For me it's having goals. Each day it's a goal to stay under my calorie target. It's something that I can be successful at every day, and it absolutely keeps me motivated. I know that if I do this, I will continue to lose, even if I am hanging on to water weight for up to 2 weeks at a time. My mini goals in my sig are another layer. I don't really have rewards for each of these goals, but just hitting them is a reward. There are other more vague goals, like moving down a clothing size or moving into the "regular" department, that was huge.

The other thing that I need is support and encouragement. I have a friend in my office who has been such a fantastic cheerleader for me, especially at the beginning when my losses were not noticeable. She asked me for an update every Monday and really helped me stay on track. I also thrive on comments from coworkers, friends and family. With all of the parties this time of year, I has really enjoyed dressing up and wowing people who havent seen me in a while.

I'm definitely stuck getting started. I've worked to surround myself with people that should support and help me. I have a trainer and a nutritionist. And while I do stick to meeting with them I'm so bad about sticking to their plan outside of the meetings. I'm just so down on myself about everything and I know that that isn't going to motivate me to do better. But I've decided to set much smaller goals for myself. This week is that I'm not going to eat takeout or delivery. That would be huge for me financially and health wise. I'm not going to focus on what I'm eating this week as much as just not eating out. It's goign to be hard because I let work stress trump everything which is no good. But I'm hoping just having one goal this week and being successful at it will help. And I do know that once I stick to something I feel much better about myself. It's like cleaning my house. I hate doing it. I procrastinate so much. Yet I feel better after it's done. So I never understand the procrastination. But one of these days I'll figure it out.

Thanks for the compliments, Carter!

I agree with you, the underlying motivating influences are going to be very specific to each person.

For me, it was health because I do have diabetes running in my family, and I am insulin resistance, and I have PCOS, and I started developing fatty liver disease, and the buck sort of stopped there and I had to ask myself what the heck was I doing to myself?! Did I really prefer that chocolate cake over my health?! I was going to a lot of doctors back then, so I was getting a lot of feedback on my health. In a few months, I'll get a check up again, but just my GP, rather than the host of other doctors I was going to before! Now it is the weight, but it's easier for me now, because I am training in my riding hobby.

But if it's vanity or your kids or competing against your sister (or whomever) or training for a sport or reaching some goal, then I'm all for it. I think at some point, you have to find what propels you forward into the right direction.

This is really a great thread because it forces us all to see what we are doing to be personally successful at this game of losing weight to get healthy and look better.

At 250+ pounds, I had no apparent health issues and I could do all the things that any of my friends and family wanted to do. My size didn't hold me back and it had no impact on my health. Who knows what impact it may have had in the future? I'm determined that I'll never know! In the back of my 100% mental game, I knew there were health benefits. In the front of it all, however, was the vanity aspect.

I set out to lose 100 pounds between January 13th and Christmas of this year. It was a good round number and I knew what 152 looked like the last time I was there - at about age 30. Well, guess what? It doesn't look the same at 60! How ironic that it was vanity that stopped my weight loss! I was fixated on that 100 pound number. I was fixated on a BMI of about 24. At the beginning of October, I had lost 90 pounds and was getting baggy. Not loose and flabby in general, but baggy skin - like my skin was a size bigger than my real body. Like when your undies are too big and you need a smaller size. No exercise or diet was going to change that. So I stopped losing. I want to wear shorts and tee-shirts without feeling self conscious of loose skin. Pure vanity.

Let me tell you how hard it was to stop short of the goal I set. It all plays in to the mental game, I think. My goal was 100 pounds but I was quitting at 90. In my mental game, I quit. In my mental game, I was not successful. It took a lot of talking to myself to be OK with 90 pounds. Now, if a doctor told me my health would benefit more from losing 10 more pounds than it already has from losing 90, I'd like to think that I could put vanity aside and lose the last 10. But I know that isn't so. So, I quit - at least for a while - at about 90 pounds gone. I've maintained for the last 2 months. Seems like a big deal until I realize that I have to do this for - hopefully - 300 or 400 more months! LOL.

