How To Stay Motivated On Your Weight Loss Journey

The mental and emotional side of sticking to a diet has always been one of my biggest challenges. It’s so easy to trick ourselves into giving in sometimes because staying focused on our goal and keeping a high level of motivation is tough to do 24 hours a day. Every time I would start my program I just knew that this time would be different. This time I’ll stick with it no matter what!

Yet for some reason, I would lose that determination, completely forgetting why I was so motivated to lose this weight in the first place. What I came to realize though, was that every time I gave in, it seemed to be for the same three or four reasons each time. Years later, after having taught aerobics for more then a decade, I learned that many of my students had the same reasons for quitting that I did when I was on the dieting roller coaster too!

Staying motivated requires daily reminders, baby steps, mental tricks, and rewards along the way. In this article I’m going to share with you some tips and tricks that I’ve discovered that will help you in staying focused and motivated to stick with your new lifestyle as a slimmer and healthier you!

Take Two Before Shots

Let’s face it, photographs don’t really lie… they’re sort of a de facto truth serum as to how we really look. Taking a before shot will remind you every day of the reason you made this commitment. It will keep fresh in your mind how important this decision is to you. Pain is a tremendous motivator… and if looking at your before shot brings back even the slightest cringe of disgust, well then it may be all you need to stay strong and determined for another day.  Keep one at home and put the other one in your wallet or purse. Don’t ignore yourself, look at it before you order at a restaurant and use it as the tool and motivating reminder it was intended to be.

Set Realistic Goals

Trying to set unrealistic goals for yourself is a sure fire way to disaster. It’s easy to get discouraged when you never meet the goals or see the results you set for yourself. This is a journey remember? Not a quick jog around the block. OK, so here’s what I want you to think about…. our bodies can naturally adjust to an average weight loss of approximately 2 lbs per week. If you want to end the ups and downs of losing weight and gaining it back just as fast… then establishing a goal of 2 lbs every week is the best way to do this. Not only is this a safe and effective approach, but psychologically, it prepares your mind to accept these baby steps as part of your progress. Go into this with the understanding that water weight accounts for much of the weight loss seen in the first few weeks, and that 2 lbs of real fat loss (each week) is what you are really after.

Play Mind Games With Yourself

Feeling hungry is another huge reason why many of us cheat on our diets. During the first three weeks of any diet program, our bodies are still adjusting to less calories and it makes us hungry! The growling in our stomach is non stop, and lets face it…it’s tough to persevere day in and day out like this. But there is a little mind trick that works really well and I encourage you to give it a try.

If we can stop for a moment and look at the reason we are hungry and what this means to our bodies, we can begin to understand that hunger is necessary for us to lose weight. Therefore, hunger is good. Hunger is our friend and we should be happy knowing that every time we feel hungry we are losing weight!

Now before you role your eyes at this, I suggest you give it a try. I learned this technique from Oprah as she shared with her audience one of the things that worked the best for her in overcoming hunger day in and day out as she lost weight. Trick your mind into embracing hunger because it is proof that you are doing it, you are losing weight as we speak! Yea for Hunger!

Reward Yourself

Motivation can be even more difficult when we are looking at long stretches of time with less food. Let’s face it, just the thought of never having any ice cream for months can be overwhelming.

Not only that, but from a metabolic stand point, going a long time eating less food every day, can actually cause our bodies to adapt to this reduction of calories and actually slow down our metabolism in order to counter it. So, if you are a big fan of fast burning metabolisms… then you would be wise to give yourself one cheat meal per week. Not only will this break up the long term drudgery of most diets, but it will trick your body once a week and will really help with keeping your metabolism burning hot, hot, hot.

Putting It All Together

Planning your diet properly by addressing the psychological side of your weight loss journey is not only a smart thing to do, it’s probably the best way to really achieve your goals. There are many other ways to stay motivated, and I encourage you to look at whatever techniques will work for you. But these four ideas are simple to do and should be a part of your overall path to success. Just acknowledging the mental and emotional side to your weight loss program is key and will put you light years ahead of the rest of the crowd.