Alright here goes my rant. I have been in a weightloss journey for forever but made good progress between June (when I joined) and December I went from 276 to 233, I felt on top of the universe and everywhere I went they where impressed with how good I looked and how much I've changed which got me feeling super good about myself for the first time in a long….long…long time. Since Christmas I've been slacking, I continue to go to the gym because I actually enjoy it but have been pigging out constantly first it was the holidays then my bday and this weekend I am going in a cruise, today I got on the scale and I was 239 lbs!!! I have gotten my friends involved and they are super supportive and even got me 6 setions with a personal trainner for my bday , the only problem is I wake up every day, get dressed feel awesome so when they bring out the sweets, the snacks the junk food I am all over it!!!! For some reason the boost of self esteem destroyed my motivation and I'm not sure how to get it back

wow...it feels i hv written it!!! totally my story....
sorry do not hv any suggestion sexcept tht i understand how u r feeling. Everyday is a challenge for me. Every morning i vow to hv a good day eating wise ( i hv been doing good on the exercise front)...but those chocolates get hold of me and i am done!!!!

It's not so much about the motivation as it is the commitment to stay at it. Small steps forward. You can have excellent self confidence and still feel the need to make yourself better. Make a commitment and make changes.

GMNEVO, I think it's a big step to indentify your problem before you gained all your weight back! You only gained a little, it’s not a big deal - you should be back on track in no time. Maybe thinking about all the work you put in will motivate you to diet again? Or thinking about how disappointed you (and your friends who helped you) will be if you gain all the weight back? Try to remember the reasons you have for losing weight and write them down.

It’s nothing wrong with taking a little break from dieting, but keep stepping on the scale, so you don’t gain too much weight.

To me self esteem is one of the things that keeps me going on. My daily life, moment to moment, is so much better weighing less: movement, energy, clarity, health, mood, and yes looks. I am worth it.

I am probably older than you and I'd be lying if health wasn't a huge issue. I've seen family get diabetes and dementia, which more and more studies are linking to diet. Then the heart diseases and cancer.

And I remember feeling awesome at 250 which wasn't that long ago. I am hovering around 215 now. Trust me the next 35 lbs feels just as amazing as the first 35.

Really want to feel awesome? Committ to the next 35lbs. And whatever you do try to internalize that these are lifestyle changes forever, that they are more than worth it, and they don't stop when you get to X. Or you are going to Yo Yo until you do internalize that.

Oh yes, this happens to us all probably. You're rewarding yourself a little and that's ok. But this is not about self esteem, it's about commitment. Don't fret if your motivation is down, motivation does not make anything happen. Commitment makes things happen. Focus on the commitment, then you'll see results.

Motivation is an emotion, emotions change all the time. It's our actions that drive who we are and what we do. Enjoy your cruise but don't go crazy on the buffets lol!

I can relate. There have been times over the past 43 years of dieting when I told myself I "deserved" high calorie treats.

I still make that mistake far too often, but yet far less frequently than I once did.

I find it easier to avoid high calorie foods and binge trigger foods by telling myself I deserve better. Instead of using dieting to punish the bad me, and bingeing to reward the good me, I focus on diet and exercise being ways to pamper my amazing self.

I decide I'm "too good to treat so poorly." I deserve good health. I deserve healthy, tasty, "real" food.

I still look at some foods as ways to pamper me, but now it's with something like going shopping for a new or favorite healthy food, not garbage. I now shop for fruits, veggies, and lean proteins the way I once did for cheesecake.

Yesterday, while grocery shopping, I decided to splurge on frozen shrimp at the grocery store and papaya salad and steamed tilapia seasoned with cilantro and lemongrass at the asian grocery.

I still have problems with junk carbs, but my bigger challenge is in portion control of some high calorie "healthy foods." For example last week I bought two large avocados as a treat and I ate them both within about a 24 hour period.

I have to remind myself of the bigger picture. Sure I deserve to eat yummy things, but I deserve even more to be healthier and feel better physically, so I look for foods that taste yummy, but also fit into my food plan and aren't foods that make me feel lethargic and sick.

Rewards are great! It's going overboard with the rewards that can trip ya up. =P I gotta beat myself up sometimes to say,"Just have one cookie. ONE! Don't have another or you fail!" It's almost like if I don't have myself that, I'll pop in three more cookies without even thinking about it.

