Introduction: Your WHY Is Far More Important Than How

When it comes to losing weight and staying motivated to do it, your WHY is far more important than the how. If you have a strong enough why, you’ll find the how.

When asked why they are going on a diet, most people say “because I want to lose weight”. However, what most people don’t realize is that it’s very difficult to maintain your dieting motivation if you’re trying to do it for physical reasons alone – it needs to mean more than this.

Losing weight and getting thin and healthy will impact every area of your life. The key to staying motivated is to realize this and to focus on it. The more reasons you can identify and give yourself for losing weight, the bigger your “why” will be and the stronger the motivation you’ll have for losing weight, getting thin and staying that way.

What follows are 10 motivations that are common in people who are able to stay motivated to lose weight and get thin permanently. See which ones you can use yourself to focus on to create and maintain your motivation to lose weight.

1.     The Success Of Others

2.     The Desire To Be The Best You Can Be

3.     Recognition

4.     Health

5.     Increased Energy

6.     Family

7.     Competition

8.     Building Confidence and Self-Esteem

9.     Sex And Relationships

10.     Embarrassment

Motivation is THE MOST important part of losing weight – without it no matter how great your diet or exercise equipment is you’re likely to fail because unless you’re able to stay motivated, you’ll end up giving up. Therefore it’s critically important to find things that motivate you. The above are 10 common motivating factors that drive many people to lose weight, that go beyond wanting to lose weight for purely physical reasons alone. Use the ones which apply most to you, and give yourself as many reasons for losing weight as you can. The more reasons you have that you feel are directly relevant and meaningful to you, the stronger your why will be and the easier it will be for you to stay motivated to successfully lose weight

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It can be hard to get or maintain the motivation for dieting – IF we lose sight of our true reasons for doing it. In this article I’d like to share 2 tips that can increase your motivation to stick to your diet and achieve the healthy body and lifestyle you truly desire.

Refusing To Settle For Less Than The Best In Your Life

One way to achieve true motivation for dieting is to go at it from the perspective of refusing to settle for anything less than the best for yourself in your life. This is about deciding that you deserve the best – you deserve a fantastic body, excellent health, high levels of energy – and you’ll settle for nothing less.

Most people settle for less in their life; they don’t make their health a priority, and so they suffer both in their health and with weight problems. By deciding to go on a healthy diet, you are refusing to settle for this in your life. It doesn’t matter if until now you’ve not made health a priority in your life. The moment you make the change – the moment you decide that you deserve nothing but the best in your life, which includes having excellent levels of health and energy – and the moment you act on that, from that moment on you are no longer someone who is willing to settle for less than you deserve in your life.

Dieting is about far more than simply losing weight – it’s a statement of who you are and what you are prepared to accept in your life. Chose to diet because you deserve the best in your life, and because you refuse to settle for anything less.

Thinking Long Term: Chose Diets That Work For You

If you take the above perspective – that the purpose of going on a diet is to enjoy the best for yourself in life in terms of health, physical appearance, and so on – then it’s also important to take a long term perspective on your diet.

Most people go on a diet simply to lose weight, and often choose highly restrictive diets that they find difficult and don’t like very much, because they want to lose weight as quickly as possible. The problem with this approach is that it isn’t sustainable. You may lose weight, but a highly restrictive diet isn’t something you can maintain long term – so inevitably you’ll gain weight again as soon as you come off of it.

The perspective that works – and that will motivate you and allow you to sustain both your ideal weight, is to find diets that work for you and fit your lifestyle. What this means is that you think long term, and select a diet that you think you could sustain as part of your lifestyle. The question to ask yourself is “could I stick to this diet for the next 5 years or more?”

Refusing to settle for less than the best in your life is about putting your health first – as opposed to simply wanting to lose weight. By choosing diets that are sustainable and that you believe you can maintain as a part of your lifestyle, you’ll find it easier to maintain your motivation because its FAR easier to stick to a diet when you actually enjoy it. What this means is taking some time to research various diets, and finding one that best fits your personality and lifestyle preferences.

This doesn’t mean you have to stick to one diet for your whole life – you’ll want to continually improve it as you find more of what suits you best in your life, and you may end up trying several diets until you find the diet (or combination of diets) that works best for you. It’s a worthwhile process however because it will make the process of losing weight, keeping it off, and living a healthy long term lifestyle a smoother and more enjoyable process, as opposed to a restrictive battle of grit and willpower which is unlikely to last long term.

Refuse to settle for less than you deserve in your life, and find diets that work best for you. Doing these two things can help you sustain you long term motivation for dieting, and achieve the lasting weight loss success you truly deserve.

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What’s the one diet motivation tip that you should follow above all others? In answer to that question I’d say this – motivation isn’t something you “get”, it’s something you CREATE. Here’s what I mean by this….

If you see motivation as something that you yourself create, then you will always be the one in control. As a result, you’ll be in a position where you will be able to achieve lasting motivation to lose weight and stick to your diet.

So how do you create motivation for yourself? What can you do to motivate yourself? Here are two powerful techniques that you can practice to help create high levels of lasting motivation to lose weight.

1. Visualization

Visualization is a powerful psychological technique used by Olympians, top performing professional sports stars, highly successful business people and countless other people who have achieved success in various areas of life. Why? Because it creates high levels of motivation and produces high levels of performance.

Visualizing yourself as thin, attractive, fit, and healthy on a consistent basis sends a powerful message to your brain, directing it to go to work to move you towards making that vision a reality for you in your life. This is highly motivating it propels you to take action in the now and move towards the realization of your vision.

