It can be so easy to lose your weight loss motivation and you know where it all starts? In your head! Yep, that’s right, it’s those sneaky thoughts telling you that, “you deserve a break, no need to work out this week”, or “hey, you’ve worked so hard, why not indulge in those sweets, it’s a holiday/birthday/Friday/rainy day after all!”
Well hey, if you can take a week off from exercising and get right back at it the next week, working out at least 5 days a week from then on, or if you can have sweets every 2 or 3 weeks without heading into a full-out binge (us sugar addicts need to stay away from that refined sugar and white flour) then more power to ya – you can probably stop reading right here. 😉
What I’m talking about is based on my own experience where the word “moderation” doesn’t fit when it comes to that sugared, salted, unhealthy fatted processed food, and if I start taking too many days off from exercising it’s easy for me to lose that momentum I had built up before.
Where Does It All Fall Apart?
In my experience, here’s what happens: if I buy into those thoughts that I can slide and I’ll be ok, it’s really easy for me to head into a period of no exercise and poor eating habits. Yep, I do need to stay on top of things every day and what this mainly means is how I’m thinking. If I get out of my healthy eating and exercise routine then I can easily start thinking some not so healthy thoughts, like I may as well just give up!
However, what’s really cool is that you can always turn everything around with just a simple change in thought. That’s right – you can always think a different thought and if you choose an uplifting, inspiring, motivating thought instead of an unhealthy, negative thought about yourself, then you can make a change in your focus in the blink of an eye.
5 Tips to Keep Your Head in the Weight Loss Game
Even though all you can make a change with just a shift in your thinking, if you’re feeling stuck in a big ‘ole bag of negative thinking you might need a little push to get back in the habit of thinking better thoughts about yourself and your life.
Here are 5 tips that have worked for me to keep my mind in the weight loss and fitness game:
- Get Support – Whether you have a weight loss/work out buddy who you walk with each day, a weight loss coach who you hold yourself accountable to, or an online weight loss forum that you actively participate in, it’s much easier to stay on track when you’ve got support. If you try to go it alone it’s far too easy to stray. And of course, you can always use Twitter for some extra accountability (read more about how I’m doing that here).
- Set Your Goals and Read Them every day – It’s one thing to take the time to write down your goals but if you stick them in a drawer, they’ll quickly be forgotten. Here’s a simple trick to help you keep your goals in mind throughout the day. All you need is a pack of 3×5 cards and you’re off to the races, the weight loss races that is. 😉
- Get Moving – Your body can help you keep your motivation up, really! After just 30 minutes of sustained cardio (I prefer paced walking) those endorphins will be flowing and you’ll get an automatic mood lift, not to mention the feeling of positive accomplishment you’ll feel. This will make it all the easier to keep on going with your weight loss plan and focus on the positive.
- Focus on the Good Stuff – If you want to eat clean because you’ve experienced the benefits of it before (more energy, weight loss, freedom from the sugar cravings), the best thing to do is focus on the whole foods that you like. If instead you spend your time constantly thinking about your favorite binge foods that you “can’t have” (actually you can always choose to eat whatever the heck you want but there’s no guarantee you’ll feel good afterwards 😉 ), you’ll actually be creating a stronger bond to them. What you think about most of the time is what you’ll get, so if you spend your time thinking about how good you feel eating healthy foods, getting regular exercise, you’ll get more of the same.
- Forgive and Release the Past – This one is along the same lines as the previous tip – if you focus on your past weight loss failures, guess what you’ll get more of? You’ll drive yourself right into another weight loss failure, especially if you’re an emotional eater. Thinking about your failures will make you feel kinda down and you could end up turning to food. Instead, work on forgiving yourself for your past actions and release them – you can’t do anything about the past anyway, but you can do something about now and create your future.
Weight Loss – a Big Mind Game
Weight loss really is a mind game – and sure, we’ve got to take physical action to make better food choices, use portion control, heal and end emotional eating and get regular exercise, but if head isn’t in the game (and you’re like me), you’ll have a hard time maintaining your motivation to lose weight.
Changing your perspective to focus on the positive is huge!
The mind battles are often more difficult than the actions of exercising and eating healthy.
Susans last blog post..Better Than Barbie – Positive Dolls for Girls
Hi Susan,
Yes, that’s soooo true – the mind battles are the main cause of what leads me astray, but I can always choose a better thought (or get on the treadmill! 😀 )
My main weakness is emotional eating. After a long day of boredom, unproductiveness and unavailable outlet to express myself, I return home stuffing and deliberating on the day and the day to come or about life and sorts. It’s not only after a day at work, it can be anytime of the day when I’m alone and bored and started thinking.
Another time I do binge is when my constipation bothers me. It will distract me from what I’m doing and I will start stuffing. hahaha
Other than these occasions, I consider myself rather fit and picky on my food intake.
AkiraSabines last blog post..What’re your gadgets?
Great tips for a very common problem! I do think it’s so important to actually write down your goals, and then to read them everyday. I’m not so good at reading them every day though. I have even tried writing them on the mirror but it so quickly becomes part of the scenery! I guess I need to come up with some other creative ways to make sure I see them every day…
Lady Gs last blog post..Ways to make your workout count
I like #4 and #5. I really do have a tendency to brood about what I “can’t” have. It really does shift my focus from the good, healthy things I could be doing to the “treats” I’m being deprived of. And #5 is the work of a lifetime… I’m so bad about beating myself up and engaging in negative self-talk, which–as you know–doesn’t help anything. “Let it go” is a great mantra…
Jens last blog post..The Big 3-0
Forgive & release the past are HUGE! It
took me a long time, but has been soooo worth it!
Good post as usual! In the past, I would tend to battle with the “all or nothing” way of thinking. Either I go at it full steam or not at all. I have had to change this way of thinking and come to realize that my “non- active” days are recovery days :).
Mark Salinass last blog post..Ongoing Learning Increases Longevity
Hi AkiraSabine,
Mine too, coupled with the food addiction (sugar & flour). I am learning more however, that the emotional eating drives it, but if I give in the chemical aspect of the addictive food ingredients can cause a big problem.
You know, exactly what you said, about how you start thinking, the Shrink Yourself program walks you through this and you learn about how those worries are driving you to the food. If you ever wanted to lick that emotional eating I really do recommend Shrink Yourself.
@Lady,
Exactly – that’s why I really like the trick of using the 3×5 cards, you can put them anywhere. Check out my post I linked to in my article if you want to do that, it really does help (I’d even put one on your steering wheel to read when you get in the car….hey, not while driving though! LOL)
@Jen,
You know what I learned in Shrink Yourself to turn around the thought process about deprivation? You’re really not being deprived but if you eat the food that won’t help you lose weight, that food is an obstacle to your weight loss goals. So really, by eating it, you’re depriving yourself of your goals!
Hey, I need to write a post about this. 😉
Hi Mark,
Yeah, and if you’re doing strength training you need recovery days anyway! 🙂