Small Steps to Health

Long Lasting Motivation for Weight Loss Require More than Wanting to Look Good

January 15th, 2008 by asithi · No Comments

Tagged Motivation, Weight

In order to keep your motivation at times when you are not seeing any results require more than wanting to look good. Wanting to look good will only last as long as when realize you do not want to look good anymore. The effort is not worth it. Sometimes it takes years to finally work through the issues that are stopping you from permanently loosing the weight. There are tips and tricks to help loose and manage your weight. But until you find the reason for why you are subconsciously holding onto the weight, then it will be an ongoing issue in your life until you resolve it. Common emotional reasons people hold onto the weight include:

1. Using the extra weight as a shield or as a social element.
For some people their weight might be a shield against the outside world. Why are you trying to hide the real you from people? Are you uncomfortable with appearing fit in your peer group? Does your social group revolve around food and you do not want to appear as the party pooper when you refuse to join in their activities?

2. Guilt with wanting time to work on improving themselves.
For others, they never learned to put themselves first or feel guilt when they want time to themselves. Often times women are the ones that have this problem. Being the nurturer in the family unit, they tend to put everyone else first before themselves.

My mom did not loose her “extra” 20 pounds until after she became an empty-nester. Between her part-time job, managing the house, and the four kids, my mother did not set aside any time to herself while we were growing up. Since she wanted a clean house and home cooked meals, she neglected herself instead.

If you really want improve your health by incorporating a fitness routine into your schedule, know that you cannot do it all yourself. You would need the help of your partner and children to help pick up the slack. Or learn to let some things go.

The more you dig into trying to figure out what caused you to gain weight in the first place, the better chance you have at defeated yo-yo dieting. For example, you gained weight because you eat too much on a regular basis. But why do you over-eat? Do you over-eat because the food was free? Taste good? Reminds you of your mom’s cooking? Are you trying to find comfort? Are you trying to avoid an argument? Get over an argument? Are you bored? Stressed? There are underlying reasons that you chose the actions that you did. Generally people do not want to keep digging until they find the source of their problems. They rather blame it on external forces than to admit they can and need to change.

Make improving your health worth your effort. The journey is just as important as the destination. How would you return to the destination when you put on blindfolds the first time you make the trip? Fad diets and other quick schemes are putting on blindfolds. They are not sustainable. It gets you to the destination sometimes, but when life causes you to move away from the destination point, how do you know how to find your way back without “being on a diet?”

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