i was pondering motivation today and wanted others to chime in on the topic if they wanted to.

what do you think sets part the "i am in it for the long haul" from the "oh well, i gave it a try for 2 weeks...i just can't make this work."

thank you for bringing the spiritual aspect. I think it is vital. sometimes, i tend to shy away from that conversation topic, just like politics, because i am afraid to offend someone.
there have been moments when i felt my will was so weak, i just fell on my knees and begged God for help.
Your perspective rings true for me. i am going to write your words into my journal. thank you.

quote:

Originally posted by isabel:
what do you think sets part the "i am in it for the long haul" from the "oh well, i gave it a try for 2 weeks...i just can't make this work."

Isabel,

I love what everyone has said already. I'll just quickly add what I said in a previous conversation before you joined the board...

I am a religious/spiritual person, so one attitude adjustment that I've made, which really helped me to overcome this thinking [giving up], was to equate my relationship to food to my relationship with God. I don't give up on loving God and trying to do the right thing because I've messed up; I never even consider that as an option. So, I decided that I needed to adopt that same attitude with eating, and it has changed my frame of mind/attitude towards eating/food completely. Thinking this way gives me something concrete to keep me focused; this type of concrete thinking helps me...

Since the motivation fairy does not always show up, it can be very helpful if you can find a concrete idea/belief/conviction that you hold strongly and apply it to food/eating. With that, when motivation has taken a vacation, you can rely on your convictions to pull you through.

Thanks for starting this conversation. I think it is such a pivotal issue with food/eating habits, and I am enjoying it very much.

PrettyPansies

quote:

Originally posted by Janesays:
I think the intitial "a-ha" moment may get the ball rolling, but after that I think motivation is an excuse. You have to make yourself do what you need to to.

Those that succeed (over the long haul) are not more motivated, they are more disciplined. I think it is Bee that says "The motivation fairy isn't going to just show up."

Jane said it for me : )

great perspective!

I think the intitial "a-ha" moment may get the ball rolling, but after that I think motivation is an excuse. You have to make yourself do what you need to to.

Those that succeed (over the long haul) are not more motivated, they are more disciplined. I think it is Bee that says "The motivation fairy isn't going to just show up."

i like your saying paula. i am going to write it in my journal.
i never watched BL, but reading all of y'all's postings, i feel like i know so much about the show now!
I also don't like Monique's glorification. i think, extremes in any direction can be dangerous. i like the buddhist when they say "take the middle way". (There is a little inner Buddha in KD, I bet!)

Isabel:

I think it basically comes down to the old saying "We will remain the same same, until the pain of remaining the same hurts more than the pain of change."

I think everyone would like weight loss, or quitting smoking (which DBF struggles with) or _________ to be easier. Unfortunately we have to work at it and food is probably harder than anything to deal with because we have to have it in order to survive.

The Fear tactics I dislike. But I also dislike Monique's approach of glorifying "fat and thick" (the words I found on her web site). While I am not a regular watcher of the Biggest Loser, I do feel for a reality show it has some redeeming quality because it encourages people to change their lives in a positive manner and shows that it's not easy work to change eating habits. I think the piece they showed on the finale were Kai talked about having to chose between being the party girl and going out every night and drinking, or having a healthy lifestyle showed the reality of how hard it really is.

amen sistah gurrl!
i am all with you sheri. i do think we are a quick fix society. i admire oprah so much and she did that OptiFast diet. I read the Bob Greene book about how Oprah really damaged her metabolism, and had to start at ground zero again after so many years of dieting. i empathize because i have had my share of "quick fix" diets---all failed.
There is a woman who used to come to my gym. She probably looked like a size 10 or 12 when i first met her. then she wittled away so fast. finally, it became obvious she had some kind of eating disorder. she was wearing long sleeve shirts (double) to cover up her bones that were sticking out of her body. one day, i actually saw her take off the shirt (to change into a dry shirt) and i was terrified when i saw her collarbone and ribs sticking out. my inner voice said "she is dying" my goodness, are we killing ourselves to achieve some kind of unattainable "skinny" standard? how tragic. not surprisingly, many of her closer gym buddies expresed concern, she would get angry, and she has changed gyms now. I pray that her family and friends have intervened to save her by now.

i know, people with eating disorders is a little off of the topic but i hate these ugly messages that feed on fear and insecurity.

what gets a person to that "ah-ha!" moment? I wish there could be more widespread encouragement of the "ah-ha" instead of the quickie.

