One of the hardest parts about losing weight is getting and staying motivated. As humans we have a natural resistance to anything that requires us to change our normal habits and weight loss is no exception.
In fact, getting motivated to lose weight and staying motivated once you have started can be one of the most difficult things to do – especially if you aren’t seeing the results that you want as quickly as you would like. Here are some simple tips to get motivated to lose weight and to keep your enthusiasm up throughout your weight loss efforts.
One of the best things you can do to motivate yourself to lose weight is to snap some photos of yourself in a bikini, bathing suit or skimpy outfit of some kind. Let’s face it, the camera doesn’t lie and actually seeing the weight that you need to lose can be a huge motivating factor to start doing something about it. Think of these as your “before” photos and then visualize how great you are going to feel taking your “after” photos when you have lost the weight.
Whenever you feel like you are falling off track with your weight loss efforts drag out your before photos. You’ll be able to see how far you have actually come and it will help tremendously to keep you motivated.
Feel free to take mid-way pictures of yourself for comparison along the way as well. You may be shocked to see that even if the numbers on the scale haven’t moved as much as you would like your body is truly changing shape and become much leaner and more toned.
Speaking of scales, one of the worst things you can do to yourself when you are trying to get or stay motivated to lose weight is to weigh yourself. Our weight fluctuates naturally from day to day which makes the readings on the scale fairly meaningless. Along with that, as you add muscle to your frame your body weight can stay the same or increase even though you are losing inches of fat.
A better way to measure your progress and stay motivated is to take your measurements using a measuring tape. Take a piece of paper when you are beginning and write down the measurements of your hips, waist, chest, arms and thighs.
As you progress along your weight loss journey you will notice that these numbers drop much more quickly than the numbers on the scale and you will be able to see that you are getting great results. Getting the results that you want is very helpful in staying motivated to lose weight.
You may also want to consider writing down the things you will do once you have lost the weight in a journal. Include how good you feel, how comfortable your clothes will be and how your confidence will be improved. When you are feeling like giving up go back to your journal and look at all the things that you will gain by losing weight to get your mind back on track.
Finally, you need to take a look at your diet to get the best fat loss results. Starvation diets, low fat and low carb aren’t the answer to losing fat – plus they are really hard to stick with! The problem is that most traditional diets focus on losing weight rather than losing fat, and that means you can lose both lean muscle and water weight along with fat.
Not only that, but most diets don’t give your body enough calories and as a result your metabolism slows down. That makes it harder to lose weight and easier to put it back on when you go back to eating normally.
