The Best Diet Motivation -- Finding Something That Works

How do you motivate yourself to start a new weight loss program?

We all find it hard to get going on a new diet. Why?

Here are some reasons:

But really, these boil down to just two of them: Too long. Too hard.

Let's take a look at these. Maybe there is something that will make it easier...

The long road ahead

This can be a tough one, depending on how much weight you have to lose. If you want to take off 10 pounds (4.5 kg) that's not so bad. A couple of months from now you're fitting into your favorite jeans.

Thirty pounds (12.5 kg) is a little bit more to face. You're not going to be at your goal weight for a while. A safe estimate is in the range of 6 months or so. That can seem long.

But when you're up into 50 pounds (22.5 kg), 100 pounds (45 kg) or more...

Well, it can seem like an eternity. You can feel like you are never going to get there.

This will take forever!!!

Let's use an example: Say you're looking at the scale. You weight 267 pounds. And the weight chart says you should be 132. How do you feel? Hopeless? Sick? Miserable?

What's coming into your mind? I'm going to guess that it's not, "easy breezy" or "slam dunk" or "piece of cake."

It's more like, "This sucks, or "it'll take forever" or "I can't do it" or even worse "why try?"

Well, there is a solution.

Go from failure to success with short-term goals

It's easy to feel overwhelmed. Especially when you are facing a big problem. It's easy to lose your diet motivation.

You can't do it all at once. So don't try to face it all at once. It will just make it seem impossible.

This is why you need short term goals.

Take a look at the goals that you can set. How about this for goal #1: Start the program. That's actually a goal you can achieve, and it's a good one. It's one you might overlook, but it's important. You can't get to the end if you don't start somewhere.

Here's another goal: Losing 5 pounds. Sure, you might have 50 pounds to lose. Or 500. Don't worry about that for now.

You want to look at what you can do now, in the next few days and the next few weeks. Can you lose five pounds this month? Yes, you can. Is that a lot easier to face than the whole 50, or 500?

More short term goals

How about these for short term goals:

See how these could motivate you? Do any of them -- your goal weight is still a ways off -- but that's OK. You've accomplished something. And accomplishment can really help keep you motivated and on track.

Step by step

You haven't been working out. But now you've started. You finished your first workout. Fabulous. It's a start.

You've been eating more nutrient rich foods, and you look better in the mirror. Your skin color improved. Your complexion is better. You get a gold star.

Or maybe you did a little reading and found that calories don't just equal calories. You found there really is a line between potato chips and a turkey sandwich... that one is food and the other is a grease holder. Knowledge increases your power.

How about eating out in a restaurant-- getting good food you enjoy -- and still eating healthy. That can be quite an accomplishment. And you can't do it if you don't know something about food, about nutrition and about what's available in restaurants. This is planning for success.

See, these each bring you a step closer to where you want to be. These small things add up. And over time, little success after little success becomes a big success for you.

Can you be successful?

Some of life is determined by who we are and by our basic nature. Some people love skydiving and others love to read.

But much of life -- more than most people realize -- has to do with training. Were you trained by your parents to brush your teeth? If so, you are more likely to take good care of them now.

But what if you didn't have that sort of upbringing, where you were shown good examples to follow in life? What if you didn't have that sort of early training?

Does that mean you just live your life with teeth that aren't brushed and hair that has never seen a comb, slouching through life in scuffed shoes, sitting in a room littered with old beer cans and overflowing ashtrays?

Well, it might, if you choose to live that way. But you can also train yourself. And to train your self in anything you learn what to do and how to do it -- the best practices -- and then you drill them.

Drill them? Yes, like they do in basketball practice or playing piano. You go over it, slowly at first to figure out the basics. You do that until you have the movements. And then you practice until it becomes part of you. You drill it.

So you can say, "I'm just not into brushing my teeth." And then accept that you are not going to be as acceptable socially. No dates. No one wanting to kiss you.

Or you can say, "I may not have had certain habits shown to me growing up, but I can learn them now." And then you do that. You train yourself. It's a choice you make. In this sense your life can be what you make of it.

Making success a habit

The example of the teeth is an obvious one, so it's easy to understand. But the point of this is not really your teeth. No, the point is this: How do you handle success? Do you make success a habit in your life? Do you train yourself to be successful?

Well, you can you know. Like learning to ride a bicycle or whittle a walking stick, you can train yourself in whatever you'd like to do. And that includes being successful.

You start by setting small goals, easily reachable goals. By following through to achieve those short-term goals. And then by recognizing what you have achieved.

You can use some of the example goals on the list or make your own weight loss goals. Find what you can do now. Today. This week. This month. Each of these gives you something that you can do that you can succeed at. And these little successes, added together over time, bring you to your goal.

Set goals you can face. Do a little better than you did yesterday.

Decide to reach those smaller goals. Then reach them. And then recognize that you have reached them, and that this makes you successful. You can build up quite a head of steam.

Practiced this way, your weight loss journey can become a pleasant one, with lots of successes along the way.

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