How to get motivated to lose the last 10 pounds?

Over the last year I’ve lost 70 lbs. For the last 4 months or so I’ve just been maintaining (which I’m finding very easy). Now that the urgency and desperation is gone, I’m finding it super hard to lose these last 10 lbs.

I’m not even overweight anymore but I’m at the high end of what I should weigh. Now I just feel like pretty much everybody else out there. Everybody wants to lose 10 pounds! I go to the gym a few days a week and eat (mostly) sensibly and I just don’t have the motivation to go back to how I was when I first started losing weight.

At the beginning of it all I would go to the gym at least 5 days a week and I counted every calorie that went into my mouth. Part of me thinks this is good enough and I should be happy where I am now but I also think it would be a shame to go through all I’ve gone through and come so close to the end only to miss my goal.

My goal weight is extremely reasonable and in the middle of what I should weigh. I also aimed to be one size smaller. I’m down 10 sizes now and just have one more to go but the motivation is just gone.

Any advice? Tips? Hints? Commiseration?

Not to take the wind out of your sails but dieting isn’t a temporary thing. It’s a lifestyle change.

If you’re already getting burnt out on the gym after only one year, I’d suggest you keep doing what you’re doing and be proud of yourself. You lost 70 fucking pounds! That’s no small accomplishment!

10lbs, is negligible in your case. I wouldn’t sweat it.

I appreciate the advice but I do really want to lose the last 10. I don’t want to just quit and maintain. I don’t feel burnt out on the gym. I do enjoy it when I go, I just don’t have that panicked, desperate feeling I had when I started out and that’s what motivated me. I have to find something else to motivate me now but I’m not sure what.

Have you tried choosing an external goal? I am not a very internally motivated person. If I run just because its good for me I tend to do the same boringly-acceptable workout over and over. If I have a goal in mind I’ll work out more intensely, and also be more creative about varying my workout, which, in the big picture helps avoid burnout.

It could be a competitive goal like a running race or a bike race, or a noncompetitive goal like a yoga retreat. But maybe having something else to “shoot for” will liven up your exercise plan. while moderate exercise doesn’t contribute that much to weight loss, I’m usually less willing to put crap in my face when I’m “in training for ”.

That’s a good idea actually. Last year I trained for a 10K and that was motivation.

The difference between now and then is then losing weight was the absolute first priority in my life. Nothing was going to stop me and nothing did. Even the day my beloved grandma died, I still exercised.

Now I have other priorities. As my weight has gone down my confidence has gone up and I am quite a bit busier than I was (which was the whole reason I wanted to lose weight, I was tired of hiding away feeling like a lonely whale).

Now I’m busy on the weekends, and sometimes in the evenings after work. Out with friends or coworkers or on a date or whatever. Before I would turn down every invitation to anything if it interfered with my work-out schedule. But now I have what I wanted in the first place.

I just think I’ll regret it if I don’t finish what I started.

How much cardio are you doing?

Do you typically work out alone? I recently joined a bunch of women who get together several times a week to do a crossfit workout. The accountability has been really helpful for me, and I push myself harder than I do working out alone. Having the variety in the workout is also helpful.

Congrats on the 70 lbs lost; that’s impressive!

I mostly do cardio when I do go to the gym. Either running on the treadmill or on the elliptical. Sometimes I’ll do a bit of small free weights but I mostly like to go on a machine where I can set the time/distance etc and zone out till I’m done.

But if I am planning on going to the gym and someone asks me if I want to go for drinks after work, I now usually say “yes!” whereas before I’d say “no sorry I have to go to the gym”.

I always have a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner unless I go out for lunch with friends or out for dinner. I’d say I eat healthy 80% of the time and go to the gym 3 times a week which works perfectly for maintaining.

I just have this nagging voice in the back of my head saying “you didn’t finish, you didn’t reach your goal”. I think it’s important for me to finish this.

You are now to the place where diet and discipline really become important. I lost 50 lb about 5 years ago and have kept it off. The last 10 lb were the hardest. I was able to lose the first 40 by cleaning up my habits and watching what I ate. Losing the last 10 meant hunger. There was no way around it.

I saw a sports nutritionalist and got a program from her. I followed it. I embraced the hunger. I measured and weighed my food. I kept a logbook. It was hard, but worked. It’s much easier to keep it off than get it off.

Now, I go on the same diet for a week or 2 at a time after vacations or periods of exceptional indulgence as a tune-up.

I bought all new clothes and got rid of all my larger clothing, burning the bridges so I can never go back.

Diet is more important than exercise. Exercise is good for you, but it will make you hungrier.

I sometimes go to a class after work if some of the other girls are going but I find I enjoy working out alone more. And thanks!

That’s exactly what I’ve done. As soon as something is too big, into the Salvation Army bin it goes! I’ve had to buy a ton of clothes going down 10 dress sizes!

