How to stay motivated???

This is going to sounds so petty but.... I imagine myself in my wedding dress! And then I think of how I look in it now.

I have the same problem with going after work, so I started going in the morning. It was hard at first to get out of bed at 4am, but with a supportive FH so sweetly kicking me out of bed, it has now become habit. I write down everything I put into my mouth, which helps me stay accountable for the choices I make through out the day. As for the sweet tooth, I snack on grapes or other naturally sweet things, and if I want chocolate I eat a square of dark chocolate. I have written a list of the reasons I am trying to lose weight, and every time I don't want to go to the gym, or have the urge to binge, I review it and that helps. The emotional eating issues mostly disappeared for me when I started regularly working out, so now when I feel sad or depressed I go for a walk or head to the gym instead of eating, but this one took awhile. I think the biggest motivation for me though was seeing the results, even just a 1/2lb lost made me so excited to keep going.

I do a couple of things. One is I look at the new moms who let themselves go. Pushing a baby stroller and muffintopping out of their pants while they suck on a Godiva shake. Then I tell myself, "That is not going to be me. I am not going to be fat. I am never going to let myself go like that.".

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Second, I remind myself there's always an excuse not to go to the gym but a few reasons why I should. I want to stay healthy, I want to feel good (which happens after a work out cause your body releases endorphins), I want to look good, etc. I think if you really want it, you'll find a way to do it. A lot of people these days just want a quick fix to everything while putting the least amount of effort into it. I hate that.

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Third, I have an amazing wedding dress that I want to look absolutely bomb in the first time my hubby sees me in it.

Oh yeah, fourth thing is that my hubby sometimes drags me with him to take classes (spinning and he wants to take me to bodypump) and the fifth thing is that we have a personal trainer. So given that we're paying exuberant money on our gym membership *and* a trainer, it makes sense to go.

Go Beth C! You are so good! Writing down everything I eat was a maaajor wake up call. I love that you list the reasons you want to lose weight- what a good idea. I use the dark chocolate trick too- and it is amazing how just a little will actually satisfy a craving!

I have been losing weight from stress- but I definitely need to get to the gym for toning, general health and stress relief!!

Thanks for a great post. :o)

One of my big motivators is having a buddy. It can be an in-person buddy or on-line (you have a ton of them here) to remind you to go, also, put a picture of you in your gown if you have one somewhere for you to see, where FH will not to remind you why this is important.

I have been there! I know exactly how that feels. The best way to motivate your self is to take the pressure off. So don't tell your self you are on a diet. What I did was stop drinking my calories including coffee and diet drinks of any kind (they bloat you and your body does not know what to do with the fake sugar phosphate complex so it just swims around in your cells). Now I drink only unsweetened tea and water etc. That alone gave me an extra 5 pounds of weight loss in 2 weeks and I was not working out at that time. Do extra stuff like take the stairs, park your car further away in the parking lot. Those small changes make a big difference. If you make small changes little by little the next thing you know you will be slimmer and trimmer and you wont packing all of the pounds back on again. You can do it!

@Beth C. -- 4 am, thats hard, but I think if I did that I would not make an excuse of having a hard and tired day at work, I'm going to try to bring up the courage to go that early.

@Miya -- I need to keep remining myself of those good reasons.

@Singing Diva - you are right 60 minutes is nothing!

@GinaBeana- I think a buddy would help alot, but everyone so far has flaked on me.

@Becky S. -- slimmer and trimmer is diffently what I want, but I need my sweets and I hate water-- weird I know..

I need to keep pushing, because I know the result is better and worth all that hard work, thanks everyone.

It is tough but one of the main reasons I started losing weight was so I could be healthy and in decent shape when I got pregnant. I used to be 125lbs in high school and completely let myself go. I got up to 215lbs and hated myself. After several years of saying I was going to drop the weight I finally started on the long journey. I went from 215lbs 10 163lbs before I became pregnant. I've only gained 13lbs but I still continue to workout. My reasons to to keep going:

-I never want to see me weigh 215lbs again.

-I want to live a long healthy life for the little girl I am bringing into the world

-I want to look and feel good about myself

It took me 10 months to drop 53lbs but it was so worth it. I push myself and tell myself "The pain is just weakness leaving the body." Plus I had the help of a bunch of wonderful girls on this site called Calorie Count.

Here is my before and after photos!

I love success stories!

Going to gym early is really the way to go. I start work at 8 and am at the gym by 6 every morning. I used the i'm too tired after work excuse for a long time and finally got so sick of crabbing about myself that I just started going in the morning. After you get used to waking up earlier, it is actually pretty nice going early...there is less people in the gym and you have more energy during the day!

Here is a blog you might want to check out. This woman had 100 days to loose weight before her wedding and she documented how she did it including befor/after pics.

http://100daysnoexcuses.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=50

Added a pic of her before and after. 100 Days!