I don't have any tips on staying motivated, but I do have tips on how to begin, how to continue the routine, and what NOT to do. This isn't just a comment for strawberryspoon, but for anyone else who is dieting and sees this.

As someone who started off with an innocent diet that turned into a severe eating disorder that almost killed me, I need to urge the importance of making sure you take care of yourself while you're dieting. The consistent theme of any diet is that is a restriction of food that you're used to eating - whether this is portion size or types of food.
- If it's portion sizes, I recommend getting gradually smaller and not just removing half of the amount you usually eat. Cutting out huge amounts of food will cause you to eat more often, and you'll suffer from cravings. You'll eat snacks and ruin the diet.
- If it's types of food (for example, you want to cut out all crisps/chips, chocolate, pizza and caffeinated drinks like Coca Cola), cut it out one at a time. Maybe first you choose to cut out the fizzy drinks/sodas, then when you get used to that you can cut out crisps/chips, when you get used to that, cut out chocolate, and finally pizza. If you do it all at once, you'll suffer from awful cravings you can't avoid. This could cause guilt, which may lead to purging if you have bulimia or have had it in the past.

Most people who diet stick to water, proteins, fruits and vegetables. Some take vitamins too. Yes, you can do this. However, if you're like me and you NEED carbs and sugars, you can still eat them as long as it's in controlled amounts. The most important part about dieting is exercising. How much? Depends on what you want to do. If you want to slowly gain weight in a healthy way, eat more food than you do exercise. If you're trying to maintain wait, do equal exercise to food intake. If you want to lose weight, you'll have to do more exercise than eat. However, if you are lazy like me and only want to exercise a little bit, DO NOT resort to starvation or purging like I did. Starving yourself is extremely unhealthy and it doesn't guarantee weight loss, in fact, starving yourself excessively leads to bloating and weight gain. Purging destroys your throat, rots your teeth and doesn't do much for you. At first, your stomach thinks your full, and then the cry for food comes. This is when most people eat and eat and eat, just to purge and repeat the cycle. If you are lazy, just slowly build up the amount of exercise you do, or eat foods with fewer calories. For example, celery. If you don't like celery... well.

As both a tip and a warning, I'd recommend getting an app called "My Fitness Pal". You can track the contents in food - like sodium, salt, sugar and calories - by scanning its barcode, but it requires an internet connection to do so. This is to avoid the horrible habit of calorie counting - something that still haunts me four years after "recovering" from my ED.

Please take this however you wish, and add to this if you like.

I need to start dieting againㅠㅠ
Going to start again because I gained some pounds lmao. I have a hard time sticking to my diet but I really got motivated this one time.
I don't know if you can call this a diet but I guess it helped me feel more energetic/active and aware of what I eat.

Eating! I would always eat junk food sweets etc and not care about the bad things that would go in my body just because it tasted good.
For me, I cut off bad food choices after I watched some documentaries on YouTube. I know, I'm weird.

I would watch:
Sugar documentaries (I stopped drinking soda for a while after watching a few videos) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3ksKkCOgTw

Vegan documentaries (I'm not vegan nor am I forcing you to become one. I just saw the documetary to become aware of what I eat. To eat more healthy. The doc made me look for healthier choices and I found out about healthy things like chia seeds, quinoa & etc. My parents give me food that aren't really close to being vegan so...I'm not vegan) Other than the docs there's a lot of good vegan cooking videos on the site.

If you're curious about what you eat, you can search calories, soda, candy etc. documentaries. Everything comes out on YouTube so I hope that can help you.

Exercise!
Well I guess you can start off by doing jumpropes & walk/jog outside. Extend the time as you get used to it. If you like to dance, dance.
I don't know if this helps you lose weight (I think it does though) but I followed some pilates workout on Blogilate's YouTube channel. I really felt more active when I did pilates (pilates strengthen your core) I felt less breathless when walking up hill and I found out that you can balance yourself better (when standing on one foot only) Also your posture becomes better. My mom didn't know I was doing pilates but when she saw me one day she told me that my posture looked better. I was surprised. I REALLY RECOMMEND YOU TO DO PILATES IT MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD EVEN THOUGH THE EXERCISES ARE HARD AT FIRST YOU'LL GET USED TO IT!!

CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/user/blogilates
Start off by stretching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia5ZTVQnsBw
This one feels good LOL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYCNOvG9MQo
Recommended for beginners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCg_gh_fppI
Cardio is fun (I guess you can do this to warmup): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BkjRlYq_UE
Calendar so you can keep track: http://www.blogilates.com/blog/2014/12/30/new-beginners-calendar-2-0-for-2015/

(I AINT SPONSORED LMAO JUST TRYING TO HELP YOU)

MY GOAL:
- lose 10lbs+ but not all at once
- eat more healthier (cut off sodas & junk food - eat more fruits & vegetables)
- tone my body after losing weight

Don't forget to drink a lot of water! If you don't like water I guess you can make detox water. Take it easy and never starve yourself!
Happy dieting^^

i'm not on a diet... but i'm kinda ditching milk right now. tbh it's because i'm too damn lazy to go to the supermarket and buy one, but i kinda like not drinking milk. idk. i wanna see if my face is gonna be any different after a few months. i'm sure you've heard about people talking about dairy products and acne.

also, i kinda wanna try almond milk. i heard it's good...and a bit pricey T-T.

i'm not on a diet but i am keeping my body in shape. what i always do is that i take 15 minutes exercise in the morning and drink a nice hot cup of green tea before bedtime. that's all.

I'm not actually on a diet. I just try to live more healthily all the way around. Btw a good tip for losing weight or keeping your weight in control is to sleep. In the night. At least eight hours, 11pm-2am is the ideal time to sleep (+ 5 hours lol)

don't think about it as cutting delish junk food out of your diet. instead, just think of it as switches. switch cookies for nuts, candy for fruit etc