Not an original thread. At my highest weight I was motivated by different things. I wanted to be able to live and look good, but the biggest thing pushing me was I really felt it was either life or death. Now I am not at that scary place anymore I still wanna lose weight-but it's for slightly different reasons. I just wanna see if we can share our reasons why we lose or why we maintain and why we keep going to motivate everyone. Whether you're losing, starting out, starting over, or just maintaining, what keeps you going?!

Thank you for reading.

This is interesting because what "motivated" me through my 20s was to look good, but that never really worked because I would yo-yo diet, restrict, over exercise, binge...it was a nightmare because my only goal was to be thin. At any cost.

When I started running about 4 years ago I also became interested in moderate weight lifting. And my goals changed. I wanted to be strong and fit, because I like how it feels. It wasn't about my appearance but the performance of my body.

For the first time since middle school I was able to start eating without guilt. I no longer saw food as the enemy but a partner in achieving my goals. The point wasn't too not eat, it was to eat, but eat nutritious food that would give me the strength to run faster and more mileage.

I don't consider myself an athlete, but there is a saying I really like and think of often, especially when the diet mindset starts to creep into my head.

" Athletes don't diet and exercise, they eat and train."

And I live by those words. I don't diet. I don't go on and off diets anymore to deprive my body. I also don't exercise to burn calories and lose weight. I train. In this case, being pregnant, I will have weight to lose, but I look it as improving my body for the activity I do (mainly run). I can run much much faster when I don't weight so much. I guess at this point the weight lose is a pleasant side effect of my main goal. Training.

20% for health, 80% vanity. Just being honest.

To be Honest, at the beginning I caught a glimpse of myself that horrified me. Every feature in me was distorted because of my size! So..Yes it began as Vanity but as GlamourGirl described....It has become about health for me now. Just shifting those first 39 pounds has made a big difference to my tall frame and really slimmed me out in my worst areas..and I can JOG! I have only just realized that exercise is not awful! Which I was so convinced it was. I now want to exercise and although I have lost 39 pounds so far, I am gaining strength and muscle and the feeling of health and strength that I am gaining while I lose far out weighs my feelings about my appearance.

PandorasBox

Health was first. I needed to get my PCOS under control, my body was sending me signals that it wasn't doing well. Once I got that under control, I've plateaued in the 160s. I now want to go lower for vanity reasons (not sure how much more health reasons I can get).

I'd like to lose another 15 lbs, maybe 20lbs and see where I stand then.

So many reasons...

Money: It's expensive to buy plus sized clothing where I am. Most stores that aren't walmart, target, or thrift stores in my area only carry to a size 14 (which I am not). The special plus sized stores are so expensive. I wanted to find a dress to wear to my anniversary dinner and the prices of the specialty stores were 150$ minimum and they were all for older or more conservative women. (TLDR, I'd love to shop at a place that won't break my bank and has just as many selections for my style.)

Vanity: Probably not as high on the list, mostly because I don't have a floor length mirror in my line of sight on most days (It's in the bedroom, behind a door that is almost always open.) so I don't really have that face to body combat with self loathing that some others have. I do, unfortunately avoid group photos and have made it so no one can see photos on facebook that I've been tagged in unless they are also tagged. But, of course, confidence boost would be nice too, especially since I might get married in the next year or two. Don't want to avoid my own wedding photos and the like. lol

Health: Obviously this is number one for me. There are so many things I want to do that I'm physically unable to do because of my size and the shape I'm in. Example: My boyfriend (5'5ish and less than 140lbs) was invited by a coworker to go skiing. Boyfriend was excited until he realized I would not be able to ski and I would just kinda sit on the side grumpy, alone, and feeling bad for myself. He had to decline and I felt bad about it for the rest of the day.

Future: I suppose I also want to prepare myself for the future. Being overweight increases my chance of pregnancy complications, diabetes, high blood pressure, and so on. I'd really love to nip that in the bud asap and make healthy living a routine so I don't set a bad example for my future children (should I have any).

When I lost 120 pounds, the motivator was vanity, pure and simple.

Health has never been a motivator for me. It's too vague, too amorphous, too distant. It's not that I want to be sick and decrepit, but the vague possibility of reducing my statistical chance of this disease or that one at some unspecified time in the future is simply not enough to make me change my behavior today, right now. I don't have children to set a good example for, or with whom I need physically to keep up with and chase around, so those common motivators also aren't going to change my daily behavior.

Vanity was the only thing that would do that for me.

