How To Stay Motivated To Lose Weight: 7 Best Ways 2023

Did you know that a crucial percentage of the weight loss journey is staying motivated to lose weight? While you might have the desire and drive initially, you have to find ways to get motivated to lose weight. That way, you can achieve your desired outcome.

Although your weight loss plan stays the same, you change over time. Some days you may be more motivated than others. It is when you are less motivated that diets can often fail. We’re all human, and our busy days throw obstacles in our way, both in following a diet and in wanting to follow a diet. 

But first, the basic strategy must be to follow a weight loss program that incorporates healthy eating and physical activity. You can also supplement your diet with pre-workout products that may help you lose weight faster.

Also, try the ways listed in this article to stay motivated and achieve weight loss success, even in those times of weakness and temptation.

7 Ways To Maintain Weight Loss Motivation

Follow the different ways below to stay motivated to lose weight. 

Have Clear Smart Goals

Why do you want to lose weight? What are the main drivers of your weight loss efforts? It’s important to have clear driving factors before you commence any program. Define why you want to lose weight and go as far as having a realistic goal weight written down. 

Like any other dream or goal in life, inspiration for weight loss requires dedication to see it through. The best way to do so is to have some weight loss goals. Some of the objectives may include improving your body image, curbing unhealthy habits, and thriving sex life.

Also, driving factors can be smart goals like preventing certain illnesses such as heart disease and certain cancers. Losing weight helps your body lower cholesterol and certain triggers that lead to such conditions. Remember, humans were never meant to be overweight; everything in your body–anatomy, function, and even your biochemistry–is put at risk with obesity.

Therefore, start your journey by having a weight loss plan with clearly defined goals. It’s among the best weight loss motivation tips to see you achieve success. You can have a journal to write down achievable goals, behavioral changes, and smart decisions to stay motivated.

Speak to a registered dietician if you find it hard to define your goals. They can give you professional help, which helps you embrace the best ideas for weight loss. You can set attainable goals and have a food journal and fitness plan. 

Even when you think you’re doing everything right–and you still can’t seem to lose body weight–you’re not doing everything right. A dietitian has the “book knowledge” to identify where you’re going wrong; it’s a science, and sometimes you need someone more knowledgeable than you on the sneaky pitfalls of which you’re not aware.

Get A Support System

It’s impossible to find weight loss motivation without encouragement. You will find it much easier to stay motivated to lose weight and stick to healthy habits with social support. Self-talk is important, but social support means you have people to walk with you through the good and the bad. And even encouraging others will be just as self-motivating. It’s a win-win thing for both the encourager and the one being encouraged. 

You have to stay committed to it until you achieve success for any weight loss plan to work. The real issue you face over time is staying motivated. Having a support system around you helps you make a social commitment to stick to it.^[1] We are social creatures by nature, and camaraderie creates total motivation in a relationship than the mere addition of the motivations from each.

The people around you hold you accountable, but they also give you positive feedback. It’s so crucial to hear from others that progress is showing. Cheering you on helps with body image and extrinsic motivation. Even when you’re held accountable, it’s offered by a friend whose agenda is your agenda.

Extrinsic motivation is all about making changes in your life toward a reward that is the new you. Therefore, get an accountability partner or people who share the same^[2] weight loss goals. You can keep each other going by sharing an exercise routine and having a food journal or food diary to track calorie intake. Compare notes. You will learn about others’ pitfalls before you are blindsided and learn new tricks you may not have thought of. And you just might help another person in your support group the same way.

While internal motivation is part of how to get motivated to lose weight yourself, having others cheering you on or sharing the journey helps maintain motivation. Plus, they can help you set attainable goals like daily calories and the best gym session to attend. Additionally, companionship is fun, and adding fun to this journey makes it more likely to succeed.

Be Kind To Yourself

Weight loss is tied to many negative issues like poor body image and negative talk. These issues become worse when gaining more weight interferes with physical health, such as the emergence of joint pain and even poor sex life.

In such instances, your well-being takes a hit, and it’s easy to be critical. The negativity can worsen if you don’t quickly lose weight by cutting lots of calories. Worse, if you try half-heartedly and you fail temporarily, you may be tempted to just give up. 

Honestly, it’s hard enough figuring out how to stay motivated on a weight loss journey in the first place. When you are mean to yourself, things seem more challenging because the stakes seem more important; this exaggerates self-blame unnecessarily. Remember, this is a weight loss journey that takes time to accomplish.^[3] 

So, be kind to yourself and stop comparing your progress to others. Any failure can be remedied by getting back on track immediately and resisting the temptation to step back for a while: a “while” may become a very long time.

Part of staying the course is having positive internal motivation and conversations that lift your mood. If you don’t cheer yourself and the progress you make, it becomes harder to keep at it. Weight loss progress takes time to accomplish, so avoid beating yourself up. There will be ups and downs on your journey, but as long as the curve is generally positive over the length of time, you will do it. Always keep the desired goal and the “big picture” in your mind’s eye.

In addition, forgive yourself when you slip. For example, if you eat certain foods you’re not supposed to or don’t engage in physical activity, learning to forgive yourself for mistakes is part of life. And there is always tomorrow. Remember, the future is as much a part of your life as the past, so tear into the next day with your original resolve.

Create A Workout Routine You Like

The motivation for new routines can be hard or even seem impossible to maintain if you’re doing something you hate. Suffering from something is doomed to failure. This also applies to weight loss goals. It’s not easy to succeed when you don’t like the physical activity you do or the meals in your food diary.

