So I've been losing since 2010 when I started my journey, but the past few months have been so hard. I keep yoyoing back up. I was at 155 in February of 2013, got pregnant with my daughte had her in October 2013 and since then I have done nothing but go up up and up. I'm finding it hard to keep motivated and stay on track. I am currently at 189 and I feel horrible, like i literally hate looking at myself now when I used to feel so proud of myself. I know I've lost over 100 pounds at one point and still I feel depressed about it and it gets hard to want to continue losing the weight. I need the motivation bad, how do you find it again. Is it possible? I come to you to maybe tell me what you did when or if you fell off track. How do you get back on? I don't want to gain it all back I never want to be 276 again I'm scared of going back. Can anyone help me? I feel so down in the dumps....
Hi there, I'm sorry to hear you're struggling right now. I think everyone goes through phases like this. The difference lies in whether we let ourselves hit rock bottom before we try to make a course correction.
The last time I lost a significant amount of weight, I gained it all back plus 10 more for added insult to injury. Using motivation as a catalyst meant I had to let things get as bad as they were before.
The thing about finding your motivation is that it's exactly where you left it. That sounds silly. I know. What I mean by that is that whatever motivated you to lose the weight in the first place is probably still the reason you want to lose. It just might not be so urgent now that you've had some success. There's a world of difference between the motivation you get from not being able to bend over and tie your shoes and the motivation not to go back to being so big that you can't tie your shoes.
The fact is that motivation will get you started, but it isn't what gets you through each day.
What you're saying is I'm at Mile 22 of this marathon and looking back to the starting line isn't motivating me to keep going. How do I get to the finish?
Now it's time for one foot in front of the other. Don't worry about reestablishing your motivation as much as your healthy routine. Whatever habits were working for you before, start doing them again. What you couldn't stick with, toss it and improve.
Once you hit your stride again, you won't really need to rely on motivation. You'll just do it because it's what you did the day before and because you've accepted that adopting an unhealthy routine whenever you feel unmotivated leads to regain every time.
I agree with what Streudel said, especially about getting back into your healthy routine. But I'll add my two bits as well:
You can try and mix things up a bit. Keep your healthy routine, but add some activities and exercise you wouldn't normally do. Try snowshoeing or rock climbing or something. Fresh air and being surrounded by active, healthy people can be a great refresher to help you remember your motivation, and how good it feels to be on track.
I started losing in 1990 at 490 lbs. I have been down as low as 245 in the past 24 years and as high as 417 twice. It is a constant battle. My failures have always been when I let myself have to much slack and get out of the healthy habits that I know work. For example last time it started because I stopped walking to work because it was Icy. So I never got back in the habit and then my eating got a little worse and before I knew it I had put 140 lbs back on. The other time I got up to 400 + I had back surgery and that got me out of my healthy habits. The trick is going to be to learn to have fun but to always be mindful of what we are eating and to keep motivated and exercise. I know this does not help much because it's not really an answer. My motivation comes from the way I feel when I gain vs when I'm healthy and eating right. I will also google before and after pictures of people and that helps with motivation sometimes. Really for me it just comes down to the steps I know works and forcing myself to them. 1. journal what I eat, 2. go to support forums, 3. exercise 5 times weekly, 4. Eat right, and 5. take a breather and enjoy the holiday knowing I will gain but knowing I will take it off after. Number 5 can get you though if your not careful to get back at it.
We are kind of similar with statistics and time of regain (although I didn't regain for the incredible and miraculous cause of making a human, mine was cake-baking related) and in where we decided to reign it in. I got to 196 in July and realized that enough was enough and I couldn't continue that way. I was kind of in the place where you are, dissatisfied with how I looked but somehow unable to find my old discipline that took me to maintaining for a year in the 150s. To be honest, I still don't have that old discipline.
What I did, was make a commitment to halt the regain. If nothing else, I didn't want to get out of Onederland. I took baby steps, I could have 1600 calories a day but I had to put in the graft of working out OR I could be totally sedentary and eat less. I joined the Relosers-Regaining board here on the 100-lb-club and those people there motivated me to stick to it. Even when I didn't lose anything or didn't make much progress, because I couldn't get motivated to stick with it, it helped me to check in there every day and just celebrate not gaining and be around people who struggled the same way I did and were learning to come to terms with losing this time around. Then little by little, they rubbed off on me, and I got a little more discipline and then the weight began to drop off and the more it does, the more motivated I am. I check in whether I'm doing well or not and I find it helpful and motivating.
It's still really slow going- I'm averaging a loss of about 1/2 a pound a week BUT at least it's in the right direction. If I did nothing at all, I know my regain would have gone well into the 200s by now. If I could capture the motivation and zeal and fire and discipline I had my first time going down between 2009-2012, I'd already be at goal. But I am maybe no longer that person and my life is not the same as it was then so I'm having to relearn methods to lose and to take smaller, more baby steps to make the change I want.
All I'm saying is that the only tip I have is to start whether or not you feel like it. It doesn't have to be everything you used to do or as perfect as you used to be. But find one good decision in the day that you can make that will make you feel good and saintly- maybe saying no to a 2nd helping or throwing away the second piece of chocolate or having the extra glass of water or keeping to calories for 1 meal or exercise as you planned to- just one thing that will encourage you to feel like you've gotten started and then build on that. Also please definitely check out the Relosers-Regaining section on here, the people there are the bag of chips AND DIP- I'm not even kidding, just really awesome, supportive people, trying to work their way back down from a regain, so it's great!
Anyone else finding it hard to stay on track?
I feel so down in the dumps....