BTW, i read a review of Bob Greene's new book (Since Brie had mentioned that that may be part of the impetus for her TV appearance)and the reviewer said it was not really different from his previous books.
thanks for sounding off! i appreciate your viewpoint.

quote:

Originally posted by isabel:
we are only 5 months away from bathing suit season, girls..."

This kind of thing drives me nuts too, but if you look at any magazine, esp. those targeted at women, you will see the inevitable "Get in shape for swimsuit season!" headlines sometime after the holidays.

quote:

i guess i was feeling somewhat angry at these folks, trying to scare people into spending their money for quick fixes. the sad thing is that this kind of thing works--people buy into the marketing [...] get a quick weight loss but they gain it all back, and the cycle begins all over again.

This is what I was thinking when I was reading the first paragraph of your message--i.e., that you can't blame the gyms and the magazines and the diet-product-makers for trying, because it has been proven time and again in our society that people will jump for this stuff in a heartbeat.

Everyone still wants the quick fix. Even after I had wiped the word "diet" from my vocabulary (a decade before I finally changed my lifestyle in 2003), I was still--in a little place in the back of my brain--wishing there was an easier answer. I dieted for DECADES, going through that same cycle you describe, before I finally stopped. And I consider myself a pretty smart person, so once I started the lifestyle change, I actually got ANGRY at myself for being so supid for so long. But what always made me feel better is that I knew there were millions of other people who were still, or had been, doing the same stupid things I'd been doing.

When I started losing weight in 2003-2004, people started asking what I was doing (i.e., they were looking for ideas). What they wanted to hear was "There's this FABULOUS new pill that makes the weight just MELT OFF!" What I told them was that I exercised 5-6 days a week, vastly changed my way of eating, no white flour, lots of fruits & veggies, etc. And nearly every person responded to this news the same way--by looking horrified and saying "EWW! That's too hard!"

That reaction really got on my last nerve--it made me angry--and I almost started wishing people wouldn't notice my weight loss and ask how I was doing so that I wouldn't have to hear that reaction one more time.

There is a lot that needs to change in our media and in our collective consciousness before we can ever hope to stop hearing that reaction. I hope we get there while I'm still alive to witness it, but I don't have much hope that it will.

i was observing some folks at the gym. i read the posters and sign on the walls and many of them use fear to advertise the personal trainer services. for instance "the average person gains 10 pounds due to holiday season, why don't you lose those 10 pounds now and be ahead of the game?" and then, a month ago, there was a new class offered at the gym on friday morning. the instructor was someone i had never experienced before. she also used "fear" as a motivator " we are only 5 months away from bathing suit season, girls..." (I walked out of class after 30 minutes, i could not take hearing her speak like this any more)and then i hear of those who are trying to get into that dress for the wedding or whatver event coming up. quick fixes. empty promises. most likely not a recipe for long term maintenance and success.

i guess i was feeling somewhat angry at these folks, trying to scare people into spending their money for quick fixes. the sad thing is that this kind of thing works--people buy into the marketing, spend too much money on quick diets and unqualified personal trainers, they might get a quick weight loss but they gain it all back, and the cycle begins all over again. i wish there was more marketing of healthy messages, and so i posted this to see what would be some alternative messages to get out to people. such as "say no perfectionism", "taking baby steps means you are moving forward", "embrace the healthy body you were meant to have", etc. and it also makes me happy that Brie is getting a chance to share her story on TV.(Ok, just some of my random thoughts...)

FOr me the motivation is that I am tired of carrying the equivalent of another person around on my body. At this point with the 30 lbs weight loss I've managed to maintain, I've lost a small child (toddler perhaps). I'm tired of looking in the mirror and not being happy with what I see. And I'm tired of not loving myself to take care of the relatively healthy body God blessed me with.

I realized that I really got it this time, when I went and walked 6 miles on my own on Sunday and Monday night without Bob there with me. That was HUGE for me because it just about killed me when we started walking and he'd want to go one these long hikes. Now it's just become part of my day.

We have sometimes referred to it here as the "light bulb moment" or the "a-ha! moment," but it's that one defining event that makes you see there's no quitting after two weeks, or two months, or two years, or even twenty-two years. That kind of event can be anything from your doctor saying "you're borderline diabetic" to carefully reading the label on your snack and realizing that you've been eating four servings of it every day (and thus four times more calories than you thought). But we've also had lots of discussions about how you can't make others (loved ones especially) change their habits till they have their own a-ha! moment. And how you can't wait for motivation, because it might never come and you still need to do this every day, or at least most days.

What were you thinking about motivation?