Fitness

5 Ways to Increase Your Weight Loss Motivation

Starting on the path to weight loss is easy. Your motivation is high and you are determined that this is the time that you’re going to reach your goal weight once and for all. You watch everything you eat and go to the gym even when you don’t feel like it. But then life settles in.

You start to cheat on your diet here and there, telling yourself that one little transgression isn’t going to matter. You convince yourself that the workouts that you seem to be missing with more regularity aren’t as important as the experts say.

Pretty soon, you find that you’ve slid back into your same old habits – and your same old jeans.

Here’s the one thing that most people don’t realize about motivation. It’s something that you have to continuously work at to keep it healthy and strong. It’s like brushing your teeth. You have to do it daily if you want a stellar smile.

Well, you also have to motivate yourself for weight loss daily if you want a stellar body.

How?

1. Give yourself a visual goal

The more often you see the finish line, so to speak, the more you salivate for it. Your desire becomes unbreakable and your drive unstoppable. You have to see where you want to be day in and day out so that it is constantly in your mind.

One way to do this is to create a collage of pictures that represent how you expect your life to be once you hit your goal. You can put it on pin board or keep it in a notebook.

It doesn’t matter how big or small it is as long as you have it somewhere where you view it often so that it can motivate and inspire you to keep taking steps forward.

Another option is to create some sort of visual for your weight loss goals. For instance, you could decorate two glass jars and fill one with the number of colored stones that represent the pounds you want to lose.

As your weight goes down, transfer the stones to the second jar so you can actually see your progress. This helps tremendously on days when you feel like you’re not reaching your goals.

2. Celebrate the entire process

weight loss success

One of the major reasons that motivation slacks after the first couple of weeks (if not couple of days) after starting something new such as a weight loss regimen is because you don’t celebrate your little victories along the way.

It’s as if you feel like you can’t enjoy the fruits of your labor until you’ve achieved your final goal weight.

However, that’s like saying that you’re not going to enjoy life until you retire. How hard would it be to go to work happily every day when you’re thirty years old and know that you have another thirty years to go? Not only will this way of thinking zap your motivation, but it also decreases your life satisfaction.

Don’t wait until the end to pat yourself on the back for all of the changes you’ve made. Each one, no matter how small, takes a tremendous amount of courage and commitment.

When you honor that, you’re honoring yourself – and renewing your energy levels to achieve other successes along the way.

3. Lose the scale

The problem with bathroom scales is that they don’t just weigh the fat in your body. They also weigh muscle, bone, blood, organs and tissues.

So, if they are the only unit of measurement that you’re using in your weight loss journey, you’re going to never really know how much fat you’re losing. Plus, if you gain muscle, your weight will actually increase!

Also, most people have a very emotional relationship with their scale. They allow it to dictate whether it is a “good” day or not. They use it to measure their self-worth instead of their weight. This is very damaging and unhealthy, especially at a point in time when you need as much support as you can get.

If you want a good way to measure fat loss, you can do a caliper test. Most sporting goods stores sell them or you can get tested by a professional at a lot of health clubs and gyms.

You can also take your measurements at various points in your body (like your thigh, hips, waist, chest, bicep) and monitor those monthly. Both of these options are much more accurate than a scale and they keep you off the motivational roller coaster that most scales are good for creating.

4. Surround yourself with motivational media

Whether you like to curl up with a positive and uplifting book or would rather listen to inspiring words on a CD when you’re on your way to and from work, the more you surround yourself with empowering thoughts, the greater the likelihood that you’ll achieve your goal.

And, it doesn’t have to be just about weight loss. It can be anything that fires you up and makes you want to reach new levels.

Maybe there is a particular religious leader that inspires you to do great things. Or perhaps there is someone who is famous that lost a lot of weight and you are motivated by their story.

Keep people like these around you (via books, CDs, MP3’s, YouTube videos, podcasts, TV shows, etc.) and it will keep your inner spark burning strong and hot.

5. Make a “why” list

Making List 2

Everyone wants to lose weight for their own reasons.

Some people just want to look better, others want to improve their health and some just want to feel comfortable in their own skin. If you want to keep yourself motivated through the entire process, then you have to fully understand your “why’s”.

Make a list of the reasons why you want to lose weight. Try to be as exhaustive as you can, including any positive benefit that you can think of. The more knowledge you have about what motivates you to want to reach your goal, the better.

Keep this list on you at all times. When you’re struggling, pull it out and read through it slowly and intentionally. This will help remind you why you’re working so hard to get where you want to be. It will help to motivate you when you can’t seem to motivate yourself.

Do things like these to keep yourself enthusiastic during the weight loss process and you will see the rewards. Not only will your motivation increase, but your weight will decrease; and that is a great trade-off.

About the author

Christina DeBusk

Changing careers mid-life from law enforcement to writing, Christina spends her days helping others enrich their businesses and personal lives one word at a time.

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