Hi i'm new and i have a question for anyone. How do you keep your motivation? I've been trying to lose weight for a while now, but i fear that i screwed up my metabolism from not eating and now its really hard to lose any. bottom line, i get discouraged and give up. then i see how some of you lost sooo much weight and i just wanted to know, what keeps you going? how do you motivate yourself when you hit a plateu or when you don't seem to be losing anything at all?

Nickname, WELCOME!!! This is a great place!

To answer your question, one of the things I try to do is move the focus away from the scale. It's not the only way to measure progress. In fact, it might not even be the best.

You want to lose fat, right? Well, the scale measures ALL of you: skin, muscle, fat, bone, hair, and water. So if it goes up, did you gain fat or are you retaining water or have you gained muscle from weightlifting? You won't know. And when we lose, we don't just lose fat.

AND, to boot, weight loss isn't linear. You can do the same things every week, and some weeks you will lose, some stay the same, and some even gain! (See above para too!)

So, my advice is to find other ways to measure your progress. Take your measurements, check out how your clothes fit. What about your fitness? Can you DO more than you did before? Go further? Go faster? Or what about tracking how many days you exercised? Or ate "on plan"?

I had a lot of weight to lose when I started. There was no way it was just going to happen overnight. Trust me, the motivation is just not there every day. So the other thing I have learned is not to rely on motivation, but focus on commitment to a healthier life. I'm doing all this not JUST to see the scale move, but see a healthier, fitter me. In cuter clothes!

What motivates me is my own experience. I know that if I don't think about what I eat, and keep track, I will gain weight. It's happened before more than once and it will happen again. That's why people say it's a life change, not a "diet."

I've stalled out a lot, but I just keep going on my plan. It can be discouraging, but what's the alternative? Eventually the scale moves again, in the right direction.

Keep going!

Jay

Hi nickname!

Welcome!

Here are a few things to do to jumpstart that metabolism!

1) Eat often! I eat every three hours. (Just divide your total daily calories into more meals and snack more often.) The sheer act of eating raises your metabolism! You body has to work to digest the food that you just gave it! Cool, huh?!

2) Exercise! Exercise gets your body moving and needing more energy. It also gets you burning more fat!

3) Lift weights. The more muscle you have, the more muscle to need food. The more muscle to need food, the faster your metabolism. (My very strong 6'4" son who has lifted regularly since he was 15-he's 25 now- lost seventy-five pounds JUST by running five miles every day because he had so much muscle to help him burn fat as he ran. He lost the seventy-five pounds in four months!)

4) Eat plenty of fiber. The body has to work harder to digest it. See #1 above.

5) Drink plenty of water! Water is fiber's sidekick to help you eliminate all the waste and toxins that fat-burning and weight loss produce.

6) FORGET DIET PILLS! Everything I have read from doctors says that they mess up the body's natural processes!

There's probably more that I have forgotten, but this site has good articles if you do a search.

I'm 55 and have pushed my metabolism into gear after making it sluggish for a lot of years by NOT doing the suggestions above! If I can get my metabolism moving, YOU surely can!

Good Luck! You can do this!

Cheryl

thank you all SOOOO much. I have to say i am really touched by the level of sincereity here. I really do appreciate the comments. And i have to say that all of responses are the most sensible i have gotten in a long time. thank you all again.