An often overlooked aspect of dieting, but one that is key to your success, is motivation. Motivation is one of the most important factors in determining how successful we are at anything we do in life. It’s the driving force that gives you the will to reach your goals.
But sometimes that motivation escapes as quickly as it comes and will alone just isn’t enough to reach your weight loss goals. Have you ever felt like throwing in the towel? Or asked yourself why you’re even doing this? It’s not uncommon, in fact, I’d bet every dieter has at one point in time.
There is hope, however. Whether you’ve started and stopped a diet a thousand times before or this is your first crack at it, these tips will keep you motivated and help make your dieting efforts last a lifetime.
Lose Weight Comfortably
Arguably the most important aspect of keeping your weight loss motivation peaked is to lose the weight in a way that you’re comfortable with. If your diet plan consists of absolutely no carbs, yet you love bread, fruits and other carb loaded foods, then you’re not going to be very motivated to continue on such a diet for the long term. Before starting a diet ask yourself if it’s something you could still be doing ten years from now. And remember, extreme diet changes overnight are typically not good for the long term. Make slow diet changes that you’re comfortable with. Over time these changes will really add up.
Reward Yourself
Another great way to stay motivated is to reward your success. Preferably not by hitting the buffet for a 3000 calorie binge, but rather with a non-food item like a new outfit or possibly a non-tangible reward like a lazy Sunday with nothing to do but relaxing and watching movies.
Why you choose to reward yourself is entirely up to you. For example, some choose to reward themselves after every 5 pounds they lose and other’s reward themselves after certain physical feats like completing a two mile run in under 15 minutes. The choice is yours.
Track Your Progress
Some find it very motivating to track their weight loss progress. Whether it be jotting down your stats in a journal or plugging them into a program on your computer, tracking your progress is a great way to visualize your successes and see how far you’ve come.
What exactly should you track? Again, it’s entirely up to you, but some popular choices include tracking your weight, BMI and/or body measurements. You can also track the foods you eat, the portions you consume or your daily caloric intake. These will also help you figure out where you need to make adjustments if you’re not seeing the results you want.
Set Goals
Setting goals gives you a specific target to shoot for you and can range from losing a pound a week or to drop a dress size by spring. The key to effective goal setting is to set small, realistic goals that are attainable. If your goal is to lose 20 pounds by Friday then you’re just setting yourself up for failure.
A few goal setting tricks include:
- Write your goals down and put them where you will see them often.
- Set many small goals. By reaching multiple goals your mind will fall into the habit of success
- Reward yourself when you reach your goals.
- Change your goals up every so often to keep things interesting
Focus On Positives
It’s really easy to dwell on the negative things and lose of focus of all the positive moments of our weight loss journey. In our minds, a week’s worth of healthy eating and exercise can be marred by one single moment of binge eating. But, remember that the negatives happen to everybody. Instead of dwelling on them, focus on all the positive’s. Focus on how far you’ve come on your diet, the goals that you’ve reached or even the people you’ve inspired.
Accept You For You
As we talked about earlier, you need to set attainable goals. What does this have to do with accepting one’s self for who they are? Simple – often times people set goals that they will never reach, for example, we are bombarded with advertisements and commercials with models telling us what we should look like. If your goal is to look like the model in the latest weight loss pill ad then you could be setting yourself up for failure. Keep things in perspective and focus on being the best YOU that you can be. When you come terms with this, your motivation will sky rocket and it will be a lot easier to realize your full potential.
More Motivational Tips:
Re-Motivating: When It Just Ain’t Happening
