How can you ensure you don’t become one of the millions of people who sleep walk back into weight gain?
Realise that motivation gets you started but it’s habit that keeps you going.
You need to make use of motivation and habit to achieve your goals.
Typical Weight Loss Motivation Yearly Cycle
Does this sound familiar?
January: Renowned as the busiest month in the fitness business calendar; with a fresh new year you are highly motivated for a fresh new you, you start your exercise routine; vowing this time I’m going to stick at it.
February / March: Reality kicks in, this is actually quite tough, other things happen, you don’t intentionally give up but life just gets in the way and motivation drops off.
April / May / June: As summer starts to approach your motivation picks up again, driven mainly by the thought of bearing your body on the beach, reaching a peak around July.
September / October: After July & August your motivation levels start to drop again, the days get shorter and colder, you cover up with more layers of clothing, covering what drove your motivation in the summer. You then spend the cold evenings sitting in the warm, on the couch.
December: By now you’re looking forward to Christmas and all the great food you’re going to be eating, justifying to yourself it’s OK, because:
This January I’m really going to make a change and lose this weight!
What Drives Your Weight Loss Motivation
Motivation is what moves you to take action toward achieving a particular goal, all motivation is rooted in one of the following human needs:
Using Emotion To Drive Weight Loss Motivation
These are the basic human emotions, with the strongest in the center, those in white are advanced emotions which are derived from a combination of the two basic emotions either side.
All of the needs which drive motivation are tied up in emotions, the varying combination of needs and emotions are different for everyone, depending on your current situation and life experiences.
The secret to creating personal motivation is
Find your own personal strongest combination of NEED and EMOTION
Here’s an example of combining an emotion of joy with the need for friendship, focus on that emotion and use that to drive your motivation to take action.
Take Your Weight Loss Action
Whichever exercise activity you chose, if you’re looking to lose weight you need to take action.
Taking action involves not only completing the exercise, but also ensuring you don’t eat back those hard burned calories. What that means is, if your goal is to lose weight you know how many calories a day you need to eat to loose weight and stick to your calorie deficit target, to lose weight.
Exercise & eat sensibly to burn more calories than you consume.
Establish a Habit
Not all habits are bad
You will not maintain your motivation.
You will achieve your goals through habit – a habit of regular week after week continued exercising and sensible eating.
So how do you start your new habit?
Repeat the same behaviour, again and again and again and again. It’s that simple.
Establish a regular routine you can stick to:
- Exercise on the same days each week at the same time
- Eat at the same regular meal times and sizes
Expect & Deal With Interruptions
Do not deceive yourself into thinking you will be able to maintain your good habit routine forever.
When your habit gets broken as it always will do, life gets in the way…
- You will get ill
- You will go on holiday
- There will be days when some emergency comes up and you can’t exercise
- You will eat out and sensible eating goes out the window.
Be aware, interruptions will happen, simply deal with them then go back to your motivation.
Connect with that emotion and use it to drive your motivation, use the motivation to get you back into your routine again.
This is the Weight Loss Motivation Cycle.
- Get Motivated – Find your own personal strongest combination of NEED and EMOTION to drive your motivation
- Take Action – Exercise & eat sensibly to burn more calories than you consume
- Create a Habit – Establish a regular routine you can stick to
- Deal with Interruptions – Interruptions will happen, simply deal with them then go back to your motivation