Without knowing a great deal about you, I would be concerned that your effort to lose the 70 pounds failed to instill in you a paradigm of healthy eating being habitual, and in time, you will gain quite a bit of that 70 pounds back again. So I cannot offer you any quick-fix.

Why don’t you add more strength? Not girly light free weights, a real strength program.

You will not “bulk up” but you will feel great and changing your routine will help get you over the hump. If you don’t know what to do, see if your gym can set you up with a personal trainer that can visit with you and set up a plan. You don’t need to invest in a long-term relationship with a trainer, just a one-time meeting for a plan and then a meeting later on to catch up and tweak the plan.

Question: Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a body fat percentage goal rather than a weight goal?

What does a weight goal really mean anyway?

Erm.

A few years ago, I got fit and also lost a bunch of weight. I didn’t have a real specific goal, because that seemed too arbitrary to me. I was just getting fitter. If I had, though, the last ten pounds would’ve been two-three weeks of “work.” Could have doubled that if I wanted, same amt of time. So, increase/decrease whatever portion of your fitness regime seems most efficient, healthiest, whatever, that you can maintain well. shrug or not. If it were me, I’d just keep doing whatever you are doing and not look at numbers. At least not too often.

Caveat: I didn’t keep the weight off, but I’ve had two kids since, plus ~15 courses of steroid due to some stupid unidentified autoimmune crap. Did keep it off for 4+ years.

Set performance goals. I set out to get back in shape nearly a decade ago, successfully lost fat, and I’ve maintained a fairly high level of fitness and body composition since then. Only at the beginning did I set loss goals, and I quickly outgrew the motivation provided. Instead, I focused on increasing various aspects of fitness. This provides virtually infinite motivation since you can always pursue a new goal.

For instance, if you feel like you’re strong enough (hint: you’re probably not strong enough) you can set other goals like flexibility, skill achievement, or endurance ones. The way you look — or your body fat — is just an indirect indicator of your fitness, so why not cut out the middleman and go straight for the goal?

I agree with signing up for a race. Or start taking classes. Spin class or BodyPump are great. Or a boot camp type thing. Sounds like you are in a rut.

Buy an outfit that you love which is just slightly too tight and then work to fit into it?

That’s about all I’ve got. I’m struggling for motivation myself.

Maybe its the ten pounds…

Maybe instead of saying ten pounds you say “I’m going to drop and keep off two - over the next month” - no huge weight loss - but no going more than a pound over where you are right now (or whatever your daily weight fluctuation is) for the next month, and only worry about two. Next month, worry about the next two.

Two can be done without a huge commitment - since you are already maintaining. Spend an extra 15 minutes in the gym when you are already there, rather than going an extra time. Do some morning squats and lunges. Get rid of one thing out of your diet (although you’ve probably given up a lot).

The last ten may take as long as the first 70 - that is actually pretty normal.

Mind my asking why a particular scale number, let alone that particular one, was (is) “the goal”? Or even if it was really “the goal” or only, as Sleel suggests, an extremely imperfect proxy for the real but less easy to measure ones: fitness, looking better, feeling better, living healthier longer …?

IF the latter, then the scale exponentially became a poorer proxy as you lost more weight and at this point is meaningless.

That does not mean you do not watch it with some regularity as an early warning system that something might be going wrong (i.e. trending up, not reacting to daily statistical noise). Keeping what you have lost off is a very worthwhile goal and one that is more difficult than what you have already done. But the scale as the goal (rather than as a potential sign) at this point is silly and counterproductive to achieving either that or more meaningful goals. You may even lose more while you achieve them but you may not as improved fitness sometimes come with an increase in fat free mass that offsets the slight additional fat mass loss … and that is a good thing.

Some great alternatives have been suggested already. Adding some real resistance work, being able to go farther in the same time or the same distance faster, training for an event …

One thing though is absolute: if you “quit” you will not maintain. Keeping it off and staying healthy requires ongoing serious effort forevermore.

At this point exercise will not take the weight off – a 3 mile run only burns 300 calories. You’ll need to double your exercise to lose even one lb a month and that doesn’t sound realistic right now. Take a look at your diet – you don’t have to be extreme. Personally I find making lunch my largest meal, and eating a very light dinner, to be an effective way to eat fewer calories without feeling deprived. I’m really not hungry at night if I eat a good lunch. An average “dinner” would be a handful of veggies and some hummus … Or a hunk of cheese and a few olives… At lunch I don’t edit or measure. I lost 15 lbs this way and the weight is still trickling off.

Btw - I don’t “skip” dinner – I just don’t eat if I’m not hungry. I found I was eating a dinner meal as a sort of ritual, and not because I was hungry. If I am hungry for a dinner meal, I eat a dinner meal. I found that most days I have no need of it. The flip - a light lunch, normal dinner - did not work for me personally, I was hungry and grumpy during my workday.

That said your goal does seem a little arbitrary and may reveal black & white thinking … “If I don’t achieve my arbitrary goal I failed”. Knock that off, kiddo.