Long Term Weight Loss and Motivation

[Anonymous]

When you have a lot of weight to lose, staying motivated can be a huge struggle. You don’t have a few weeks to go, you can have literally months and years to go before you are able to lose the weight you need to lose to get healthy. You can often feel defeated and like giving up especially when you feel like you have no motivation in you to keep going, but when you have a plan for when, not if, but when you feel like this, you’re more than likely to keep going rather than to just give up.

1. Truth: No one is going to stay motivated every single day

A few months or years is a long time to do anything. Think about how long you were or still are in school. You probably weren’t or aren’t motivated to study every single day, but for most of you, you do or did well a good portion of the time because you knew your end goal and the work it takes to get there. Weight loss is the same way. Don’t put this unrealistic pressure on yourself to “stay motivated” all the time, every day, all day. You don’t actually need to be motivated 100% of the time to succeed, but you do need to feel that way most of the time. Motivated can mean as little as you woke up and even though you didn’t want to, you walked the block for 15 minutes rather than did nothing or it can mean you managed to take all 20 stairs to your floor at work. Just tell yourself even on your worst days, to do something rather than nothing, and on your best days to really challenge yourself, and keep it moving, and one foot at a time, you'll eventually get there.

2. Find a support system

A lot of people have a lot of negative people in their life. They make fun of you because you’re overweight, and then when you actually try to do something about it, they still make fun of you or tell you, you’re never going to succeed. If you can’t distance yourself from these people, find a group online or a support group in person, or at least one good friend or co-worker or maybe a church leader who is in your corner and who is going to keep you going when you feel like you need some help staying motivated. Some people are going to be incredibly negative because you doing something about your life and trying to do better for yourself, makes them sometimes feel like you’re going to leave them behind or they are just used to in their minds, being better than you, but don’t let someone else’s jealousy or negative thoughts cause you to quit. Use your support system to help you stay motivated throughout your weight loss journey.

3. Reward Your Hard Work

Make a weight loss chart, plan out a rewards and goals on your calendar. We are all individuals who work on incentive. We get paid at work, and though we may truly like our jobs, our incentive is also that we need money to live which is a huge motivator for getting up every morning. There are a lot of incentives to losing weight like better health, fitting into clothes, perhaps some more attention, but those can be far off goals if you have 50+ pounds to lose. So incentivize your weight loss. Make your incentives things you were maybe never able to do like indoor rock climbing, buying some new sneakers. The idea is that you are working towards these goals and just like a job and a paycheck, if you’re not working at them, you don’t get them.

4. Take a lot of Selfies

It can be hard to see progress and stay motivated because it may feel as though you aren’t losing any weight when you are. Take measurements, take full body selfies and shots of your face, and don’t just rely on a scale especially if you’re doing weight training in your workouts because as we all know, muscle weighs more than fat. Taking progress shots can show you what you often struggle to see just passing by the mirror, and that is that hard work absolutely pays off. Also when you’re done, if you want to share your story with others, you’ll have the images to prove that you have done the work, and the proof is in the pictures.

5. …and when you feel that all is lost

When you hit that day where you just can’t seem to do anything anymore and you just want to quit, have a very real conversation with yourself. Remind yourself that quitting and stopping will not solve all the problems that are the reasons why you started working out in the first place. If you quit will you lose weight? If you quit will you be able to fit into smaller clothing? If you quit will your health improve and you get off medications? If you quit will you be able to do a lot of the things you want to do but can’t now because of your weight? If you quit will you be the healthiest person for your kids or your bf/gf/spouse? The answer is no, a thousand times now. Though you may not believe it in your moments of doubt, it is far easier once you’ve started in on the work to keep going, than it is to quit.

[Fathoms77]

As someone who lost 50 pounds last year and has now hit all of his health goals (weight, heart rate, BMI, etc.), I will add that all humans are very results-oriented creatures. Your #4 tip is great because it's the one - to me - that allows the motivation to simply come naturally. Seeing results begets motivation; you don't have to struggle for it.

And once you've attained your goals, I think one of two things happens depending on the person:

1. They slide a bit and allow themselves to relax TOO much, and start putting on the weight again.

2. They take a look at themselves every day, remind themselves what they used to look like, and know that in order to continue being proud, you have to maintain. And maintaining is easier than losing. ;)

Lastly, the healthy lifestyle is really the only thing that matters in the long run.