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Diet Motivation:Tips That Work
Once you've committed to new weight loss goals, you need the proper diet motivation to ensure you don't fall off track.
Embarking on a new way of eating and exercising requires discipline. Committing to a goal means having slight tunnel vision whereby you need to focus your attention and energy on your goal at the end of the tunnel, not paying attention to anything that may come in your way.
It may be challenging at first, but like anything the more you do something, the easier it becomes. Take a look at our suggested diet motivation tips to see how you can reach your weight loss goals.
Diet Motivation Tips That Actually Work:
1) Take before and after pictures of yourself. However unpleasant it may be, take a picture of yourself at the start of your new diet or workout regime. After the first month of eating better and exercising consistently, take another picture of yourself. You'll be able to see the improvement and it will motivate you to keep going. Do this a couple of times until you reach your goal. Then you can display your picture proudly, with the caption,"WEIGHT LOSS GOAL ACHIEVED."
2) Measure your body parts. Leave the scale alone. We need to get away from the scale as our only point of reference for a healthy body. It's better to measure around your waist (an ideal measurement is around 32 inches), your hips, thighs and arms. Just like the pictures, do this at the start of your new diet and revisit it each month. Seeing those numbers drop will keep you motivated to continue with your diet and exercise routine because you'll know it's actually working even if you don't see immediate changes in your weight on the scale. A great diet motivation technique is also to examine how your clothes fit. Over time, you'll notice that your clothes will fit differently--better. It's a great feeling to fit into your favorite outfits that are ten years old.
3) Reward yourself without food. Rewarding yourself with food is too easy. Really reward yourself. Rewards like seeing a movie, going on a vacation, reading a novel are great. The bigger the reward, the more likely you are to stick to your diet and do everything it takes to stay motiviated. You can plan a vacation or buy something new for yourself once you reach your weight loss goal. It should be something that you really, really want. You'll feel really proud of yourself when you finally experience the reward you've set for yourself as your diet motivation.
4) Tell people. This can be a little scary but it works. Eating is a social activity and many people eat without really paying attention to what they're eating. If friends know that your diet consists of following healthy eating guidelines, they'll more likely be respectful of that when inviting you share meals with them.
Our friends are well aware of what we will and will not eat. None of them would ever suggest we go out for junk food or even order dessert on a regular basis. They know we wouldn't be interested. In a sense, we've taught them just by telling them that we eat in a certain way and shown them by example. One way we did this was when Amanda threw a birthday party for herself and served only healthy food. We were able to share the social activity of eating with our friends, and they were able to see that healthy food is not such a strange thing. In fact, they loved the food and were phoning Amanda asking for recipes after the party. You could host a party and serve only healthy food, so that your healthy eating doesn't interfere with your social life.
Also, once you tell people, you'll be less likely to be tempted with offers of going out for ice cream, be given boxes of chocolate for presents, or be given permission to cheat when at a social gathering. Telling people also forces motivates you to honor your word and you may find that it will help you build a support system as you work towards your weight loss goal.
5) Listen to your favorite music or watch your favorite movie while exercising. We've said it before and we'll say it again: exercise is a must. We do realize that there may be days when it seems too hard to get on the treadmill or even get your running shoes on, so you need to make your exercise system work for you.
Some ideas for keeping you motivated during your workouts are to first wear nice workout clothes. The days of working out with your old t-shirts are long gone. If you don't feel good in what you're wearing, your performance will suffer. Ever had a day when you wore something uncomfortable or you just didn't really like how a certain outfit looked on you? You probably spent a big part of the day, tugging at your outfit or hiding from people. The same is true of your workout clothes. They must be comfortable and flatter you.
You should also change the music you listen while you workout on a regular basis. This is an instant pick-me-up. Listen to music that makes you feel great. It'll add an extra bounce to your step. If you workout at home, you have the luxury of making your gym into a room that really motivates you, like hanging special pictures on the wall, or putting in your favorite movie on the TV.
When it comes to eating well and exercising, there are a lot of things that can get in the way of your diet motivation. There are tons of negative influences telling you that's ok to eat badly or that you don't need to exercise. We're always surprised that people still eat so poorly or that they don't even exercise. That doesn't mean we have to follow their lead. It's just things that are there to serve as distractions and when you stick to your tunnel vision when it comes to your weight loss goals, how other people treat their bodies will not have any influence on you.
In order to keep you motivated towards your weight loss goals, change what motivates you often. Diet motivation works depending on how committed you are to your weight loss goals so, whenever you feel like you've hit a plateau and can't break through, change something in your workout routine. Your mind will benefit from it, and so will your body and your spirit.
Don't forget to incorporate other weight loss tips to help keep you on track with your
diet motivation.
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