How do you stay motivated?

Hi, my name is Jennifer and I'm 27 years old. I live in beautiful Orange County, CA and I'm still suffering from the freshman ....55? Haha just like most people in there 20s your body goes through some changes and well mine did just that. I went from being 5'8, 120 lbs and pretty athletic to 5'8 175 and a work-ohlic. It's been SO hard to loose any weight! How do you stay motivated and on track?! My friends aren't in the greatest shape either but they don't struggle with the insecurities I do. I used to be a beach bum but haven't put on a bathing suite in 2 years.. I refuse to wear shirts without sleeves and I won't workout without a hoodie on. It's been tough needless to say. I'm ready to take control for the millionth time

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Knowledge, learn how it works.
Prepare and plan
Get the right mindset.
Commit and make it happen.

Its straightforward then because you know the why and how, then its up to you just to get on with it. It makes sense and everything fits. If you want it badly enough you make it happen. Unless you want to quit or yo yo then make it count.

Set good goals

I stay motivated by keeping my Fitbit Charge HR on. I only remove it when I bathe. Looking at it multiple times a day keeps me on track like nothing else has before. It shows how many calories I'm using and how active I truly am.

IAmTheGlue wrote: »

I stay motivated by keeping my Fitbit Charge HR on. I only remove it when I bathe. Looking at it multiple times a day keeps me on track like nothing else has before. It shows how many calories I'm using and how active I truly am.

I agree. My Misfit tracker keeps me motivated as well.

What also motivates me is setting goals, how much better I feel eating healthier and exercising, wanting the changes in my eating and activity to be permanent, and wanting to stay thin.

Motivation is a very personal thing. Each person has something, but you really have to find something of your own. The transition from high school to college is a tough one, because you are living a completely different lifestyle. It's easy to get lost in the inactivity of class time, study time, lounge time, and hanging out. Most of which probably include eating of some kind. Find a way to decide to grab the reins and take control.

For me, I am simply refusing to fail. I went about this the wrong way before. I lost 30lbs eating way too few calories and restricting myself too much. Needless to say I gained it back quickly! This time around, something clicked. I set reasonable goals. I educated myself. I figured out how to eat so I stopped binging and losing control. When I have days where I'm not as motivated, i read the success stories here and think about how each day I'm a little bit closer to being a success story myself. Looking for all the nsv's help immensely. And once my family realized how serious i am about this, they pitched in to help me afford a personal trainer. Now i have to succeed because there is no way I'm letting their money go to waste!!!!

look at it this way, yes you've gained weight, but it could be worse. There's no better time to start than now. You can do it. don't get overly stressed out about it because that will just make you frustrated and give in. Have fun with it, find food you like, be consistent, weigh and log everything before you eat it, and you'll be surprised what you can do.

I refused to give up. Motivated or not, I refused to give up! I finally learned that a woman's body needs care, and that takes some knowledge! I learned how to care for my body, to balance my metabolic functions with my fork! With some knowlege about how food choices were affecting my body, I learned how to eat to balance it, and I was able to normalize my BIG appetite, to normalize my blood sugar and stress response, and I was able to lose 15lbs and 2.7%bodyfat in 4 weeks! Breakthrough.

Wow you all are such a motivation! Setting personal goals, holding yourselves accountable with all different kinds of tools makes me excited for my future. I don't know about you but I think the hardest part of weight loss is that there is no instant gratification. It takes a lot of hardwork and focus so my hat is off to you all for sticking with it! This app is so great in allowing people to reach out and see that people deal with the same struggles I do! I hope I can share my journey and see not only my transformation but others as well! I think more then anything I gotta work on keeping myself excited for the end result rather than giving in two weeks deep because of such a small change!

Good luck to everyone! I'll be rooting for all of us to meet our goals!

I can either succeed or tell myself that I failed. That's not a hard choice for me.

for me it is how I physically feel now that the weight is gone and I am in pretty good shape again.

I have energy and that is motivating...barring that I look at the pic that started it all...

That's me in the red dress which btw has a tummy control panel in it...*smh* I can't believe I let myself go that far...

Im resolved, not motivated. Failure is not an option.

That being said, I have reasonable goals and expectations. I expect to lose an average of 1# a week and get my butt to the gym at least 3 days a week.

999tigger wrote: »

Knowledge, learn how it works.
Prepare and plan
Get the right mindset.
Commit and make it happen.

Its straightforward then because you know the why and how, then its up to you just to get on with it. It makes sense and everything fits. If you want it badly enough you make it happen. Unless you want to quit or yo yo then make it count.

^^ this.

knowledge is power. you can't hit any goals unless you plan FOR EVERYTHING - food, workouts etc.
also - find something you love. just because everyone is running, doesn't mean you'll love it. i hate running but i love muay thai. i can't get enough of it. my friend loves tennis and can't get enough of that. so find something you truly enjoy because working out shouldn't feel like a chore!

i stuck with it because i stopped trying to get skinny and wanted to get healthy. shifting my focusing away from my weight/fat and concentrated on how i felt and how strong i was getting/feeling made all the difference. i no longer needed to weigh myself; i no longer needed to fight the temptations because i realized that MY CHOICES will give me consequences - good or bad. bad choices make me feel awful; good choices make me feel awesome so when awesomeness is an option, why would i willingly choose to feel awful??

this was like a freaking revelation to me LOL. by the time i looked in the mirror again, all my weight had come off and i was like, WHOA! where did those muscles come from?! i haven't looked back and now, at age 39, i'm in the best shape of my life. i recently found my high school jeans (size 2) and put them on for kicks and they were loose on me. my reaction to that was pretty much in line to when my husband proposed haha!!

