Why so many people can't stick to losing weight- the secret.

[Aphrodite1]

The problem with staying motivated to lose weight-

Yes, self-discipline is a big factor. But whats an even bigger one? Self-love.
I look at before and after pictures, and see how beautiful the person was even in their before picture, and think "Whoa, how could they hate how they looked?"
Overweight/obese does NOT equal ugly, by any means. Do not lose weight to be 'pretty' or 'handsome' because that is going to be a dead end, well, in my experience atleast. KNOW that you are ALREADY beautiful.. not just on the 'inside', but all over. If you are a girl, know that your curves are gorgeous and you don't NEED to lose those 20-100 lbs to be beautiful, but that you want to and because you can, that you are ALREADY beautiful and sexy. Same goes for guys.

Embrace your beauty and know you are attractive, do not lose weight because you feel like you 'need' to, but simply because you are capable of doing it, and like anything in this life, you can achieve it simply because you can.

 

[Aphrodite1]

Another thought: Many of us, including myself ( I used to) feel like we didn't DESERVE to love ourselves or be confident because we were overweight.. hence why we have so many feelings of guilt. ACKNOWLEDGE that you DESERVE a compliment from anyone, that you are beautiful and have just as many rights to feel beautiful and talk good about yourself as any skinny person does. And this is the truth.

 

[San2]

If I thought like that, and 'loved' my 'curves' so much, I would never lose weight. The fact that I do not like the way I am, and that I do not like what I see in the mirror is one of my main motivators to lose weight. I deserve better than to be this fat, disgusting thing that I turned myself into, and that's what drives me.

Thinking that I'm great and sexy and whatnot right now would make me think 'Hey, I'm good, why lose weight'.

I think a mindset like that 'My curves are sexy' is the reason why around here, girls needing a size 32 (that's about 6XL) are wearing tight fitting clothes, shirt skirts, and basically make complete idiots out of themselves.

Loving yourself is great, but stay realistic. It's better in the long run.

 

[amy1985]

I think, as with everything, different things work for different people. For me, it was having the self-respect and love to want to improve my health (my appearance didn't have a damn thing to do with it, I have a hate-despise relationship with that). For my boyfriend, he saw some photos I took of him and said "I don't like those pictures. They show my horrible gut" and finally decided that tracking calories (at least loosely) was a good idea to improve that.

Is self-esteem a good idea? Sure. It's fantastic. But as San says, if we love ourselves too much, we might get complacent and be perfectly happy with our love handles and jiggly bits and think others should accommodate us (to say nothing of more important things like health). The world doesn't work like that for the most part, and it's delusional to think otherwise.