I thought about this for awhile, the original post and Valerie's response.

I think maybe the reality is that in the earlier days of lowcarbing I really really needed motivation. I had a lot of my own. But it helped from other sources.

When I weighed over 500# and only lurked here, I cannot tell you the nights I spent looking at the pictures in the success stories threads, reading recipes. I so desperately needed to believe that lowcarb was truly possible, that maybe it would actually work, no matter that barely eating off and on didn't make me lose weight, that maybe eating a lot more than usual, but lowcarb, would actually make me lose weight. It seemed like a magical thing at first, and one of those "anything that seems too good to be true probably is." There were plenty of times in my planning and in my early days of lowcarb when hours spent stalking success stories and recipes somehow fed my heart, my faith, and helped maintain motivation I'm not sure I would have had without that.

The more used to eating properly I get, the less genuine motivation I seem to need to eat that way. However, doing something new takes motivation, even if it's not the food; exercise and other things tie into a "healthier lifestyle" and those have their own demands. In the early days, just getting the food straight well enough to THINK straight is what matters. But eventually, as the body gets smaller, the picture gets bigger.

I have really seen that when I had some idea in mind of how much I needed to lose how fast -- and I don't mean small goals here like we all work to (1-12 months), I mean larger ones -- that it was more difficult for me. Every day I was faced with the incredibly seeming-insignificance of anything that I could do in that day compared to the overwhelming goal and need. The project of my body's improvement was so big I didn't have the heart some days to even think about it; it stunned me with its scope. But when I actually let go of that, when I dropped such ideas and now simply make shorter term goals, usually even less than I think I can do -- because I believe meeting/exceeding a goal is important for psychological reasons and persistance reasons; I can push myself when I can marathon ok, for now, training my body and mind to like what I'm doing and have faith is more important to my continuing to do it -- I don't feel that sense of stress and despair anymore.

You know what, I am so damned glad to feel like I feel right now, eating well, taking a few supplements, thinking clearly, being able to mow the lawn and go shopping and fit in lots of chairs I couldn't before -- I am genuinely happy with this. Is that all I want? Hell no. Do I want to be thinner? Hell yes! But I am *happy* that I am here, and not where I started. I am happy that standing for 30-60 seconds no longer gives me screaming back pain, that walking from the door to the car no longer makes me exhausted, that just thinking about nearly any problem seemed like it required more energy than I had to deal with and hence was overwhelming and I no longer have that situation. I'm happy that I can plan for my future and dream of something *real*. I used to daydream about "the day when I'd be thin" and all the things I'd do. It was as unrealistic as a romance novel. Now, I daydream about when I'm 300# instead of 375, and the exercises I bet I can do then, and how cool my kitchen will look once it's painted. Rather than either spacing out in denial or despairing over reality, now I'm just sorta happy where I am, happy to be moving toward another goal, and it makes me feel fairly optimistic that my future will be bright.

Will I ever weigh 130 again? Not likely. Possible. Not IMpossible. But also not likely. That was hard for me to accept. It was hard for me because I fought against it, fought because I've been indoctrinated to believe that if you "just do everything right" that obesity would just vanish, with that fairy-wand of gold light. It was a real bear working through learning about some metabolic and nutritional issues and realizing that given my high weight, even though I can radically improve my health and greatly improve my figure, it might not ever be the fashion zombie it used to be.

I had to let go of the emphasis on timing because that's where panic lies. Panic sits at the bottom of the clock, just waiting for someone to have an idea of what they "must" lose "in order to be ok" or whatever. I know the feeling of panic... pretty well. But the reality is that panic is one of those things that made me need external motivation; "quiet desperation" drains you. Adding time-pressure to your mental diet is like adding carbs to your physical diet: it makes you really deficient in another things, like Vitamin C or "motivation and persistance". There's a difference between a fairly short term goal you think you can make, and a goal that is not only going to require herculean effort, but several other factors related to metabolism and feeding behavior that are so unlikely as to be completely unrealistic.

I'm making my new goals to be happy, and that includes as part of it, not only all kinds of things that aren't about food but *are* about healthy living, but also a regular, optimistic outlook on continued weight loss and life improvement, and deliberately short- and medium- term goal plans, which I find motivating and do-able. Something like, "I will work every day on eating healthier and I hope I lose 30# in the next six months," as opposed to, "I read about this guy who lost 300# in only 22 months! Maybe I could do THAT!"

One thing the triple-digit obesity situation does is force you -- if all goes well, anyway -- to face reality a little more squarely. It isn't about losing 5# for that summer bikini. It's about losing 10# so breathing is slightly easier today than it was last month. It's about losing 50# or 150# so you don't have to stand in the aisle at the back of the movie theatre for lack of a fitting seat. No matter what the "focus-goals" are, there is also a long line of goals off into the distance.

"Sprinters" don't make this long a cross-country run. It isn't about the urgency and leap; it's about pacing yourself, focusing on what matters day to day, and taking steps to preserve the elements that sustain you for the long term race.