Part of weight loss success is embracing an exercise routine you like and noting a healthy meal that tastes good. End the suffering. In short, come up with a weight loss plan that incorporates exercises^[4] you enjoy and foods you like. That allows you to add even more weight loss effort. If you don’t like running, then do brisk walks. Choose the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator, and you may find even brisk walks aren’t necessary. 

Do the simple things that will help you with maintaining motivation for longer because such substitutions will sidestep any resentment for the activity you hate.

The same applies to healthy eating. A healthy meal doesn’t have to be bland. There must be certain foods in your food diary which taste amazing. Innovative, diet-sensitive spicing, easily available in diet books or on the Internet, can work wonders for your palate; again, the resentment of dreary food choices evaporates. 

Food journals dictate your daily food intake. This eliminates “invisible cheating,” the little tastes of things you pop into your mouth throughout the day that you don’t even remember. Be as creative as possible to be motivated in your journey of losing weight, and be as watchful as you can to identify the traps.

Prepare Your Environment

Picture this: you want to stay motivated to shed weight, but your pantry is full of unhealthy snacks. It’s almost impossible to stay on task with all these unhealthy treats, including what’s in your refrigerator. It’s crucial to start your weight loss journey by preparing your environment.

Step one is removing all foods from the house that aren’t in line with your weight loss goals. Stock your pantry and refrigerator with healthy foods that have fewer calories. Speak with your family, who are part of your extrinsic motivation; they can help you stay the course.

Step two is creating a weight loss program to help you drop weight. The only way to get to a specific destination is to develop a route and then take the first step on that route. The same applies when you want to shed weight. Take time to write in a food journal and see how the foods you eat stack up and which physical activities work (i.e., are enjoyable), and which ones don’t.

Preparation is a huge part of achieving success–it sets your parameters and defines what you can and cannot do (or eat!). Reviewing the progress and sticking to realistic goals is part of the routine you’ll create. Stay motivated by knowing what you want to accomplish and preparing your environment from the beginning. 

Mix Things Up

In the beginning, having specific foods that you eat and a workout routine you stick to is great, but for your well-being, learn to mix things up.

One of the best ways to stay motivated is to avoid boredom. Imagine if all you do is eat the same meals and do the same exercises every day year-round. It’s hard for the weight loss motivation to continue after some time in such a rut.

Change has a great way of keeping things fresh,^[5] even for weight loss. Therefore, mix things up now and then to achieve weight loss success. For instance, you can alternate indoor and outdoor activities. Plus, you can alternate healthy restaurants for delicious, healthy meals that align with your goals. Introduce a healthy restaurant to your support group and have them do the same.

In addition, you can travel or attend events where the goal is to cut weight. You will find people with the same goals but who will have different ideas that can motivate you further to cut weight. Rest days for weight loss are also vital as they give you time to re-energize and recover.

Part of weight loss motivation is keeping the flame of desire to lose weight burning.

Get Educated

Research shows that part of weight loss success depends on the right education. Education covers matters like behavioral changes to curb bad habits. Also, it includes weight loss plans to create your own schedule and portion control. With the right knowledge, it’s easier to find weight loss motivation to help you cut weight. In your support system, knowledge empowers^[6] you to help others in need of the same results. The best place to find good information is from a registered dietician. This professional help delivers loads of crucial details that make it possible to lose more weight.

Plus, it’s always advisable to seek professional help before starting a plan to cut weight. Education gives you the tools^[7] to gain more self-control and even boosts internal motivation. There are great guidelines that can help you measure success.

Why Is Dieting So Hard?

Anything done in excess can become an addiction. When this happens, we have trained ourselves to release the “feel good” hormone, dopamine. Eating does this. Simply, we feel good when we get satiated, and dopamine rises in the brain because doing things that feel good causes it to rise. But there is a sinister trap being laid. 

The more dopamine that is released, the more is needed^[8] to get the same effect; this then distorts into needing more to keep from suffering. As adults, we are our own minders, but it is more than just minding our good intentions when we’ve trained ourselves to seek a certain threshold of satisfaction in the brain. 

Part of the difficulty of dieting is getting past the addiction to the foods, diets, or eating habits we enjoy. So, why can’t you just stop, like stopping anything else you’re addicted to? 

Consider a drug someone might be addicted to; they will never “kick the habit” until all of the excess dopamine receptor sites in the brain are emptied and stay empty for a while. Thus, trying to quit a drug means stopping it completely–not even using it a little bit or rarely. Even with a little bit, dopamine is released and those same dopamine receptor sites get filled: this means instant re-addiction. It can take weeks, months, or even years for this biochemistry to settle down. 

With eating, however, you cannot stop all food; you need food to live. So depleting the dopamine can only be done gradually, which is quite the struggle. (Think of that same drug-addicted person trying to get off of heroin or cocaine slowly!) And this, in answer to the question, is why dieting is so hard. 

Conclusion

Finding the right weight loss motivation can help you shed weight and keep it off longer. Losing weight is a journey that requires many changes and considerable effort to accomplish. First, you must consider the nature of bad diet choices and how a certain type of addiction enables them. Next, you have to start by defining your motivation for weight loss.

After that, don’t set yourself up for failure; create a weight loss journey that’s fun and possible to do. Remember, give yourself room to learn and be forgiving when you slip or make a mistake. Also, speak to a registered dietician with the capacity to offer professional help. They can help you get educated on the best way to accomplish your weight loss goals.

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