Maintaining weight loss is difficult. Often a lack of motivation is the problem. How can you stay motivated while losing weight?
What is motivation?
Motivation is a driving force during difficult moments in your life or while setting a goal. Motivation ensures that you do not fall back into your old behavior. Motivation is the intensity of the desire to do something or achieve something.
Basic condition
If you want to have sufficient motivation, what conditions must you meet?
- A positive social pressure (it should be your goal to lose weight, and not a goal imposed on you by someone else or by your environment!).
- Have fun while achieving your weight loss goal. Have fun while losing weight, find ways to make it fun and keep it fun! Sometimes losing weight together is more fun than on your own!
Reach goal
Motivation is all about sacrifice. What must you sacrifice to achieve your goal? The greater the sacrifice, the harder it is to stay motivated. That’s why the sincere advice: start with small steps!
Stay realistic
You will encounter major motivation problems on your path if your goal is too high. If your goal is not realistic, you will have problems with your motivation. Keep it realistic and achievable! Losing 10 kilos in a month is really not realistic or feasible. It is much better to start with small steps, let your body get used to all the small changes.
Small steps
This is very important for your motivation: chop your big waste goal into small achievable steps! Your weight loss goal is (for example) to lose 10 kilos. That’s quite an achievement: losing 10 kilos, but it requires enormous sacrifices and the road is long. In short: the goal is too big and not good for your motivation. You have to divide the big goal of losing 10 kilos into many smaller achievable and realistic steps. These steps must be practical and applicable. To achieve your main goal, you create many smaller sub-goals, for example:
- I always drink coffee with a friend who lives on the other side of the village, I always took the car: now I walk.
- Next week I will eat half as much sweets as usual,
- Next week I will use half as much sugar as usual,
- I always go to work by car and park in front of my work. Now I park my car a bit further away, so I have to walk 5 minutes there and 5 minutes back,
- I go to get fresh bread every morning: walking,
- I stop drinking soft drinks and juice in cartons and drink mineral water,
- Next week I will start actively exercising in the fresh air,
- Next week I will eat 3 pieces of fruit every day and eat (green) vegetables 2 times a day,
- Next week I will drink an extra 2 glasses of mineral water every day,
- If there is a birthday or a festive day that involves snacking, I will take extra active exercise for 3 days,
- Next week I will look into what healthy eating can do for my figure,
- Next week I’m going to jog, run or walk 10 kilometers every day, or
- Next week I will take 10,000 steps every day.
Check off these set sub-goals when you have achieved them and set new sub-goals for yourself! Precisely because you can tick off these small steps (you can immediately see on your list that you have achieved your goals), this is particularly good for your motivation! Be creative in coming up with small steps!
Social support
Social support is very important to be and stay motivated. Make sure you get support from home. Keep your family and friends informed of your weight loss plans. Make it clear that you don’t need whipped cream points, but their support!
Difficult moment
It is a very good idea to keep a small book with you, where you write down the list of small steps and check them off. If you encounter a difficult moment, take a look at your book and see your progress! Something to be proud of!
Write it down!
Small steps can sometimes be so small that they can be easily overlooked. So write them down. Write them down in the same booklet where you write down the small steps. Did you spend the first week researching what healthy eating is? Write down your findings about healthy eating. Knowing what is really healthy can be quite a study.
Fast results
Anyone who wants to lose weight wants to achieve success. You start losing weight today and you want everyone to see that you have lost weight tomorrow. Realize that it is not realistic. Extend success to a longer term. It takes a few months before those around you really notice that you have lost weight. Determine your success in the long term, in the short term it is really impossible! Avoid disappointments and be realistic! By being and remaining realistic you stay motivated!
What do you think is important?
To lose weight you need a number of components to achieve your goal, such as:
- Eating healthy, such as eating more fruit, vegetables, salads and fiber,
- Do not snack or eat or drink sugar,
- Drink more mineral water,
- Actively exercise and exercise every day.
If you look at the list above, what are you good at? What do you think is really important in that list? Which part appeals to you? Start with that part! Do you think exercise is important? Then start exercising more actively and more often every day! That is so important for your motivation!
Seductive moments
Besides the fact that it is very bad for your health, you will not lose weight by continuing to snack. Too often we are faced with tempting moments. What do you do when you are presented with a piece of whipped cream? What do you do when you go shopping and walk past the candy department, cookie department, cake department and the chips department? Especially if you have a weak moment because you have had a bad day or are dealing with a lot of stress, your motivation can disappear and you grab that bag full of delicious chocolate or accept that whipped cream cone. With regret and guilt afterwards. So that has to change, but how do you do that? How do you prepare for difficult and tempting moments?
Dangerous moments
Right, you have to prepare yourself for moments of weakness. Are you tired? Are you having a bad day? Do you suffer from a lot of stress? Are you not feeling comfortable in your own skin? Do you feel depressed? Did you sleep badly? Do you feel very sorry for yourself? These are all very dangerous moments where you give in to your weakness. You have to prepare yourself for such moments: what are you going to do if you haven’t slept well, are having a bad day and your birthday colleague is handing out whipped cream slices? Have you armed yourself against such moments? Do you have healthier nibbles with you to enjoy with your colleagues or are you going for the ax? Have you agreed with yourself that if there are such difficult moments that you will exercise extra actively for half an hour every day for a week? Create an action plan for yourself during these dangerous moments! Everything is fine, as long as you arm yourself against such dangerous moments, so that you have to live less with regrets and guilt and enjoy life more! It will certainly improve your motivation!
Motivation tips
Here are some waste motivation tips:
- Lose weight with a very vague knowledge, together you are stronger and your motivation is greater if you lose weight together! Moreover, because you don’t know him or her very well, you are less likely to sabotage your weight-loss agreements, something you would do if you were losing weight with a good friend!
- Reward yourself after every small step you have achieved, no matter how small a step is, it is always an achievement!
- Make sure you get plenty of sleep: when you are tired you are more likely to suffer from weak and dangerous moments, if you sleep enough you are more resistant to temptations! Developing a regular sleep rhythm, even during the weekend, will make you more resistant to moments of weakness.
- Make sure you breathe a lot of fresh air and spend a lot of time in the fresh air: it gives you a fresh perspective on things, but you also think more clearly, which makes you behave more realistically!
- Try to have a positive attitude to life and laugh as much as you can!
- Keep your waste goals realistic and achievable, chop your goal into many smaller pieces that are all achievable!
- Write down your achievements in a booklet and keep the booklet with you. During difficult moments you can always look at your progress!
- Never say to yourself, “I can’t do it,†always change it to, “I can do it!â€