Keeping motivation

So my New Years resolution is to lose weight and get healthy. Some of you may remember me talking about jogging and stuff last year, but the thing is, I never got motivated enough to lose the weight. But this year is going to be different. I just want to ask you guys, how to keep motivated? So far I'm motivated as hell to lose this weight, but I know some point this year I am going to feel like stopping and I don't want that. So any ideas on how to keep motivated? Share stories of motivation if you want to also! Thank you.

I think about the satisfaction of achieving my goals. But I've always been a driven person, that's just what has always worked for me.

Ehhhh I'll be real here but I don't. At all.

I haven't really actually been motivated to do anything in years, probably because of depression and what have you. I just force myself to do things that have to be done because they have to be done, or because I know if they aren't done I'm going to be down about it and feel like **** for longer than I'd wanna be.

I started working out (on and off) a couple years ago because I wanted to get bigger. I didn't actually wanna do it and I still never actually want to do it. I just do it because things won't change otherwise.

I am the same way, I have very little self-motivation. So if you can get involved in fitness groups, it really helps out a lot having peers supporting you and egging you on.

There are apps that I have found useful to keep me on track and remind me of my workout times: Runkeeper, MyFitnessPal, Yoga Studio, and StrongLifts. A lot of them sync to each other and your calendar even. It makes it really easy to keep track of calories, activities, weight loss/gain, etc.

Hope this helps!

i'm trying to lose weight and be healthy, too

something that motivates me is the satisfaction of finally being happy with my body

Making small, micro-goals keeps me and people I work with stay on track. Aside from that, I think a great support network of people who will do things with you will help you stick to your desires to be healthy in the long run.

It's totally okay to have trouble sticking to big goals or long goals, so remember to try and make realistic milestones that you can keep up with!

Whenever I'm feeling down and in need of motivation, I just try to keep the goal in mind. I've been struggling with weight loss too, and I'll admit that there are a lot of times where I just look at myself in the mirror and cry because I don't like what I see. But I think it's those moments that motivate me more than anything because I know that I obviously don't want to keep feeling ****ty, so something has to change and it has to start with my perception of myself. Now when I look in the mirror I try to envision how good it'll feel when I achieve my goal and how much more confidence I'll have. Times like that motivate me more than anything to get off my ass and get moving.

I also have to agree with the whole apps idea because there are some really annoying apps out there that will pester you until you finally do what you're supposed to do lol. For me, it was Plant Nanny that finally got me consistently drinking a very healthy amount of water per day (which does wonders for your complexion and bloating, by the way). I've since blown it off and I think even something as simple as ignoring my stupid little app has contributed a lot to my lack of motivation and bad moods. Feeling the sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when I drank my goal amount of water just really felt so satisfying and made me want to keep doing it the next day and the next day. It's definitely something I need to do again in this new year, and I definitely recommend anyone else do it as well since it's a good habit to drink more water anyway. Anyways, when it comes down to it, I think the most important thing for keeping your motivation is starting with your goal in mind and consistently reminding yourself of that goal and what it means to you. If you don't know or care about what exactly you're trying to achieve, it's just going to slowly fade out until you're back to square one. At least that's what happened to me!

Step #1 is get a twitter account and follow Andrew W.K. This guy...I can't even describe really. Just trust me.

A few personal tips. Starting with: be realistic. Don't expect things to happen overnight. It's easy to not exercise and eat junk food. It's hard to exercise and eat healthy. Life isn't meant to be easy. It's mean to be challenging. Take a look at the consequences to each. When you take that easy path, how do you feel? You don't feel good or proud about that easy path, do you? However, when you go to bed at night after a day of the difficult path, when you spent the day exercising & ate well, you feel good about that discipline. And use that when you wake up, to keep it going. It's going to take weeks, months, and even years, but-you WILL get there. If...you keep challenging yourself.

However-engulfing yourself in nothing BUT discipline isn't good either. The key is balance. Being able to push yourself to do the things like working out, routinely, but also take a break. After all, you earned that break!

I'll throw in one last HUGE motivating factor for somebody like myself: music. Get yourself ready. Fire up your iPod. Or whatever you use. Throw on something you enjoy. And let it move you. Literally. If you really, really are into any type of music, your body will move to it. It's awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eByBvUms_tQ Music like this is very powerful, and has very motivating lyrics. Where they say, and you can say with them "I will, never give up. I will, never take the easy way out."

only thing motivating me is my extreme anxiety about what happens if i dont do it. ?\_(ツ)_/?

verb1999 said:

Step #1 is get a twitter account and follow Andrew W.K. This guy...I can't even describe really. Just trust me.

A few personal tips. Starting with: be realistic. Don't expect things to happen overnight. It's easy to not exercise and eat junk food. It's hard to exercise and eat healthy. Life isn't meant to be easy. It's mean to be challenging. Take a look at the consequences to each. When you take that easy path, how do you feel? You don't feel good or proud about that easy path, do you? However, when you go to bed at night after a day of the difficult path, when you spent the day exercising & ate well, you feel good about that discipline. And use that when you wake up, to keep it going. It's going to take weeks, months, and even years, but-you WILL get there. If...you keep challenging yourself.

