How to get motivated again

[Mass_Bixo]

Have been lifting consistently for half my life (started at 17, 34 now). If you stop paying attention to the online fitness niche and see from a broader perspective, lifting is a pretty rewarding activity.
If you progress closer to your potential in some basic lifts and have some eating discipline for keeping fat under control, you will have a physique that is good enough to anything except fitness social media related stuff. It won't be good enough for instagram or youtube but will be good enough for real lfe.
Plus you have all the health benefits of regular exercise, get in decent shape for any random activity, it helps with some sport you may practice (both improving performance and preventing injuries)...
Having this benefits in mind and enjoyingfeeling the "high" from exercise or the pump makes easy to keep motivation for lifting as long you don't overdo and burn yourself out.

[small_natural]

The advice with treating workout as a part-time job is a solid one. I would like to add another little thing which may help you with your motivation when you're in the "fuck-training-mode": if possible, try to make some acquaintances in the gym with whom you can talk/small-talk. Personally, it helps me a lot when I'm absolutely demotivated to train; I do some sets, I chat a little bit about unimportant topics, and it makes the whole training more bearable.

Also, I think having a reasonable amount of bodyfat (8-14%) is also good for motivation. When you look good, the training is - at least for me - more appealing, than if I'm 20% BF and look like shit. You did mention that the hunger got the best of you after your cuts. I know this feeling too well, almost every time I did a cut and ended in a very good condition, I fucked it up afterwards by binge eating, which kinda nullified half of the effort that I put into the diet. However, I had great results with taking things slowly, going down like 2kg (~ 5 lbs) a month. This allows you to function like a normal human being and vastly reduces the "hunger-from-hell" at the end of the diet. And if you employ some kind of reverse-diet after your cut is over for at least 4 weeks where you gradually increase calories, you get a minimal rebound gain in weight. The obvious downside is that this kind of "cutting" may take you half a year, but at least the condition is sustainable afterwards (unlike in the case when you go down 4kg/10 lbs a month).

[Hans]

However, I had great results with taking things slowly, going down like 2kg (~ 5 lbs) a month. This allows you to function like a normal human being and vastly reduces the "hunger-from-hell" at the end of the diet. And if you employ some kind of reverse-diet after your cut is over for at least 4 weeks where you gradually increase calories, you get a minimal rebound gain in weight. The obvious downside is that this kind of "cutting" may take you half a year, but at least the condition is sustainable afterwards (unlike in the case when you go down 4kg/10 lbs a month).

In what world is a fat loss of 2kg per month *slow*? That's 500g fat per week or 500kcal per day. For most guys that's more than 20% of their maintenance calories. Have fun to keep that up for more than a week or so.

4kg/month? Yeah right ...

[small_natural]

Don't know about you, but if it takes me almost half a year to shed 10kg of fat and become lean, I consider it as slow. How long would you want to cut for, a whole year ? Besides, 500kcal deficit per day isn't something that's gonna kill you, it's perfectly manageable. I don't get your comment about 4kg per month, you think it's not possible? It certainly is. Is it good for a natural trainee? Certainly not - those 4kg certainly won't be all fat, muscle will be lost, and it will mess you up.