*Forgive me, this ended up being on the long side.*
What has happened to my motivation?! I have been doing so well on my diet, usually refusing when I have been offered "unhealthy" food. I just had this mindset, that THIS IS IT. I've been dieting for exactly one month now, and have even lost 15 pounds. Didn't need any motivation booster because it was going through the roof. I didn't care if I was tired, I was getting my workout in.

However, my fiance and I went to a state park today to swim and hike some trails. I made sure I got up early enough at 9am to have a good breakfast (3 scrambled egg whites, whole wheat toast, and decaffeinated sugar-free tea). We got to the park before noon; we hiked, we pedal-boated, went to overlooks and swam for hours. By about 4, my energy was GONE and I was ravenous. SOMEHOW I talked myself out of the snack bar food at the pool (thank God I did because the best option was a Chili hotdog). The boyfriend wanted pizza, so we went to a Pizza Hut on our way out from the park because we were famished. My bf absolutely hates thin crust, so I had to settle for a pan (more calories...sigh) Veggie Lovers. I restricted myself to 2 pieces. I also had a salad from the salad bar, and because there were no light dressings to choose from, I had regular thousand island. Not too bad I don't guess, considering this was going to be a late lunch AND my dinner (except for the crackers that the waitress brought to us...I went a little overboard with them--at least 5 of the tiny little packs).

Filled up on water and left pleasantly full. Got home and made a birthday cake for my fiance's mother. Of course there was leftover frosting...so I treated myself to a couple spoonfuls of that. Oh, and don't forget the three bites of leftover pizza I had. And there you have it, my daily food intake. I'm a little disgusted looking at it on paper. But the worst part is now my motivation is GONE. Zip. Nada. I think the baking took me back to a time when I was doing this a lot, and it made me feel good and happy, now I wanna do it again--only for myself. I don't really know how to explain it, but I feel like I let myself down, and now if I can let myself go this easy, why keep going? I know I HAVE to keep going, but now the huge motivation is no longer there. I don't know what to do... =( How can I get it back?

Just remind yourself that tomorrow is another day. I've had bad days on diets before too, gotten on the scale a few days later - expecting the worst only to find that I didn't gain a single pound, or that I had maintained my previous weight. We all make mistakes and slip up, but it's just one day.

Tomorrow you can work just as hard as you have been, we all have days where it feels hard, if not impossible to keep going and we get discouraged, but 15lbs is a great start to your life long journey.

Today is just today and you can already change it. Instead of thinking that you'll make the changes tomorrow, resolve to do it RIGHT NOW. You are back on track as of RIGHT NOW and whether you work out or not tomorrow isn't even a question - you're going to do it and hopefully as soon as you do, you'll get some of that motivation back.

I think that you may be giving up on yourself because you had what you consider a "slip" in your diet. Actually, I think with all the activity you and your fiancee did, that you may have been under your calorie needs for the day, despite eating pizza. Adding the salad was a great move. It was kind of you to bake your fiance's mother a cake, but for me, that would set me off as it did you...you want some for yourself. Cake and ice cream are huge trigger foods for me, therefore, I would never bake a cake... I'd buy one on the way to the party. It's called avoiding your trigger foods by not having it in your home.
One of the hard lessons we have to learn in losing weight is that we will occasionally fail to be 100% on plan. We are human and it will happen, but we get right back on plan immediately after a slip. We avoid catostrophizing
and black and white thinking because it will only make things worse.

You may want to plan ahead and carrry healthy snacks with you at all times so that you can curb your hunger before it get the best of you. So cut yourself some slack and get back on plan. You can do this!

Sounds like you didn't eat between 9 am and 4pm? You might be asking too much of your breakfast! Use this as a learning experience == now you know you need to plan another meal between those, especially when getting a lot of exercise!

I think sometimes our biggest enemy in this long journey is ourselves! Don't let one slip deter you!

