Weight loss is a big deal. It requires time, motivation and patience. The first step to losing weight is acknowledging that you have an unhealthy weight. Acceptance helps you find a solution and a way to shred and live a healthy life.
A lot of times people are so motivated when they begin their weight loss journey but along the line and for many reasons they gradually lose motivation until they completely lose interest in keeping fit and losing weight. Are you also trying to stay fit and drop a pound or two? Here are a few proven ways to keep you motivated long enough to achieve your dream weight and make fitness a lifestyle.
Motivation for exercise and weight loss
Get a picture of your ‘wannabe’ personality or body type: when you begin your weight loss journey, it is very important to have a picture of what you want to look like at the end of the journey. Experts advise that you boldly display a picture of the person you want to look like, place it in your bedroom, on your fridge so that whenever you eat you will do that in moderation, place the image on your office desk, water bottle and anywhere your eyes stop regularly. Looking at the person(s) often will motivate you to work hard until you meet your goals. Especially, if you are getting ready for a big event like a wedding or a competition, keep a picture of what you want to look like on that big day.
Buy an outfit size smaller than yours: this is a bit tricky and may sound unreasonable but shop for an expensive nice outfit, a pair of jeans, a dress or a nice top and make sure it is a size smaller or a few inches smaller. Place the outfit in a visible spot in your wardrobe, your goal should be to fit into the outfit in a few weeks or months. This will drive you to get your dream body and fit into it.
Watch/follow fitness channels: this is my go-to, I work out regularly but sometimes I get busy and it becomes really difficult to get back on track. What I do is log onto youtube and watch some amazing fitness videos from some YouTubers. Whenever I watch them I get new ideas on how to improve my fitness level and it fires me up so much that I can’t even wait for the morning to come to try new routines. If this works for me, then higher chances are it should work for you too. Whether you are big on exercise or dieting or both of them for weight loss, it will definitely guide you. You can find interesting workout videos on youtube, on Instagram and on Facebook to motivate you daily.
Talk about your goals: if you make known your goals and plans, people can hold you accountable for them. Put your goals on your Instagram handles, on your WhatsApp status and your social media handles. Every time you workout, take a picture or video of your workout, show off your progress and what you want to achieve. If you do this often, your followers would constantly look forward to your fitness videos and the results of your hard work. If for any reason you can’t keep up with your goals, your followers will keep asking you why they no longer see your posts and this will likely make you uncomfortable but it will push you to keep up with the set goals.
Give yourself a timeline with short term realistic goals: any goal without a timeline will likely take forever and may never be achieved. Give yourself a short term goal, start with a three months plan and keep extending it as you go. It’s easier to plan to achieve a 3-6 months goal rather than a two-year plan filled with so many uncertainties. So take out your diary or anything you take notes on, and write out the time frame within which you would love to lose a certain number of pounds, also write how you want to go about it. You can decide to begin with dieting, select the best diet plan from the nine types of diet for weight loss or you can decide to focus on only exercises. Whatever you decide to do, write it out and refer to it often to make sure you are on track.
Create a reward system: I have a friend who gave a good sum of money to his friend, and the agreement was if he could work out consistently and drop a few pounds within a given period, the money would be given back to him. But if he couldn’t keep up the journey, he’d lose the money. Luckily for him, he was able to drop a few pounds.You can also do this but make sure it’s a reasonable sum of money that you wouldn’t just want to let go of. You can even get your friends to bet on you to lose some weight, they will motivate you and you also wouldn’t want to let them down. Creating A reward system could also be you getting yourself something you’ve always wanted, maybe a pair of shoes, a dress, sunshade or anything nice for being able to drop a few pounds. This means you have to celebrate each milestone, compensate yourself for the hard work you are putting in at each stage.
Join a gym: I work out regularly at home but I always say to myself that the day I subscribe for an entire month in the gym, they will chase me away because I’ll be there every day, morning and night, I won’t want my money to waste. But money aside, going to the gym is a good motivation because you will see others who are pushing and also trying to get their dream bodies. If the gym has a good trainer, they will guide you through the process and sometimes they could help you and keep tabs with you even outside the gym to monitor your eating habit and rest time. If the gym doesn’t have a trainer, get yourself a trainer that is passionate and has the ability to push you to work better.
Join a team/group with similar goals. So even if you go to the gym, you can have a group of friends who would encourage each other with a little bit of healthy competition. The good thing about this is that you don’t have to meet up physically except if you have to. Some competitive apps allow a group of people to show and share their progress from any part of the world so you can see how many steps ‘lady A’ walked today and you may want to beat her record. This spirit of competition will help you stay motivated as you lose weight.
Takeaway
Truth is exercising is not easy, it requires a lot of motivation and conscious effort but if you can successfully follow these eight tips to stay motivated and achieve your body goals, fitness will become a lifestyle so much that if you miss a day you will begin to feel guilty like you did something terrible. There are times that for some good reason I’m unable to workout for two weeks. The guilt I feel is just crazy but during those periods I count my calories a lot and cut down on my portion of food. If I’m not burning so much I shouldn’t consume so much. A healthy weight in your dream body gives you so much confidence to achieve more both in your personal life and at work; GET ACTIVE, stay fit and say no to a sedentary lifestyle as you journey to living your best life.