of fat, and 10grams of protein.

I like to combine my lunch meats and will usually put 4 slices of meat on a sandwich, folding them up one next to the other alternating the deli meat I am using so I get delicious combinations in each bite.


You can still put cheese on your sandwiches, I purchase low-fat Colby cheese which comes in at around 80 calories for a fairly large serving that I unfortunately cannot remember. Looking up the nutrition details on MFP for an entry called "Cheese - Low fat, cheddar or colby", it shows a 1OZ slice as being 48 calories, and 170MG of sodium. Adding some thin slices of low-fat cheese will make your sandwiches much tastier and for folks like me who consume very little dairy low-fat cheese is a nice way to get calcium.

It sounds boring, and cliche to say this, but a sandwich is one great way to get a good dose of veggies. Romaine lettuce has more nutritional value of Iceberg and tastes delicious with sandwiches. Tomatoes,hot peppers, spinach, pickles,and red-onion are some of my favorite toppings for sandwiches and they taste delicious.

Adding seasoning to your sandwich might seem strange but I like to put a bit of salt,pepper, and basil onto mine.

Instead of looking at your veggies,fruit, and sandwiches as being bland and tasteless or boring and something you FORCE yourself to eat to be healthy, find ways to make that food delicious and tasty in it's own right. I could eat a different sandwich everyday and be just as satisfied as if I ate taco bell.

i keep pics of me what i look like now in kitchen-i dont want to look like this this ,keeps me going

My eating habits have gone a bit crazy as my life has hit a rough patch lately. So in order to keep myself motivated, for the month of May I made a spreadsheet with a list of simple goals of things I want to accomplish each day. Like, "Avoid binge eating" "Eat clean", etc. And rather than be too strict on myself, just keep track of how I'm doing. Not to try and be perfect but to take it each day a time. I like it also because I can see my trends, so like on the weekend I didn't meet the clean eating goal as I was going out, eating out, etc.

I love looking at Success Stories for motivation. I also love to look at old pictures of myself so I can see how far I've come. (Unfortunately only works if you've made some progress, but for this reason I do hiiiiighly recommend taking progress photos, they are VERY beneficial.)

I still have Taco Bell LOL BUT I stay motivated by looking at my day 0 pictures and thinking of how bad my health was and how awful I felt about myself!