I seriously fell off the wagon on this one. I committed myself to doing South Beach in May and was doing pretty well. I lost 21 pounds! In one fell swoop, however, my old habits crashed in and I've gained back almost 13 of the 21 I lost.

I feel like such a failure. And it's really hard to pick it up again. I'm trying very hard to start back at Phase I and stick with it, but I've even lost the motivation to hit the gym like I had been doing.

It doesn't help that my husband is completely reliant on me to be the motivator - to get him to go to the gym with me and to make sure we're both eating well.

Do any of you have any tips to help me get back into the swing? I've tried thinking about swimsuits and upcoming vacations and all the health benefits and nothing's working!! HELP!!!

Try to pinpoint your motivation. Do you want to be healthier? Do you want to be more active? Do you want to see old friends and have them say "wow look at you"? Are you tired of stuffing yourself into size xx? Are you tired of looking at yourself in the mirror and wondering how you have let yourself stay this way for so long? Something has to really strike a chord within yourself to be your motivation. Find a lifelong dream that may require your weight loss. Find something that says "you know what, wow I need to lose this weight no matter what".

The other thing may be that SBD, although a good eating plan, may not be the right one for you. Is there something that you are feeling you are lacking on SBD?

Also, talk to your husband. Tell him that you need him to help motivate you. You might also need to help him find his motivation.

It is hard to get back on once you have fallen off, everyone on this forum knows what that is like. Unfortunately, that's life. Now that you have realized it, you can pick yourself up and get going again. As Nellie suggested, maybe SBD is not the best plan. I know it took me a lot of trial and error before I hit my stride. It is a learning process and you will learn what works for you. Just focus on getting through one day, or even one meal. Once you do one meal, you know you can do another one. Keep at it, you will find you will get back into it.

Thanks for all the help.

nelie: I don't feel deprived of anything on SBD. I'm just very stubborn when it comes to breaking habits. I think it's more of a "pity party" issue with me. By that, I mean that I get so discouraged that I start to give up when I hit a little resistance.

Bonniebelle: I'm a tall girl, too. I come in at 5'11". I try to count calories and started tracking on fitday.com. I'm still adjusting to a more healthy lifestyle, but fitday definitely helps. I'm working on integrating my fitday journal into my MySpace site....if I do it publicly, I'm more apt to do it right.

ChocLabLover: Thanks so much for your encouragement. One meal at a time, I'll beat it.

I'm sorry you fell off the wagon, like the others said, we've all been there, and it IS hard to get back on and start over. I am like you, I get easily frustrated when things aren't going like I think they should be going, and I've tried really hard to realize that this time, I threw my scale at home away so I couldn't get so easily frustrated with it's lack of movement, I weigh now once a week at work (I'm a nurse so have a scale I can weigh on at work), and sometimes it is two weeks before I weigh, it has been easier for me to handle the slow weeks that way and not give up so easily. Hang in there, you can get back on track and you can do this!!