What do you guys do to keep motivated? I just started being REALLY serious about losing weight, but I lost 10 lbs over the summer. I didn't feel it, nor did I feel like I looked it, and I was feeling rather discouraged. But, I was walking through the grocery store where I work, and I was carrying a ten pounds of sugar. I looked down at it, and it hit me that that was the same amount that I had lost, and it made me feel good. Unfortunately, I plateaued and haven't lost any subsequent weight.

I was wondering what else you guys do to keep yourself motivated during the hard times.

For me, it is not, nor has it ever been, about motivation. Motivation waxes and wanes. Some days, I'm really motivated. Other days? Not.

But I have committed...COMMITTED...absolutely to sticking to my plan. Sometimes I don't live up to that commitment, but there are fewer times I fail at being committed than I fail about being motivated.

i must agree with mandalinn. being committed is the key. You WILL fall f the wagon a few times, just don't get caught under the wheels. step out of the way of the wagon and get back on it.
AN dif you fall in a rut, try a new exercise plan, new foods. Your body gets use to what you do, if you do it all the time..

I'm with Amanda and Lindsay.
I used to be "hit" with motivation regularly. Several times a year. Enough to get off and keep off the weight. One year, I kept waiting and waiting for some motivation, and it never came. I just had to bear down and do the grunt work on my own.
On the particularly difficult days, I just think, "I'm doing the best I can for how I'm feeling right now. Tomorrow is another day."

I make a concious effort to weigh myself daily. It makes me more likely to stick to my plan if I know I'm going to have to confront my actions -negative or positive- in the morning. When I was weighing myself once a week it was easy to eat more or skip exercising because I still had days left before my weigh in and I could try to 'fix' it...but then I would get frustrated and discouraged when I'd be the same weight or only lost a pound. And by doing it first thing in the morning it gets me in the right mindset for the rest of the day.

.its looks to me is that if you read the threads on the topic of loosing weight that should be encouragement! I know they have encouraged me, just today.

Motivation is fleeting.

But when you get it, in my opinion, milk it for all its worth. If you want motivation, go to the library and check out the health books and educate yourself, learn healthy recipies, check out before and after pictures of people here, prepare a mix of workout music to use. Hopefully the motivation can trigger you into a good habit at the very least, but ultimately, you need to set up your life so that when the motivation does go out the window (and it's only a matter of WHEN it does) your world is arranged so it will pull you through. For example. If you clear your cupboard of tempting foods, even if you WANT to indulge in a huge bowl of icecream, you can't because you've set it up so its not in reach. A gym membership is another one that helps me. Even if I don't feel like exercising, I've paid all that money to go. Laying out my exercise clothes helps too.

What I did before I started my weightloss journey was write a pros and cons list on being fat. Needless to say, the cons went for 4 pages and I struggled to come up with 6 pros. I give it a read over when I'm discouraged and it helps me to keep on track. You could try writing a list like that. It's pretty confronting and hopefully will help you keep going.

Nice to meet everybody btw

Motivation is tricky for me. I like having it (and seeing results can be such a boost) but I'm more apt to do something that's part of my routine than out of motivation. Going to the gym, for example. If it were about motivation, I would never go. I really don't enjoy it much (well, I like the weights) Cardio is a cardi-no to me, but I do it because I've made it part of my routine.