It is probably mostly semantics but motivation was THE KEY to me. I do not think of motivation as ephemeral. It is not an emotion to me at all. It is how you stand in life. As in what motivates you? Well-being? Being the healthiest, happiest, most productive you? It was the absolute crucial ingrident for me.

With motivation I could access my inherent ability to commit and accomplish things. I became a parent later in life. Then this past year I watched my beloved uncle get dementia at 70. He was brilliant and funny and a hard worker and these were supposed to be the best years of his life.

All GONE. And he was always lighter than me but he eat junk. My motivation is constant, it never leaves me. My daughter will be 15 when I am 60. She will have a healthy dad. Plus being healthy and strong rocks so much and is so much fun. Motivation was THE THING that has made me successful and will continue to make me successful every day of my life.

Commitment to me follows motivation. You won't truly commit until you find THE THING or things that motivates you to be healthy forever.

I totally disagree with you but I agree that it's semantics. To me, it's like a car. Motivation is the key that turns on the engine. Commitment is the gasoline that makes the car go and keep going. What you're thinking about is a goal, that's the destination. You can be motivated to get to your final destination, but you'll need lots of gasoline to get there.

Motivation is my gasoline. Pure and simple to me. With motivation anything is possible. Without it, it is going to be a rough road.

Without motivation why are you committing to something? When things get rough, when you want to quit what is going to keep you going if you don't have motivation?

I never succeeded before. When I got my motivation down I have blown away my wildest expectations.

Just want to add that for me, EVERY emotion made me want to eat. I would eat when I was sad. Eat when I was bored. Eat when I was depressed. Eat in celebration when I was happy. Eat, eat, eat.

Strong emotions made me want to eat. Absence of strong emotions made me want to eat to feel something. It's a bad cycle for sure.

Regarding the motivation discussion: For me, it was when the new, healthy behaviors became solid habits that things got easier (not always EASY but definitely easier). I don't brush my teeth every day because I feel so terribly motivated to avoid dental problems. Gum disease and rotten teeth are not in the front of my mind every time I grab a toothbrush. I brush my teeth out of habit: without thinking and without internal angst and without struggling to find my motivation and reviewing all the truly important reasons for good dental hygiene.

Same for exercise and healthy eating. Yes, I can easily list all my motivations for trying to be healthy (and clinging to those motivations got me through the very hard first 6 months of change), but that isn't what I use NOW on an daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis to stay on plan. It is now habit. It is habit to grab fruit for breakfast. Habit to run first thing. Habit to buy a ton of veggies at the grocery store and entirely avoid the cracker aisle.

I realize and respect how very difficult it was to make these new habits, and I don't want to break them and return to all that internal minute-by-minute struggle.

I totally agree, because motivation is so fragile. Imagine if you had to motivate yourself to brush your teeth every morning. I mean, who wants to think about gum disease twice a day? No, that's what commitment and putting habits in place is for. Imagine if you had to motivate yourself to go to work, you just go, it's the plan so you follow it and you know that if you stop going you'll stop getting paid. Motivation is really tiring actually. I don't want to think about it every moment of the day because it doesn't play that big of a role, I don't need to feel motivated to eat a salad, I just eat a salad and make it part of my daily fabric. I'm not making a philosophical decision day to day. We're human beings, sometimes I wake up and I want to eat junk food, just because I'm not motivated does not mean I'm off plan. I focus on the commitments I've made, even if I don't feel like it!

Personally, if I get a lot of outside encouragement, I don't feel the same urge as if I'm keeping this awesome secret deep inside that I'm trying to lose. Like I feel a glee if its something that only I know.
I think that combined with this -
that would personally make it very hard for me to feel the determination to lose. BTW, why do they bring out the snacks? Is this just for a bday or is it a regular thing? If it is for a regular thing, maybe just tell them that for now, that is a big obstacle for you, and you can ask if they can either cut down on what they bring, or like you can bring your own veg platter.

I have stated in multiple posts it is lifestyle changes leading to better habits. And that it gets easier. Almost exactly what Mrs. Snark is saying.

None of that would have happened without getting motivation down. For me the crucial difference between success and failure is motivation. Maybe not throughout the process but at first for sure.

Now I feel so dang awesome and I love running so much I want to run and be and move at under 200 lbs.

I am so much less hungry now so it is much easier than before. But the glue, the brick and mortar, the absolute base of what got me to the healthier me was motivation. I've had decades of not succeeding. It was almost magical this time because of motivation. Motivation got me to succeed and is there as needed now to keep going.