You know what you need to do in order to lose weight, but that doesn't mean it will be easy. Staying the course is the most difficult part of losing weight. Finding ways to keep yourself motivated, however, can help your weight loss to remain on track. Incorporate motivational strategies into your life to get your body to your goal weight, and to stay there once you've reached it.
Pick Up Your Weight
While excess weight may be unattractive, the reality is that it puts quite a strain on your body, affecting your ligaments, joints and heart. To demonstrate this to yourself, pick up something that weighs the amount of weight you want to lose and carry it around the house. Do not lift something heavier than you can manage safely, however. Set the object down and imagine how good you will feel if you could "set down" the same amount of body fat. Think about how you are carrying the extra weight for a far longer period of time each day than you did carrying the object, and imagine how good you will feel once you no longer have that burden.
Set Up a Reward System
Achieving a weight loss goal can often take a considerable amount of time -- perhaps even longer than a year. To help keep yourself on track, set a series of short-term goals. Reward yourself for meeting your goals by treating yourself to a massage, buying a new item of clothing or getting a new motivational book. Short-term goals might include losing 5 lbs., exercising every day for one week or abstaining from sugar for a month. Or, set aside a small sum of money for each pound you use. You can then use the money to fund your new wardrobe once you've reached your goal weight.
Try New Foods and Recipes
Try new foods, lest you get bored with your weight loss menu. Investigate vegetables that you never or rarely eat. Brussels sprouts, jicama and turnips are examples of nutritious, low-calorie foods that are often not included in diets due to people's unfamiliarity with their preparation methods. Purchase a new cookbook -- vegan ones are sometimes good for this purpose -- to learn how to prepare vegetables in new and tasty ways. You may be surprised just how delicious a dish like roasted turnips can be.
Make a List
Keep yourself on track to achieve your weight loss goals by making a list of the benefits you are getting from your diet and exercise program aside from weight loss. For example, you might be experiencing more energy as a result of eliminating sugar from your diet. Or you might find that you can climb several flights of stairs without becoming embarrassingly winded. Write these benefits down on a sheet of paper and post it where you will see it frequently.
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