“I want to lose weight but no motivation, how to start?”
This happens to many of us who love food, for professionals who are too tired or lazy to do physical exercise after busy work schedule, and more.
Losing weight is by no means the easiest of tasks, especially if we want to do it in a healthy, sustainable way that needs strong motivation which plays a crucial role.
If you feel like you don’t know where to begin with weight loss, here are 5 ways to get you started:
#1: Write Down Your REAL Reason(s) For Losing Weight
Clearly determine why you want to lose weight, as studies show that people are more successful if they have clear weight loss motivations that come from within.
Write down all the reasons you want to lose weight, try to read through them daily as a reminder, and use them to get back on track when you are falling off the weight loss wagon.
However, if your reasons to shed off pounds are something as simple as below, then you should consider looking deeper.
- .. I want to improve my health.
- .. I am tired of being heavy.
- .. I want to lose fat.
These are good reasons to lose weight, but they are not really specific enough for what you should be using for motivation.
For the examples above, dive deeper by asking further questions like “Why do I want to improve my health” and “Why do I want to lose fat?” until you find your TRUE motivation.
Check out the video below for an example of this exercise, so that you can apply it to strengthen your motivation and increase your weight loss success rate.
This step will help you to kick start your journey to lose weight, keep you on track with the weight loss plans, whilst stay motivated and committed to reach your weight loss goals.
Because at the end of the day, you want to have strong enough motivation — so that whenever you find that your motivation has veered off track, you can use your reasons for losing weight to remind yourself on what you’re trying to reach, and why you are motivated in the first place.
#2: Boost Your Motivation with Reward System
Your motivation plays a big role in the success of your weight loss journey, and reward system is an efficient way to increase motivation.
Reward yourself when you achieve a breakthrough or accomplish a milestone in your weight loss journey, with ideas like buying a small gift to yourself, take a selfie and post it on social media so your friends can celebrate your progress with you, etc.
Studies also show that financial incentives can help people to lose weight with stronger motivation and determination.
For instance, research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed people who were given financial incentives lost significantly more weight and were 5 times more likely to meet their goals than those without cash motivation.
Another weight loss study published by Mayo Clinic revealed that participants who received cash incentives were more likely to stick with the weight-loss program and lost more weight than participants who received no incentives:
- All participants were given a common goal of losing 4 pounds per month
- 62% of people in incentive groups met the goal with mean weight loss of 9.08 pounds, vs
- 26% of people in non-incentive groups met goal with mean weight loss of 2.34 pounds.
Watch below from abc NEWS —
You can grab your financial motivation and see how much you can win at HealthyWage.com.
Here’s How HealthyWage Works:
- Visit HealthyWage Website and play around with the prize calculator by entering info like how many pounds you want to lose, how long you’ll take to reach your goal, and how much you want to bet. You can get an idea of how much you could earn based on your input.
- Sign up and put up your monthly bet amount for the duration of the challenge.
- Start losing your weight and stay on track throughout the contest.
- Meet your weight loss goal and win your prize.
HealthyWage participants shared their success stories in CNBC Today Show in video below.
Ready to get started? Check out HealthyWage Prize Calculator and boost your motivation!
#3: Set Realistic Weight Loss Goals With SMART Principle
Goals setting can be a vital difference between success and failure, however overly ambitious and unrealistic goals can actually undermine your effort while demotivate you because there is so much on the line.
Well-planned and realistic weight-loss goals setup using the S.M.A.R.T principle will convert your thoughts into action, help keep you focused and motivated throughout the journey so that you have higher likelihood to succeed:
- Specific: Define a specific description of what exactly you want to achieve. Eg. a goal to do more exercise is not specific, but a goal to do gym workout for 45 minutes daily is specific.
- Measurable: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. Identify measurable element of your goal and establish concrete criteria for measuring progress. A goal of lose fat around the waist is not measurable, but a goal of reducing waist circumference measurement from 88 centimetres (34.6 inches) to 85 centimetres (33.5 inches) is measurable.
- Attainable: A goal that you have enough resources and time to achieve. If your work schedule does not allow spending an hour for Zumba workout during lunchtime, then it’s not attainable. However, attend Zumba lesson on every Saturday and Sunday might be attainable.
- Relevant / Realistic: Set relevant goals with the right amount of challenge. Don’t set goal like read 2 books per week as it’s not directly relevant to weightloss, and run 20km per week is probably not a wise goal if you haven’t ever run.
- Timely: Set Time-based goals with deadline. Keep the timeline realistic, that way you can keep morale high. A goal of “lose 10 pounds” is not good enough, and a goal of “lose 10 pounds in 6 months time” is great to keep you interested and motivated to reach the goal.
#4: Find Interesting Ways to Lose Weight
It’s hard to ask a kid uninterested in music to practise piano daily.
Similarly if you are “forced” to do weight loss routines or eat healthy food that you don’t enjoy, then it’s just a matter of time that you will be struggling to keep your motivation to lose weight.
Everyone has different lifestyle, different food preferences, and different interest.
Some people may prefer Mediterranean weight loss diet or weight loss supplement, some people like gym workouts or yoga, and so on.
Watch the brief video below that gives great ideas and options that you can have more fun to stay motivated in your weight loss journey.
#5: Keep Track Of Your Progress Throughout the Journey
Often, it’s easy to feel motivated and inspired at the start of setting your weight loss goal, but one of the biggest challenge is finding the motivation every day throughout the journey to actually stick to your plan.
Tracking your progress can help you to see yourself slowly improving which can be a great boost from a psychological standpoint. You’ll get a sense of achievement at regular intervals and what will feel like a reward for all your hard work.
You can use a meal planner and weight loss tracker chart like this, or you can watch the video below to get some inspirations to DIY a weight loss progress tracker using dry erase white board.
Making small incremental improvements can be highly addictive. As you see yourself getting closer and closer to your weight loss goal, you should find that you gain an extra amount of motivation and determination to boost your spirits — and cross that finish line.