However-engulfing yourself in nothing BUT discipline isn't good either. The key is balance. Being able to push yourself to do the things like working out, routinely, but also take a break. After all, you earned that break!

I'll throw in one last HUGE motivating factor for somebody like myself: music. Get yourself ready. Fire up your iPod. Or whatever you use. Throw on something you enjoy. And let it move you. Literally. If you really, really are into any type of music, your body will move to it. It's awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eByBvUms_tQ Music like this is very powerful, and has very motivating lyrics. Where they say, and you can say with them "I will, never give up. I will, never take the easy way out."

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Thank you so much, I'll keep this in mind! C:

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lostineverfreeforest said:

I think about the satisfaction of achieving my goals. But I've always been a driven person, that's just what has always worked for me.

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I'll do this in the future whenever I'm lacking motivation c:

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harlequin said:

i'm trying to lose weight and be healthy, too

something that motivates me is the satisfaction of finally being happy with my body

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That's honestly what I want to achieve. I wanna look in the mirror and finally think to myself, I'm happy c:

Some of the best advice I can give, although it may sound counter-intuitive: accept yourself before you have achieved your goal!!! It may seem like this would make you less motivated to change aspects of yourself, but in my experience if you have a mentality of "I will be happy when I do this" - in your case lose weight, how are you to know that once that is accomplished you won't find something else to feel insecure about? The concept is that when one constantly focuses on an "end goal" to make them happy, once they reach that there is another thing to be dissatisfied with and it's a cycle of perpetual unhappiness. This is just my opinion and what I have witnessed both in myself and friends. When you are happy right now, without fixating on being happy in the future after changing part of your life, it enables you to change that more easily in my opinion as well as ensures you lasting happiness. I would also say listen to your body and focus on how it feels more than looks when trying to lose weight. So many things can contribute to weight gain and stress is among them. So by thinking negatively about your weight, you may ironically be making it higher. Health is something you have to commit to and work on for your entire life. Once you reach a weight you're comfortable with, if you don't maintain your lifestyle you will not be able to maintain that weight. It really is a process.

As for motivation, I think once you start progressing it will happen on its own. It seems like being healthy is full of sacrifice when in reality once you start living a healthier lifestyle (in my experience), you can't imagine going back to treating your body how you did in the past (unhealthy foods, low activity level, etc.). It really feels so good and when you see the difference it makes in your body it further encourages you. Generally I would say focus on frequency of exercise, in my opinion 15-30 minutes, even an hour eventually, of exercise daily gives you stronger results than a few days a week and 2 hours just on those days. Consistency is key. Hydration is important too, as is diet of course. I would go more in depth, but this would be a very long post ;-; there are so many free online resources for improving your health, aside from diet trends and other information made for profiting from people's insecurities.

You can do this!!! Just identifying the goal is a huge step. Best of luck xox

Maybe do something fun so that you wouldn't want to stop? Jogging is not the most fun exercise in my opinion. You could try dancing, tennis, skating, and etc if you wanted to. If you have a rec center near you, then you can probably try out different classes and see what you like.

The best advice I have is to start will small goals!

The biggest mistake people make is to set goals like "I'm going to work out 30-60min a day" or "I'm not going to eat fatty foods ever again" which are impossible to jump into.

Goals that I've found to be a good start are things like "I'm going to exercise everyday after school/work even if it's just a 10min walk" or "I'm going to eat breakfast every morning" which are completely attainable. Then once those things become easy you can add a little more on to them.

Weight loss apps are a great way to motivate too. I used LoseIt a couple years ago and lost 20 pounds. MyFitnessPal is great too. You can record calories by scanning barcodes and track your nutrients and exercise. I'd really recommend them and they're free!

Mega_Cabbage said:

Jogging is not the most fun exercise in my opinion.

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It's actually painful and exhausting the first few weeks but then you eventually reach a point where you can run the same 3 mile route and not even feel winded. It's a great feeling but takes work getting there.

You get motivated by being realistic and choosing realistic things to motivate you.

You are fat.
You are ugly.
Nobody wants to touch your body.
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Become hot.
How do you become hot?
You get out that door and jog (and stuff) your wiggly ass down that street!

negatively. through like, punishment. an eating disorder? motivation~~~

the main tip id give is to regularly weigh yourself (if its a weight goal type thing) and setting a specific goal also works. like a photo of a persons body, "i wanna look like that" or a goal weight like "i wanna be 110" or something. my current goals are 110lbs (a weight i only reached when i was very sickly and is lONG SINCE GONE...) and to be able to do the splits. you shouldnt just set a word like "healthy" or "better" bc then you dont know where to look or where to limit yourself and can end up unhealthy on either side of the scale. regular satisfaction is also nice. not gone down a few pounds recently? my cheat is that i always weigh myself clothed on normal days and when im feeling particularly hopeless i weigh myself naked. it actually makes quite enough difference for me to be somewhat pleased