Daily weigh ins

I stay motivated by using a fitbit. It helps to have a goal of 10K steps a day. If I find that after dinner I havent hit my goal of at the very least 10,000, I ask my fiance to take a stroll with me around the neighborhood. One time I even made him walk the three floors of the mall, since we were already downtown and had dinner there haha. I stay motivated by weighing myself everyday. I read the community boards here on fitbit in my free time or when Im bored at work because it keeps me from eating crap when sitting at work. I try to constantly educate myself and try new recipes so that I can stay motivated.

I don't stay motivated. In fact, everyday, I say no more. But, what keeps me doing it is discipline. My alarm goes off at 4am. As a light sleeper, once that happens, I will never ever get back to sleep. So, I just get up and get my butt to the gym. Once I'm at the gym, there I am. Nothing to do except workout.

You don't have to be motivated. Motivation is fleeting. It's like inspiration. Inspiration for something comes and goes. But, if you just simply make it routine, that's when you start seeing things happen.

Start planning your food for the week, and then only eat that.

Plan out your fitness plan 3-months in advance. Every single day, then do it. Just be a robot about it for a while. you just do it. Go through the motions. If you do that for a couple months, you will now have dedicated enough time and energy to really make it start happening.

it's kind of easy. But, it takes discipline, not motivation.

If you ask successful people how they got successful, it's usually planning. it's not just letting life control them. They start controlling what happens in their life and their reaction to what happens to them. Those two things together change everything. Don't just look up from your computer and say, "I'm hungry", and then start figuring out what to eat. Plan it out already. So, when you're hungry, you already have prepared something to eat. there's never a surprise.

One thing to note about meal planning. Most people find that it really takes a toll on friends and social life. It does. It's very difficult to manage. You kind of have to let go of that a little bit and ease up on the reins and just let people go. Once you stop going out all the time, people stop being friends with you. You can read the many stories on MFP about that happening to people. So, just something to keep in mind.

There's really no secret to staying motivated. My motivation comes from within myself - my new lifestyle is a habit now. I don't lay in bed at 4:30am and debate on whether I should get up and work out that day or not. I get up and do it because that's what I do now.

Pre-logging has really helped me. I pre-log WAY in advance, which wouldn't work with some people's lives, but it works for me and really helps me stay on track and not end up at 6:00 in the evening without any calories left. I spread out my meals so I'm eating often and eating foods I enjoy so I don't feel like I'm restricting myself too much.

It's really effortless at this point, but I've been through the yo-yo dieting, so I know that it takes time to get to the point where it's not constant effort on your part. I eventually reached a point where I knew that I either wanted it or I didn't. If I wanted it bad enough, I'd do what it takes to get there. No BS excuses. And that's what I did and will continue to do.

Not being too hard on yourself or completely cutting out foods you like is also a big help. You don't need to eat 1200 calories per day to lose weight. You don't need to eat a salad for dinner every day in order to lose weight. You don't need to snack on nothing but celery and baby carrots to lose weight. Calories in vs. calories out. Don't complicate it.

Find a workout routine that you really like. I hated cardio, but I absolutely love lifting. Getting up really early to lift is no hardship because I enjoy it so much. If I skipped it for no good reason, I know I'd regret it, so I just don't. I don't give myself the option to miss a workout. I just DO IT.

Finding YOUR motivation is something that you have to do on your own. Good luck.

motivation is a fleeting thing...it's an emotion...if you're relying on motivation to keep you going you're going to have a rough go of it. Ultimately you have to develop healthful habits...habits die hard.

I'm not always motivated to go workout just as I"m not always motivated to do the dishes or pull the weeds...but these things need doing, so I do them. I schedule in exercise just like I schedule in anything else...it's not some optional extra curricular activity. Note that I also schedule in appropriate rest. It's routine...it's habit...it's Tuesday night so that means I'll be in the weight room tonight...'cuz that's just the way it is.

It also helps to establish some goals that go beyond the scale.

jen_jonesss wrote: »

Hi, my name is Jennifer and I'm 27 years old. I live in beautiful Orange County, CA and I'm still suffering from the freshman ....55? Haha just like most people in there 20s your body goes through some changes and well mine did just that. I went from being 5'8, 120 lbs and pretty athletic to 5'8 175 and a work-ohlic. It's been SO hard to loose any weight! How do you stay motivated and on track?! My friends aren't in the greatest shape either but they don't struggle with the insecurities I do. I used to be a beach bum but haven't put on a bathing suite in 2 years.. I refuse to wear shirts without sleeves and I won't workout without a hoodie on. It's been tough needless to say. I'm ready to take control for the millionth time

You're young ... you should be out experiencing life, doing active things.

When I was in my late 20s/early 30s, if I wasn't out doing something active and interesting on weekends, I felt like I wasted a weekend. At that age, I was into bicycle racing, and then I got into long, long distance cycling which led into travelling around the world for cycling events.

Have a look over this list of sports ... and start trying things, even just to say that you tried that once.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports

If you focus on being more active, it really helps the motivation because you develop goals as a part of the activities you enjoy the most.

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