What's your motivation?
Ever since I’d lost weight I’ve been inundated with numerous questions about how I lost it, how long it took and wasn’t it hard. But the one I’ve been asked the most is what motivated me to lose it in the first place and then how I kept it off. I’m sure we’ve all had and know those people who made drastic changes in their life, lost lots of weight but then slowly put the weight back on again once they returned to their “normal” routine.
I guess for me I have a couple of things that motivate me and get me out of bed every morning at ungodly hours to exercise. One of the biggest is having my before and after photo staring me in the face. This just reminds me when times are tough and I feel like giving up that anything is possible with a bit of hard work. When I feel like I need an extra boost, I put it as my background on my phone so it’s literally staring me in the face whenever I open my phone (I’m honestly not kidding). Looking at my before photo separately, I never thought that I was ever overweight and people were gob smacked when I said that I’d lost 20kg, I guess they thought I’d say about 10 at most. The number 72 is also a very big part of my motivation. It’s the amount of kilos I was at my heaviest. I look back now and think to how unhappy I was and remember the pain that I felt that day I got on the scales and saw that number.
For you what you want to achieve might be something completely different, a special event coming up, completing a fun run or losing weight. No matter what the goal, always having that in the back of your mind is going to be one of your biggest and best sources of motivation. It’s going to remind you of how far you’ve come and what you can achieve when you put your mind to something.
My tips for losing weight and keeping it off
Don’t make drastic changes too fast. Making huge changes too fast can cause you to get overwhelmed and think it’s all too hard and give up. Making small changes one step at a time is the best way.
Don’t make any changes that you don’t think you won’t be able to keep up forever. Everyone goes into weight loss with massive motivation, fire and passion and drastically change their eating and exercise habits. This is all well and great to give you that kick start and push you need. However, if the changes you make aren’t ones that you are willing to sustain long term, then when you get bored and want to revert back to your old ways the weight will slowly creep back on.
It’s not going to be a quick fix. This ties in with point number 2. Sustainable long-term weight loss is not going to happen overnight. It would have taken more than 1 day for the weight to come on, so it will take more than 1 day for the weight to come off. Every little positive change that you make in your life gets you closer to your goal regardless of if you see results on the scales or not.
Always have a goal in mind. Having a goal in mind gives you something to focus on and work towards If you don’t have a goal it can sometimes feel like you are working towards nothing.
Don’t beat yourself up if you have a bad day. If you slip up and have a bad day, i.e are trying to lose weight and have a treat or don’t exercise one day, don’t throw in the towel for the rest of the day and say I’ll get back on the horse tomorrow and let it ruin that whole day. You’re only human, you’re bound to have slip ups (I'd love to meet a person who's lost weight that hasn't had a setback). It’s how you handle and overcome the set backs that proves how strong and motivated you are.
