How to Stay Motivated to Lose Weight and find the Motivation to Get Healthy ?
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It is not easy to lose weight no matter how other fitness practitioners try to say that it is. You can check out exercises and workout programs, or follow diets religiously, but without the right attitude, you can never achieve the weight that you want. However, the right attitude to lose weight is fueled by motivation, and often, loss of motivation is the reason why you give up on losing weight.
It’s not uncommon to hear the “how to stay motivated with weight loss?” question. Losing the motivation is one of the hurdles that you will encounter as it is not easy to maintain the drive to get excess pounds off the body.
You can overcome the motivation barrier by putting into action the following realistic tips:
#1. Set specific weight loss goals
One reason why you might feel demotivated in losing weight is that you don’t set specific and realistic weight loss goals. Most people overlook this part as well. Sure, it is easy just to go out there. Please do your thing or keep saying to yourself “I will lose weight” or “I will lose 20 pounds in two weeks”. But whenever these goals are not met, that is where demotivation develops and losing weight becomes a forgotten endeavor.
Setting specific and realistic goals will help you to stay motivated. The reason behind this is that by having achievable goals in short-term, you will see the results immediately. Seeing positive results will naturally encourage you to continue your weight loss program. So instead of saying “I will lose weight”, maybe you can say “I’m choosing fish for lunch today.”
#2. Take advantage of apps
Mobile applications have become useful tools that can help you in your daily tasks. There are a wide variety of applications available, and you can choose either the free or paid ones. Among these are the fitness applications. These apps can suggest exercise programs that you can do wherever you are and whenever you want to do them. These applications can also help monitor your activities like how many steps you made for the day. Some fitness applications can also act as diaries to help measure your calorie intake. Tracking your progress regularly through the use of apps will help keep your motivation up in your attempt to lose weight.
There are also other non-fitness related applications that you can use to remind you of your goal or send you motivational quotes regularly.
#3. Be Patient
Not everything that we do happens in an instant. The same thing applies to losing weight. Don’t overwork your body by doing a lot of exercises hoping to lose weight immediately. Don’t starve yourself. Go slow, and try to pace your training and workout programs.
Cut down your calorie intake slowly instead of not eating at all. The danger of trying to speed up things is that you might lose your motivation faster when nothing is happening the way you wanted it to be.
As you are getting close to your ideal weight goal, you will hit the plateau, and your patience will be tested again here. A weight loss plateau is a phase where you are not losing any weight despite the efforts you have made. It is certainly very demotivating. Don’t worry about this. Think of it as part of the challenge.
Instead of stopping, try to exceed the previous effort. If you were walking for 30 minutes, then, make it a 45-minute walk. Sometimes, it’s best to make adjustments and do things differently to keep your motivation up.
#4. Share your weight loss pledge to the public
Sharing your commitment to lose weight to people close to you like family and friends will be very useful. You will need them to push you hard to follow your pledge whenever you lose the motivation to lose weight. Keeping things to yourself will not be helpful as motivating oneself is already a difficult task. Also, a little bit of embarrassment for failure to follow your commitment can be a great motivating factor. The thought of getting embarrassed in itself is already very motivating that you stick to your commitment.
#5. Use role models wisely
It is certainly good to use role models to inspire you to lose weight. But the major pitfall of using well-toned celebrities or people who have successfully lost weight is that you might get demotivated seeing them achieve their goals.
A photo of a celebrity is not an ideal motivation model, but rather you should look up at people you can relate with. Role models are helpful if you know how to use them as motivation. There are two ways to take advantage of role models. You can follow the footsteps of the successful person or you look for individuals who failed and use their failure as your drive.
#6. Reward yourself for sticking to your diet
Sticking to your diet can discourage you especially that there are a lot of temptations everywhere. You see the chocolate cake as you are going to work or the sweet ice cream across the road is just too irresistible. To stay motivated in the face of these temptations, you just need to reward yourself.
Traveling or a soothing massage is a real incentive for being able to resist temptations. The road to losing weight is long, and along the way, you should find ways to encourage yourself.
Conclusion :
Motivation is tough to maintain, especially when you are trying to lose weight. There are a lot of articles online that suggests a lot of ways to help motivate you, but not all of them are realistic. The more you try unrealistic and unachievable tips, the higher the possibility that you lose the drive.
The tips presented here are quite realistic and achievable. Don’t be too hard on yourself in your pursuit of losing weight. Give these tips a try, and let it help you stay motivated.
Sources: http://www.drmikediet.com/diet/7-weight-loss-motivation-tips-stay-on-track/ http://www.shape.com/weight-loss/tips-plans/22-ways-stay-motivated-lose-weight http://halls.md/weioose/ http://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/features/diet-motivation-tips
A Short Bio:
Sarah Morgan. A sister, a daughter, a wife, but most especially a mother. Being a mother makes me realize that life is a great adventure. No day is always the same, which makes every day so much more exciting.