The one shift that happened after I lost the weight, is that when I put a little of it back on, I started to feel how much of a difference it made to me in feeling sluggish, achey, and uncomfortable. So in that sense health is a little part of the motivation to shed the regain - but, vanity is still the prime mover.

I am always glad when I see someone else acknowledge vanity as a motivator. We women (as a class) are taught so perniciously that our best value lies in our physical appearance, and yet we are also taught that if we acknowledge caring about our appearance or putting any effort into it, we are undesirably vain. We are all supposed to look like supermodels when we hop out of bed in the morning but we are not supposed to care about it at all.

Of course we should all value ourselves for all kinds of reasons beyond our appearance but there is also nothing wrong with wanting to look good and putting some effort into that; we shouldn't be ashamed to name vanity as our principal motivator when it happens to be so.

The problem for me is that vanity was never reason enough! I needed the health reasons to do it (and mine were visible and active, not vague into the future life-extending ones) because I grew up being told that vanity wasn't/shouldn't be the only reason to do anything (or to have someone like you).

So, despite the fact that many women see a number on a scale (and go on a diet immediately) or don't look good in pictures or someone says something to them about their weight... that never worked with me. The numbers would go up, I would look fat next to my friends, and people even tried to have the weight conversation with me... but none of that ever took.

I'm hoping that now that the health issues are in check, that vanity will someone rear it's ugly head and actually get me down. Part of it is not only looking good (which, for me, is a vague concept) but because I have external goals to meet (from doctors, BF, etc.) that make it more concrete.

I agree with Rana. Vanity wasn't enough to do it for me either. I have a cousin whose only motivation is vanity and she can't seem to wrap her head around why that's not a main thing for me. It seems you can't understand it either? That those of us that vanity just wasn't a strong enough motivator to lose weight or be in shape are not acknowledging it.

Well there are some women, myself included, that for whatever reason do not feel their value lies in their appearance. It might be because I was told growing up how smart I was, and how I was a strong, motivated person in school and in life...My self worth was built on WHO I was not what I looked liked. I learned early on, despite being the fat, ugly girl, I was a presence around people. Give me 5 minutes in a room, and I'm hanging out with the guys. I have a more male like sense of humor, I'm honest and don't screw around (to the point). I am also very well spoken, despite my poor spelling, haha, but I have always done well with public speaking, including the debate team in college.

So no, I don't feel my value is about my appearance. So in my 20s when I just wanted to be the awesome thing girl rather than the awesome fat girl, it just wasn't enough. There wasn't anything I was gaining from losing weight.

It wasn't until I realize that I don't need other people's approval on my appearance that I saw that wanting to look good didn't matter to me.

But my own success did. In every other area of my life I am a self driven go getter. And I did not approve of the sloppiness of how I was handling my body. I am a goal setter and achiever, and when I started setting goals related to running, I finally rose to the challenge.

The better I eat, and the better I train the higher I can set my goals. And when I set a goal, I achieve it. I might have to find ways around obstacles, but I achieve it.

To me being strong and fit shows I work hard at taking care of my body. It says to me "you are not lazy". I don't give a crap about looking pretty. But I damn sure give a crap about being lazy.

The truth is I have never been motivated to achieve anything in my life because I care what others think. F other people, to be honest. I do what I do because I can what I think. I live up to my own standards. If I had only applied that to myself 10 years ago, maybe I could have taken care of my weight problem then.

I agree that there's a standard of beauty when it comes to women. There's no denying that. But just because you are entangled in it doesn't mean the rest of us are. So don't assume that you are acknowledging vanity and somehow the rest of us are secretly thinking it but not saying it. There are women that don't think the way you do. And honestly, its very nice not to think I'm only worth what I look like.

I should acknowledge that when I joined this site, I was still in my 20s and still **** bent on losing weight for looks. I didn't give a crap about what I looked like but I kept trying to change that. Like somehow I SHOULD care what other people think. I chose my screen name based on that. Like Somehow I was going to trick myself into thinking I could be one of those vain girls that spends hours on their face rather than something (more important?) It was like trying to force a square peg in a round hole. It just didn't work. No matter how many times I resolved to wear make up and do my hair, I'd stop because to me it is a waste of my time. Anyway I never changed the name or pic because I assume people know who I am by that. And I kind of consider it my alter-ego lol...but the real me is the exact opposite!!

