Starting a healthy weight loss plan is pretty easy, but sticking to it can sometimes seem impossible. People often have all the motivation to get started, but somewhere along the way they lose that motivation and have struggle to keep going. Luckily, motivation is something you can work on and increase. This article is going to bring you some of the best ways to motivate yourself to lose weight and keep it off!

1. Determine Why You Want to Lose Weight

If you define all the reasons why you want to lose weight and write them down, it is going to be easier to stick to them. Seeing your reasons written on paper or on your phone will help you to stay motivated and committed to reach your weight loss goals. Take a look at them daily and use them as a reminder when you become tempted to stray from your meal plan and workout plan.

Your reasons could include keeping up with children or grandchildren, preventing or treating diabetes, looking your best for some special event (wedding/reunion/trip), improving your self-confidence, or fitting into a particular pair of jeans. Whatever is important to you will motivate you. This WHY will be what you anchor to daily! I have my clients keep a rock they carry in their pocket or a magnet they put on their fridge, and use it as an anchor. No one else needs to know what it means but you. Every time you feel motivation lacking or you need a reminder of your why... look at your anchor. If you want to work more on using anchors we can chat! There are lots of ways to use them and lots of things you can use as an anchor!

2. Set Goals and Track Progress

You can decide to keep a spreadsheet on your computer or write everything down in a notebook that you get primarily for that, whatever works best for you and your needs. Deciding to keep an eye on your progress will help to keep you motivated and protect you from slip-ups. You can track things like weight, measurements, food (not calories necessarily!) and moods! Again, it is entirely up to you. What you track could be influenced by your why as well! If it is all about looking and feeling your best for an event – you may want to pay closer attention to the weight and measurements. Remember if you are including a strong fitness plan in your lifestyle change that as you tone and gain muscle – it weighs more than fat so watching your measurements are as important as the scale! If you are losing weight to help with diabetes tracking food, moods and glucose readings will be important. What you track will depend heavily on the why... the important thing is set goals and TRACK PROGRESS.

3. Be Prepared for Sabotage

Once you start your wellness journey, you need to know that there are going to be people who urge you to go off your plan and just "live a little." Now, "living a little" is not wrong, but if it happens over and over again, then it can become a major problem. Think about people in your life-parents, friends, spouse and coworkers. If every time you see some of them you go off your plan, it might mean that you need to have a talk with them about your weight loss efforts or distance yourself from them. It is a bit hard to resist temptation when you're in an environment where food is part of the festivities, but it is doable if you include the festivities in the plan and be clear with folks that you are making an effort to change your lifestyle.

Others are not the only ones who could sabotage your plans! YOU can self sabotage just as easily. Rewarding yourself with the wrong things or using food as a motivator etc can mess up the plan. There are so many ways that we all self sabotage that I may do a post about that alone soon! LOL

4. Address Emotional Eating and Other Motivation Busters

You will have to deal with emotional eating habits if you want to achieve long-term weight loss success. How? By asking some essential questions: Do you splurge on an extra serving of dessert when you're frustrated or sad or when you have had a bad day? Do you overeat when you're angry or bored or stressed out? We should use food as a fuel for our body and eat when we are hungry, but we often tend to use food as a coping mechanism to deal with other things going on in our life. The only way to get the accurate measure of your emotional eating triggers is to be completely honest with yourself, even if you don't like the truth. Here is another good reason for TRACKING Foods and Moods! Many people don’t even realize that they are feeding emotional hunger and not physical hunger sometimes!

5. Reward Yourself

One of the best ways to stay motivated throughout any process is to reward yourself along the way. But, since this is a weight loss journey, you should not use food as a reward. Take time to do what makes you happy and reward yourself for reaching small goals along the way in the weight loss process.

Of course there are many ways to stay motivated and on track with making a major lifestyle or weight loss change in your life, but these are 5 of my favorites! I have several program options available to work 1:1 with clients who want serious transformation ranging from 21 days to 90 days in length! If you want more help – keep following my blog and my social media group like the one I’m currently running at https://www.facebook.com/groups/WWHThriveChallenges2020/ for great tips on losing weight and keeping your motivation up!

To your health!