5 Tips for Finding the Right Kind of Weight Loss Motivation


woman in grey top and jeans showing her weight loss

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Many of us take better care of our car than our body. Not because we aren’t concerned for our health, it’s just that daily life gets in the way. Between working long hours and meeting daily commitments, it seems like there isn’t any time left for weight loss motivation. This article will help us find both the time and extra little push that we all need to graduate from granola newbie to health and fitness guru. As always, consult a doctor when beginning a weight loss program so that they can help progress in the healthiest way.
slim and fit man and woman in training attire

What is the Key to Weight Loss Motivation?

It’s not always easy to find weight loss motivation. So many things get in the way of our fitness goals. We are too tired because we work too many hours or we just don’t have time in our hectic schedule. This can cause us to eat the wrong thing because it’s convenient or not exercise due to tiredness. The key to weight loss motivation is finding a way to work it seamlessly into our schedule so we don’t even have to think about it any more than we think about breathing.

Signs of Weight Loss Motivation Gone Wrong

  • Weighing one’s self several times a day: This is a sign of both impatience and obsession. Weight loss takes time, as it should. We should weigh no less than once a week and usually every day to track overall goals, but no more.
  • Losing weight way too fast: Any fast weight loss of more than a half pound in a day is just a fluctuation in water weight. This interferes with both metabolism and electrolyte balance.
  • Straining relationships: Fitness time is important for us, but family time is important too. We must find balance, difficult as this is.

Maintaining Weight Loss Motivation

woman in grey top and jeans showing her weight loss

1. Be Realistic

One of the biggest pitfalls we face when starting a weight loss routine is over expectation. We may think that jogging four miles on day one with nothing more than half a cup of yogurt for breakfast is doable, but it’s not. (Nor should it ever be.) So we might go to the gym and hit the free weights or elliptical with a little too much enthusiasm or eat nothing but rabbit food. The end result? Stiff, sore and starving, we can barely move the next day more than required to open the fridge. Start gently. It shouldn’t hurt to eat right and exercise. It should feel wonderful (even if it doesn’t always taste so great.)

2. It Starts From Within

Another pitfall is expecting ourselves to change to please others and expecting them to be the source of our weight loss motivation. First, external motivation is no motivation at all, and second, our partners may be more likely to sabotage our weight loss than help or just not help at all. This isn’t because they don’t love us. It’s because change is scary.
The most important thing to remember though is that people don’t change until they are ready to change. (This is the correction to the inaccurate phrase “people never change.”) The truth is that we learn to manifest those things that we truly want in our lives from internal desire, and this is a good thing. In physiological terms, it’s called an internal locus of control, and it’s the sign of a very healthy mind as long as it’s balanced with an understanding that sometimes life just throws us curveballs.

3. Share Your Feelings

Nobody is a mind reader…well, most people aren’t. When we make changes in our routine we tend to externally manifest signs of stress. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s simply a sign that we are adjusting to something new. But our friends and family may not know how to interpret this. When we talk to them about our experiences in a positive way, we accomplish two things. First, we help them become more comfortable with our weight loss motivation so they can recognize that this is a positive experience. Second, when we speak positively about the changes we make and our goals, we positively reinforce our own mental state.

4. Don’t Fret Over Small Mistakes

Everyone backslides. We might sneak a handful of potato chips at a party or sneak a soft drink in when no one’s looking. This should be no reason to completely derail our weight loss motivation, yet sometimes we just go nuclear when this happens as if we lost the whole war with our slip instead of just the battle. Here’s the key: We’re not perfect. We’re not even supposed to be perfect. Everyone struggles with something. Our battle is just a bit more visible to those we know. The results will be visible too – and worth it!

5. Be Efficient

This is where working your routine seamlessly into our life comes into play. It shouldn’t take every ounce of spare time to prepare a healthy diet and exercise. Instead, start cooking double portions of healthy meals and freezing the other half for later. Prepare snacks for a few days ahead and keep them in individual containers for grab and go convenience. If we always have something healthy to eat on hand, we aren’t tempted to run through one of the millions of drive-thrus waiting to sabotage our diets for their dime.
Finally, regarding the exercise part of this commitment, it’s ok to multitask a bit if one is really strapped for time. One fun tip is to use a mini stepper while washing dishes and a mini peddler while typing at the computer. However, it’s so important for us to take a little zen time and just zone out to some relaxing workout like walking to music or doing yoga. Whatever the activity is, remember that this is a daily escape, so it should be very enjoyable and fun.
We can find the time to do this just by being a bit more efficient in the kitchen. In fact, all of the above tips lead up to this one tiny little goal – half an hour a day to ourselves so that we can enjoy our newfound weight loss motivation and fitness. It’s fair to ask this of the world, and there’s no better day to start than today. Do you have a weight loss motivation tip to add? Please share it with us below! After all, we are all in this together.
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