You have got to think of days such as these as the *out of the ordinary* ones. THEY are the rarities, they are NOT your norm. They are once in a while blue moon occurrences and they don't change your COMMITMENT (screw the motivation) to being fit, trim and healthy.

Get back to your good eating habits as soon as possible. Force yourself. Push, push, push. Don't take no for an answer. You will be thrilled to be *back*.

Oooh and one more thing, I would plan things out a little better as to avoid situations like you were in. Plan. Plan and then plan some more. Set yourself up for success! Making cake for your mother-in-law? Risky. Buy her one. Or better yet get her a big cupcake and call it a day.

You're in this for the long haul, one slip up (or two) doesn't change this.

I look forward to hearing of you returning to the track and of your continued progress.

I'm with Heather - 9am to 4pm is a loooooong time. I know, for myself, if I go too long between meals and get hungry then when I do get to eat, even a healthy on-plan meal, I go overboard because my "okay, you're full, you've had enough" brain cells get overridden by the "OMG I'm so hungry" feelings.

I think, given you day, that you did Great! Don't kick youself. Next time pack a lunch so you won't be starving by 4pm. Even an apple and a handful of almonds (my go-to emergency rations) midday will do wonders for you.

Coming at this from the perspective of someone who has been at this for nearly two years, is creeping up on 200 pounds lost, is within pounds of goal, and just worked her way through a 33 day stall on the scale, I can tell you my motivation went missing a long time ago. I look fine. I, in fact, look pretty darn good. I feel great physically, but then again, I've felt great physically for a long time now. I am actually, given my height and build, past normal and into fairly slim, other than a few easily-disguised trouble spots.

And yet, even though I stalled out -- and this was not me being sloppy, or calorie creep, I genuinely stalled for just over a month -- I kept going on exactly as I have for a long time now. I have just about zero motivation for continuing on to goal, because all of the motivation I had to lose the weight evaporated about 30 pounds ago. I've been shopping wherever I please for that long, I'm not at all inconvenienced by my size, and I'm fit and strong and full of energy.

So no motivation. That ship has sailed. What's kept me going is that I actually want it enough, and I have ingrained all the good habits I need to get me to goal, so I can largely do this on autopilot, and I am so bloody determined to get where I want to be that I'm really not about to just call it done because my body has been very, very stubborn about these last five pounds I want to lose. I'm just more stubborn than my fat, I guess. All that's going to change when I get to goal is that I may be able to eat a bit more. Cautiously. I made it through an irritatingly-timed stall because I was determined, and committed to getting to the goal I set for myself, not because I was motivated to continue for anything other than the desire to whittle just a little more weight off those trouble areas, and believe me, they aren't troublesome enough to provide much in the way of motivation.

From reading your post, you ate severely restricted calories for breakfast. Three egg whites and one slice of toast is 200 calories. If you had butter, maybe you ate a 300 calorie breakfast.

Then you exercised for 4 hours. It is possible you burned upwards of 900 to 1,000 calories. And then you skipped lunch and ate a smallish dinner, so now you are in a major calorie deficit.

And then you beat yourself up for 3 spoonfuls of frosting and some leftover pizza.

It sounds like you are starving yourself, not overeating. I admit that it's tempting to severely cut calories and exercise until your sore, but that's an eating disorder, not a plan of eating.

Take it from me, severe calorie restriction can lead to awful, out of control binges. And that cycle is very hard to break.

If this isn't a regular thing, I'd say you are doing just fine on your plan. Sometimes we need to adjust our eating now and again.

Good luck.

Stuff I'm not "motivated" to do: Go to work. Brush my teeth. Wash the dishes. Sweep the kitchen floor. Plan out my food. Eat my on-plan food. Make sure the kids eat regularly and healthfully. Get up at 5:30 am to exercise. Use the toilet. Do the laundry. Be kind to my husband.

You get me? OK. Motivation is not required. Just Do It.