Put this diet motivation tip to use by setting aside 10 minutes or so each day to visualize yourself at your ideal weight, with your ideal body. See it as if it was already real, and really experience it emotionally. FEEL as if you would feel if you had your dream body – this is very important. Often visualization can feel strange at first and you may find yourself resisting or feeling uncomfortable the first few times you do this. Just persist – do it for 7 days, and you’ll quickly find both that you enjoy visualizing and experiencing that new and ‘better’ you. You’ll also quickly notice that you feel highly motivated and driven afterwards and throughout the day to follow your diet, lose weight and move towards that ideal image of yourself.

2. Purpose

Clarity of purpose is also key to motivation. You must have a strong “why” for losing weight, or else you won’t feel motivated. We all need reasons for getting out of bed in the morning, and if you want to feel highly motivated to lose weight you must have a powerful set of reasons for doing so.

Humans are most strongly motivated by pain or, in other words, by what they don’t want – so ask yourself what it will cost you if you don’t take action to lose weight. Most people focus on how difficult losing weight is going to be. To motivate yourself you should do the opposite. What will it cost you if you don’t take action right now to lose weight – physically, emotionally, socially, in terms of your self-esteem? What impact will it have in the major areas of your life, both short term and long term? Write your answers down.

Next, consider all the things you will gain if you do take action to lose weight. We’re motivated both by what we don’t want, AND by what we do want. By focusing on both, you’ll create high levels of motivation to take action to lose weight – because you’ll be using the forces that drive human behaviour in a way that supports you in losing weight and achieving your ideal weight loss vision. Ask yourself “What will I gain if I take action to lose weight right now”? What will you gain physically, in term of you appearance, in your self esteem? How will it positively impact your life both in the short term and in the long term? Write your answers down on the same piece of paper that you used above.

Create Lasting Motivation By Practicing Consistently

There are many ways to motivate yourself, but visualizing yourself as you want to be and having clear and powerful reasons for acting are two of the most powerful weight loss and dieting motivation techniques you can use. The key to making them work however is to practice consistently. Set aside time each day to visualize, and to review your purpose – your reasons for losing weight. By doing this consistently, you’ll create high levels of motivation to lose weight – and as a result, motivation will no longer be something that “comes and goes” for you in your life.

See motivation as something that you can create, take action to create it, and you’ll never have to worry about losing your motivation to lose weight again.

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What is the secret to staying motivated to stick to your diet? Believe it or not it’s as simple as changing your overall approach to the way you think about dieting and losing weight. You are faced with temptation every day, everywhere you look. It’s tempting to give in – “Oh, just this once won’t do any harm,” or “Only one little bite”….

To help you overcome the obstacles that stand between you and diet success, here are 11 powerful dieting motivation tips for staying motivated to stick to your diet.

1. Clean House

Get rid of every unhealthy piece of food you have. You don’t have to throw it away, donate canned foods to local food shelters. Frozen foods can be given to friends and family members or the homeless shelters.

2. Start Small

Making too many changes at once can be overwhelming and often leave you feeling as though you are depriving yourself. Start small, if you are a soda drinker give up one soda a day and replace it with a bottle of water for a week and go on from there. Give up eating out one day a week.

3. Avoid Drastic Changes

Try not to follow a diet plan that requires you to severely restrict your intake of any one food group or multiple food groups. Sure, you’ll get dramatic results quickly with these plans but the success is short lived.

4. Pick Foods You Like

Honestly, how long are you going to stick with something you hate? If you don’t like eating fish then don’t pick a diet that focuses on fish. It isn’t enough to pick foods that are good for you, pick foods that are good for you and that you enjoy eating.

5. Brown Bag It

Avoid temptation at work or on outings by packing your own food. You can pack a lunch to take to work, you can pack a snack bag. Think about putting a goodie bag in the car loaded with water, fruit slices, granola bars, baby carrots and so on.

6. Eat a Small Snack before Leaving

You will be less inclined to indulge when going to a party or out to dinner if you eat a small meal at home before stepping out. Little things like this can make a big difference when it comes to dieting motivation, because you’ll be less likely to find yourself in a situation where you’re so hungry you want to grab any junk food you can find – and getting off track in the process.

7. Avoid Feeling Hungry

Ideally you should be eating something small every three hours. This will help keep your metabolism steady and you won’t feel hungry. When you wait to eat until you are feeling hungry you are more likely to eat more then you need and more then you should.

8. Indulge!

What! Indulge? Yes, there has to be some reward for what you are doing. Eating healthy doesn’t mean you forsake life’s little temptations dressed up in ooey gooey goodness. The key is to eat healthy 98.9% of the time.

9. Work it Off

Okay, the death by chocolate cake that you ate an entire piece of was worth every bit of guilt you are feeling. Instead of beating yourself up over it, work it off. Pick your favorite activity and do it until you break a sweat.

10. Make Water Your Best Friend

Did you know that those hunger pangs you feel can actually be your body telling you that you are dehydrated? Before eating anything, drink a glass of water.

11. Portion Control

You don’t need a steak the size of your head. Red meat portions should not be bigger than the palm of your hand. An excellent way to deal with portions is to eat on smaller plates. Instead of eating on a big dinner plate, use salad plates. It will trick your mind into “seeing” a full plate of food even though the portions will be much smaller, and you will find that you are able to eat less and still feel very satisfied.

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