When the going gets tough...

10 tips to regain your motivation

We all know HOW to lose weight, but finding the willpower to stick with the diet in the longer-term can prove to be a challenge!

To lose weight, we need to eat fewer calories than our body spends in energy. And if we do extra exercise, we burn more calories and lose weight faster. It’s a matter of physics and relatively simple. The big problem is MOTIVATION.

Tempting Times

When we start a diet, we have bags of motivation and no one can tempt us away from our resolve to eat less and do more. After about four weeks, though, we begin to find the odd crack in our willpower and it doesn’t take long before a few bad habits start to creep back in. The annoying thing is that it takes only a few lapses in willpower for the inevitable extra calories to sneak into our daily diet and cause our weight-loss to come to a standstill.

We know we have cheated, yet we step on the scales and somehow expect a miracle to happen. Of course the miracle doesn’t happen, so we become despondent and what follows is the inevitable relapse in our resolve. This is our most dangerous time. If we don’t contain this, it can lead to a total collapse of our weight-loss campaign where we gain weight and feel a huge sense of failure.

Positive Thoughts

The key to our success is keeping the motivation going, anticipating the hard times and being prepared for temptation to come knocking on our door. We must develop a really positive mental attitude in order to overcome any hitch and help us stay focused on the fantastically healthy, slim and fit body we are aiming for. And YES, it is there for the taking. Here are some ideas to help you stay motivated in order to reach your ultimate goal.

1. Weigh yourself only once a week and on the same scales, in the same clothes and at the same time of day. Write down your weight and, if you are using the graph we gave you with our January issue, plot your progress on that.
2. Keep a carrier bag in a cupboard to fill each week with items of equal weight to that you have lost during the past seven days. Remind yourself of your ongoing achievement by lifting the bag often.
3. Measure yourself weekly and keep a record. Sometimes the inches reduce even when the scales won’t budge!
4. Each week, add your inch losses together and colour in a tape measure to help you realise just how many inches you are losing.
5. Create an exercise planner and write down activities for you to do every day – even if it is only walking up and down stairs 8 times while the adverts are on TV! Try walking to work/the pub/into town occasionally. Take up a sport. Work out to a DVD. Play games with the children. Every bit of activity adds up to greater calorie burning and results in faster and greater weight loss.
6. Keep an old belt, skirt or pair of trousers to use as a physical progress guide. Keep a notepad nearby and write down the date and comments about your progress, eg ‘Did belt up one notch today. Felt great. Really getting there now!’ The more you remind yourself of your good feelings as you lose weight, and the more notes you make, the more positive you will become. Make it a rule not to write down anything negative.
7. Set yourself a physical challenge such as running the Race for Life, taking part in the Aspire swimming challenge or, if you want to be even more ambitious, try a half-marathon. Maybe walking is more your scene, so why not join us for our Step Out and Make a Difference for Steps 10km walk. All these events require us to be fit, so we need to train. Training for an event adds a purpose to our exercise sessions and makes them even more worthwhile.
8. Set yourself some short-term goals and then reward yourself when you reach each one, such as buying some special make-up or having your hair coloured. If you can, try to delay buying too many clothes until you reach your goal, so that they have a longer life. Why not ask your husband or partner to reward you with money each time you achieve a goal and put the money into an account for your ‘new wardrobe’! Think of the fun you’ll have buying beautiful clothes that fit in all the right places!
9. Take photographs of yourself along your weight-loss journey. You don’t have to show them to anyone but you will get such a boost when you compare your befores and afters.
10. Plan to do something really special to celebrate reaching your ultimate goal. Perhaps book a luxury holiday. If the goal is exciting enough, it will motivate you to reach your dreams.