I think ive fianlly come to that point in my life, where I know I really want to lose weight...Ive said that probley about 50 times, but im really sick of being the fat girl! Im turning 22 this year, and I feel like I have wasted the past 5 yrs of my life in a fat suit. Not anymore! I just want to find the motivation to keep me going, and not lose that motivation once ive lost a few pounds and then give up!

What do you use to keep the motivation going?

I motivate myself by picking a realistic (yet challenging) goal with a very specific date. For example, if someone is coming to town in February maybe I will say that I want to lose 10 pounds by the time they arrive. It works well for me.

Here's hoping your 22nd year is a good one. I turned 22 in March last year, and it was a REALLY good one for me

I find motivation to be fleeting. You grab it and use it when you can, but otherwise I find routine to be the biggest factor in keeping me going. It's become less of thing for me to have to push myself to do something when my natural inclination has become to do it anyway. In other words, making healthy living your lifestyle, rather than something you're doing temporarily to get somewhere.

But I mean some things you could use for motivation is before pictures, public accountability (starting a blog and telling your friends/family about it), getting a check up to see how unhealthy you are (if you are indeed unhealthy?), weight loss shows (if you're into that), the before & afters section on this forum, having a workout/weight loss buddy, setting goals (as the poster above said).

Simple visualization of goals in mind. If you know how your brain works, you know how to manipulate it:

For example, I started a movie in WMM (Windows Movie Maker) and put all my heaviest pics at the beginning and a soundtrack. I added monthly pictures to it so that I myself could see the progress, but also VISUALIZE the progress.

If you imagine what it would be like at the end of the video pretty clearly, you'll having enough burning motivation EVERY TIME you even WATCH the video to get up and exercise.

Psychology for the win.

I motivate myself by reading other people's success stories and also looking at other people's before and afters really inspires me.