Losing weight can be a tough process and there are many obstacles that you must overcome on your journey to be able to achieve your goals. It’s hard to stay motivated 100% of the time even for professional athletes.
Let’s look at how to stay motivated when losing weight
- Set yourself realistic goals
A common mistake people make when setting their goals is aspiring to look like someone else or an unrealistic physique without understanding the time, commitment and kind of lifestyle it takes to achieve a physique like that. There is a lot of sacrifice involved in being ‘ripped’. Most people aren’t prepared to adopt that kind of lifestyle. Not only that but your biological and genetic makeup will be completely different so it will be impossible to ever achieve that same physique. Instead of aspiring to be someone else or have a six back just be the best version of yourself based on your lifestyle.
- Weight loss requires a lot of patience
The more you rush things the harder it will be to maintain. Whether you like it or not as time goes by the progress you make will eventually slow down and sometimes can stop for weeks. As long as you’re being consistent with your exercise and diet and making sure you stay in a calorie deficit, the weight will shift and It really doesn’t matter how long this takes – there is no rush. Understand that it could take years to get to where you want to be. It took you years to get out of shape, it’s not going to take you a few weeks to get in shape. If you are impatient and want results quicker it will be a lot harder to maintain and you could lose motivation.
- Don’t obsess over the scales
Relying on what the scales say on a daily basis is not healthy. Weight fluctuations due to food intake, water intake, muscle mass and hormones etc can effect your weight dramatically and weighing yourself every day or even every week can lead to a drop in motivation. Also weighing yourself at odd times and on different days can also show differences in your weight. Make sure you are consistent with the days and time you are weighing. But don’t obsess over the numbers changing on the scales because they won’t always show a weight loss. I get my clients to take progress photos, tape measurements and record body fat where possible. Scales do not measure fat loss they only measure weight loss. Your weight may have reduced but how do you know if it’s fat you have lost. Making sure you regulate your water intake each day will prevent fluctuations in total body weight.
- Don’t cut the foods you love
Cutting out the foods you love is not is not a sustainable option. If you enjoy cake, chocolate, kebabs, burgers, pizza etc., you have to learn to fit these in to your daily calorie goals. Any diet that tells you to cut foods out completely or whole food groups is not a diet worth doing and is not going to work long term. You’re only human and unless you want to be a bodybuilder or an athlete, it’s not necessary to restrict your diet so much.
- Understand there are no bad foods, only bad diets
You must make sure your body is getting all the nutrients it needs from protein, essential fats and carbohydrates. It can be easy to get dragged into silly fad diets that demonise foods, making health claims by cutting out certain food groups but real long term results are made by developing better habits. You have to understand that there are no bad foods, only bad diets. Labelling a food as bad is subjective. One thing can’t be bad for you – too much of something can.
- Stop focusing on image and start focusing on your mindset
For me and my personal training clients, mindset comes before image. You have to get out of that short term mindset of wanting results as quickly as possible. Sometimes you have to put yourself first and focus on what’s going to make you happy. Create a more positive mindset and tell yourself that you can do things. Understand that nobody is perfect and aiming for perfection all the time is only going to end in failure. Learn how to control your responses to emotional situations rather than turning to fatty and higher sugar foods for a short term reward.
For more nutritional advice for a healthy diet please don’t hesitate to get in touch.