Now my goal of Christmas is fast approaching and I'm feeling again like I just quit. Please don't reply to that - I know I didn't just give up. And, since I weighed in at 158 this morning (unofficial since it isn't a Wednesday) I bet I could get to 152 by Christmas if I put my mind to it. But accepting this as my semi-final goal is part of the mental game, too. I'd love to eventually say I lost 100 pounds. More than that, however, I'd like to say I lost 90 pounds FOREVER. I know there's a thread in another group for maintainers, but I like this forum and plan to stay as I realize more and more the only difference between losing and maintaining is - well, not much, really.

Lin

Aliasihaya - I really understand getting started. I put it off for over 20 years! I am a visual person. I found that making a chart on Excel helped keep me on plan.

I started in January by making a chart with the dates for the Wednesday of each week down column 1 since I weigh in on Wednesday. In the next column, I put my weight loss goal for the week. I wasn't sure where these numbers would take me, but I thought I could lose 2.5 to 3 pounds a week for the first 10 weeks, so I subtracted 3 pounds and put 249, 246, 243, etc., down the next column for 10 weeks. After 10 weeks, I figured I could settle in at 1% per week, so I set the chart up to show a loss of 1% from late March until December 21st - the last Wednesday before my end goal of Christmas. Lo and behold, that took me almost exactly to 152 pounds by Christmas. Now the mental game came into play. I had to stay on pace with my chart. It became my personal mini goal every week to meet the weight I had set. I set it up with columns for exercise, too, and saw that t really helped my weight loss progress to be more active.

I don't know how well this sort of thing works for others, but it sure made me accountable to myself. And, ultimately, I'm the only one who matters.

I'm not sure what any of us can tell you to help you get going on this. But remember this - the time will pass whether or not you get on plan. Every week you don't do something about your health (or how you look) is a week passed with no chance of any results. You are worth the effort. You can beat the stress at work without overeating. Simplify all meals for a while. Cook ahead. PLAN AHEAD. A common thread in all these posts is having a plan. YOU CAN DO THIS.

Lin

What does it take? Good question. For me, I think it will ultimately come down to two things....

#1) Do I want to start truly living or do I want to sit on the sidelines? Day after day goes by, week after week, and I wake up one day and realize that I'm still in the same place I was a year ago...or the year before that. I'm merely getting through the days and using food to make myself feel safe, happy, content, etc,etc. Yes, family life is stressful and my job is stressful, but do I need to let these things push me into a never ending cycle of eating and sitting on the couch with the TV? It's up to me to decide if I'm ready to step off of this merry-go-round for good. I want to live!

#2)I need to work on the mental part of this battle. Right now, I stuff down my emotions with food. When I'm on-plan and not using food, I can only white knuckle it for a while before I get overwhelmed and fall back on what I know and what has always worked....food. I'm not sure how to attack the mental part. I haven't been able to find a good therapist in my area who specilalize in this area. I may need to dust off my copy of The Beck Solution. Or, maybe it's time to start praying again.

I joined back in 2005 and did great for around 20 months, then the wheels fell off, so I am still trying to figure it out.

I know to lose weight I need to plan my meals, shop wisely, not keep rubbish foods in the house, and above all, I need to be committed to exercise.

I think what went wrong last time was that I didn't work exercise into my life I organised my life around exercise, and you can't keep doing that, you need to live.

So this time I am not joining a gym, I am walking, running, doing stuff at home, that I can work into my day, and work around. I am still committed but now I am a mommy I haven't time to find childcare, get to gym etc, so whatever I do needs to be doable.

I think my big problem was, I didn't like the way I looked when I lost weight, it scared me. So I need to do some work on my headspace. I actually like the way I am, which is great, but it doesn't motivate me to change.

Work in progress.