Health for me. I've tried the vanity approach in the past.. I didn't care about my health, just wanted to be thin, pretty.. I'm sure most of you are familiar in the the thoughts. It not only didn't result in successful runs, but some of the most unhealthy attempts at weight loss I've ever put my body through. Things like the HCG diet, purging, I even tried starving myself at one point.. being thin was so important that I literally tried to make myself anorexic (which I know is a really messed up thing to do). Anytime I didn't lose was a failure and it was really, really demotivating in general.

So.. I had to change my mindset for this to stick. That cannot be my motivation, I have to care about my health. It's been a long mental journey, and part of me still wants to be thinner, but that is by and large no longer the main motivator for me. I want to be able to run around outside with my son for longer than 15 or so minutes, ride amusement park rides with him when we go to Disney in 2016. I don't want diabetes like my grandma/grandfather got. I don't want to die of high blood pressure like my great grandfather did. I realize not all of that is totally preventable with diet alone, but I can at least reduce my risks.

Folks, I did not mean to suggest that vanity is the only true motivator, or that people who say they are motivated by their health are not sincere. I'm puzzled by the defensiveness in response to my observation that when vanity is a motivating factor, women are often uncomfortable acknowledging that fact. That's the statement I made, and it's an observation that I stand by. The statement you are reading into it, that I'm calling anyone else who has posted in this thread a liar or assuming anything about your individual motivations - I didn't say any of that.

I am delighted for those of you who find that health is a sufficient motivator for weight loss. Me, I do not. It isn't a controversial idea that different things work for different people. Just as surely as you would never have gotten off the ground you waited for vanity to motivate you, I'd still be fat (heck, I'd be even fatter) if I waited for health to motivate me.

And just to be explicit, when I say "women (as a class)" I do mean that I am making a statement about structural and institutional attitudes towards women's beauty, not a statement about any individual's experience and worldview. It's wonderful that some of you have been able to escape that particular pernicious and oppressive strain of society. Nevertheless, women as a class are subject to it.

Might have been in the way you phrased it, since several people felt the need to respond to your post even though a few other people had already mentioned vanity was one of their motivators. I get you didn't mean it that way, but it kind of came off like that. At least I think...


This is only a guess, but maybe women that are motivated by vanity are more concerned about what others think about them and therefore less likely to admit they are vain. I mean, their main motivation is to have their appearance be liked by others, so I'd imagine that would extend to other areas of their being. Vain people don't want to admit they are vain, because vanity is typically seen as a negative trait.

Is this true that women don't admit to using vanity as a reason to lose weight?

Because most of the people around me, use it as their motivator (at least, their verbal, vocal answer to why they are losing weight. Very few say it's for health reasons. It's usually a comment like, "My jeans are getting tight" "I have a love handle" "My belly has a roll" or whatever. Those are all vanity reasons for losing weight and not health ones. It seems that more people are willing to admit (in my experience) that they are doing it for looks, than for health.

What I didn't say, maybe I should have, if we are going to speak in generalizations, is that while we are, as a society, expected to look and act in particular ways, at the end of the day, something must be happening that prevents all women from being thin despite societal pressure. So, at that point, I have to believe that not enough women are peer-pressured (societal pressured) into being thin. Yes, there is fat-shaming and the patriarchy is well and alive, but those aren't motivating factors. It doesn't change our actions, at least, not as much as we'd like to think it does, because there are still many overweight women in this country. Again, I think both weight gain/loss is very complex.

Does the mass media industrial complex affect our society and how women can perceive themselves? Yes, of course. But I also give women some credit in terms of being able to discern the messages and/or ignore them and/or give up at the face of not meeting those perceptions of what a "perfect" woman should be. I do know some are more affected than others, but I also think it's a question of age and where you are in life that allows those images/perceptions to affect you (or not).

I don't disagree that women are subjected to it. I work in an industry where I know that if I was just 20 lbs thinner, I could blend better into the normative expectation of someone in my position (or higher), and since I am ambitious, I know that I will have to lose the weight to get there (hence my resolution for 2015 being the year that I hit the 150s and maybe even subject myself to 140s).

It's vanity (and career). I feel it. But even when I knew I could be a higher position (a year or 2 ago) I still didn't lose the weight. Even more money or higher position wasn't motivating enough. Isn't that crazy?

But that's because I am mostly motivated by positive experiences (I fit into a size 8!) or really negative ones (i.e. not touching the flame again or being sick and needing to lose weight to avoid surgery). Even for money I have a hard time losing. Again, though, I think I am motivating by loss of money, so maybe that's something to look into as well (if I don't hit 150 the nice way this year).

My main motivator is vanity. I want to look good. Ive been thin, and I looked so much better than I do now. I want to get pregnant, and have a cute bump and not fat.