Lose Weight by Staying Motivated with Diet and Exercise

In effort to lose weight and/or get in better shape, millions of people turn to diets each year. Despite the popularity of diets, relatively few people actually achieve lasting results that see them lose weight and keep it off for any length of time.

The same thing can be said for exercise programs. Many people make New Years Resolutions to go to the gym a specific number of days each week, but by the end of January or February this is often a thing of the past.

Before you will ever see results that truly change your health and your life, you will need to achieve consistency and discipline in your diet and exercise. In order to get to this point, you will need to have something that motivates you to keep working through the challenges and through those times when you feel like giving up and going back to your old lifestyle.

This article serves as a reference that will discuss several different things you can do to help yourself be able to achieve and maintain a level of motivation that will keep you going.

1. Take Pictures of Yourself Before the Diet or Exercise Program

Many diets and exercise programs ask you to take some pictures of yourself before you get started with the program. The idea of course is to go through the program, lose weight and get in better shape and then take an “after” picture of yourself to see the progress. While “before” pictures will not show us how we want to look, they can often provide a kick in the butt that gives some added motivation.

2. Track Your Progress

Whether you’re using a notebook to jot down the details of your exercise or keeping a personal journal through your experience, recording things in writing can make it easier for you to realize the progress that you are making. In many cases because the progress is not drastic, it seems that there is not that much progress being made. But with consistent effort and steady (even slow) improvements, overall progress can be quite encouraging.

3. Set Goals

Goal setting is extremely effective in many aspects of life, and diet and exercise is no different. To achieve success with your goals, make sure they are specific enough that you can measure them to see if/when they have been achieved. Also, you’ll want to include a target date as part of the goal so that it does not remain open ended forever.

4. Find a Partner

Having someone else exercise with you is a great way to build accountability and motivation. Most people will not want to let down their friend by not showing up at the gym or giving up on the program, so having someone else that is counting on you can help. Also, two people working together towards their goals can serve as motivation and positive reinforcement.

5. Join a Group of Dieters

Diet groups like Weight Watchers are effective because there is some added motivation in being part of a group. Wanting to make a good showing at a weigh in can help to keep you from breaking your diet. By being unified with others who have similar goals, you can all benefit from the others in the group.

6. Have a Reason Why You are Dieting and Exercising

Since motivation is such a critical part of achieving lasting success with a diet or exercise program, it’s important that you know specifically why you are willing to make the sacrifices and what it is that keeps you going. We all have different reasons and things that keep us going through difficult times, so be sure that you know exactly why you are doing what you are doing.

Crystal Wells enjoys writing about the things she has learned through her own weight loss journey. She blogs about dieting. Her blog includes a review of Weight Watchers.

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Written by Crystal Wells on September 18th, 2009 with no comments.
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