Introduction

It can be easy to become unmotivated to lose weight if you feel the habits you need to embrace are not achievable. Any weight loss plan you undertake should be manageable and sustainable to avoid creating a lack of motivation.

Motivation is something that can be fleeting, and can go up and down easily. For instance it can be motivational to see that your weight has gone down 2lbs after dieting for one week, and this will help you keep going.

However, in my experience working with clients this does not always happen. If you need to make a lot of lifestyle changes, you may need to take it more slowly as too many big changes can be too difficult, and lead to you feeling unmotiviated.

In this article we are going to look at ways to create sustainable habits, and look at one of the most powerful habits to keep you motivated to the task at hand.

My top weight-loss tip to stay motivated to lose weight, and keep weight loss motivation high when its hard to lose weight

Using visualisation to over come bad habits

Try to use visualisation as a practice run. Use visualisation to put you in all the different situations that may be challenging to you and visualise yourself being successful.

You may start visualising yourself at a wedding and some of your favourite foods will be there. Initially you may feel hungry and excited by the thoughts of these foods.

After you have been visualising for a while your mind will stop evoking the emotion of the happiness and joy you get from the foods as you may start to teach yourself to remember the negative impact that these foods have had on your health.

At first it may be difficult, but each night you practice it will get easier and after a while you will be able to see these bad foods in a whole new different way.

By doing this you will now feel a negative feeling to these foods and be more determined to stay away from these foods.

When you use visualisation in this way it will allow you to see where you are harbouring negative thoughts, shift your mind set and eliminate negative thoughts.

Increase motivation to lose weight through the subconcious mind.

This process doesn’t work unless you do it every single day. Your trying to reprogramme your subconscious mind and it is a process that can take weeks. If you are inconsistent with this process then your wasting your time. Commit to this habit.

Do it in the morning, evening or at lunch, but just be consistent.

Expectations

You need to wait 2-4 weeks before you see results

Stay Motivated on Your Weight Loss Journey: Top Tips and Tricks

Habits are so important in life. In fact they influence everything that we do in life, from brushing your teeth, preparing the clothes you will wear for work during the week and much more.

Remember with habits that you have good ones and bad ones. If you have more good habits than bad then you will be more productive, and more successful in your career, family, relationship, travel and health goals.

How do we form habits to increase weight loss motivation?

Habits are formed by repeating behaviors repeatedly. You don’t even realise that you’re doing it, but before you know it these behaviors become permanent.

How to maintain new healthy habits when its hard to lose weight

When you try to form a new habit your enthusiasm is high. Lets take now for instance. Your new years resolutions are probably in full swing,  which means your pumped about losing weight or stopping smoking.

You get through day one with no problem, day two as well but maybe by day 7, if you’ve lasted that long, its run out. This is when it becomes difficult to continue changing habits. Once that motivation has gone, what do you do?

The answer may come in the form of this 3 step framework that can boost your confidence and success if you perform it correctly.

Stay engaged  the motivation with these motivation tips to help you form healthy habits

Remember that habits require time, repetition and patients.

Step 1 – Do it first thing in the morning. 

Why? Your will power is strongest in the morning. Remember that motivation can be like the UK weather in the sense that it fluctuates.

Studies have shown that if you eat something sweet in the morning than later on throughout the day your food choices will want to be to eat something sweet.

In regards to an exercise program, making the effort to go gym in the morning will be easier because the rest of the day is likely to be more unpredictable.

At the end of the day you are more likely to be really tired and all you will want to do is go home and recharge your batteries. Going to the gym will be the last thing on your mind.

Step 2 – Reduce friction to prevent procrastination

Think about all the obstacles you could face when trying to lose weight. Taking clients out for dinner, maybe you and your partner enjoy drinking half a bottle of wine each night.

This is what I mean when I use the word friction. Any barrier or potential obstacle that is going to impact on your goal is friction.

Where set up to take the path of least resistance so if weight loss becomes to difficult for yourself you will give up so this section will make weight loss as easy as possible.

Think about how you are going to change these things. Setting up your environment can be as simple as making sure you have clean gym kit.

When your motivation is low and you wake up and your gym kit isn’t clean, you may just give up and go back to bed. Sometimes that is all it takes.

How to reduce friction make the journey feel easier to continue?

Use visualization for 5 minutes every night and visualize yourself overcoming this problem. Visualize yourself out with your clients having a good time.

Visualize the alcoholic drinks they are drinking, the food they are eating, while you visualize yourself drinking a mineral water and having a healthy meal.

Get comfortable with the things you need to do as this will keep you on track.

Step 3 – start small to keep you going

Take the smallest action possible to get an improvement In your health. If your first step is too big it will be too difficult, which will cause you to fail and quit.

For example, If you drink alcohol every evening than perhaps its going to be too difficult to cut alcohol out permanently and stop drinking.

An example of starting small would be to initially layer your alcohol reduction. For example, you may have a 3 month plan to reduce your alcohol intake.

For example, in your first month you may go from drinking four pints of beer 7 days a week, to four pints of beer 5 days a week.

In month 2 you may reduce from 5 days to 3 days a week and in the final month reduce to just one day a week of drinking alcohol and may limit this to just 8 units of alcohol a week. Currently the limit is 14 units a week.

One unit is half a pint of beer, one normal size glass of wine or one shot of spirit.

When you set yourself up with small goals you set yourself up for success.

Get professional help

Working with an expert in weight loss can help you to achieve your weight loss goal. Losing weight isn’t easy, so therfore It is easy to run in to a plateau, set unrealistic weight loss goals, or to start a diet and exercise regime that is not sustainable.

Working with a personal trainer, weight loss coach or nutritionist can be a great asset when you want to lose weight. They can help you with:

• Accountability
• Goal setting
• Nutritional advice
• Planning an exercise regime
• Calorie counting
• Forming healthy habits

All of these methods of weight loss coaching are likely to help you on your weight loss journey and increase your weight loss success. It’s important to find a good professional with a tried and tested track record in weight loss, and clear methodology for weight loss.

Need to lose weight? Book a free conultation with me.

I have been a personal trainer for over 15 years, and have helped many people lose weight. I hope this article inspires you to lose weight, I know you can do this if you put your mind to it. If you need some extra help, or your stuck with anything then feel free to reach out and we can have an online consultation. Please leave your details here 🙂

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