Motivation is the foundation of any successful weight loss effort. That said, it can also be one of the most difficult things to maintain throughout the length time you’re pursuing your goal. The problem with that is that if you lose your motivation, you likely won’t have the drive you need to keep up your eating and exercising efforts. If you don’t maintain those components of a healthful lifestyle, you may stop losing weight or might even gain.
If you are having a hard time keeping yourself motivated, consider the following tricks to get your drive back:
• Answer motivational questions – If you find that your drive is dwindling, ask yourself certain important questions and answer them honestly. This can include asking yourself how you want to look in a year from now. Then ask yourself how you will look a year from now if you stop your dieting and exercising. Draw these questions back to a closer time such as six months from now. What will your health be like if you stop dieting? How will you feel about yourself if you give up now.
• Give your closet a good cleaning – Let your wardrobe guide you by giving it a good clean out. Pull absolutely every piece of clothing out of your closet. Get rid of everything that you haven’t worn in a while or that is too big for you. Throw away anything in bad condition and donate anything in good condition. That way, if you start gaining weight, you would be required to buy all new clothes – a very expensive venture.
• Buy a great outfit – You may not be able to buy a whole new outfit every time you experience a little bit of change in your shape, but you can buy yourself one great outfit. That way, you’ll not only be motivated to keep losing so you can get that new outfit, but you can also motivate yourself by making sure that you never gain back the weight so that you wouldn’t be able to wear that favorite new outfit.
• Use social media – Take pictures of yourself on a schedule – perhaps once every month – and post them to share your progress with friends and family. Instagram is a great platform for this as it makes it very easy to share your progress pictures directly. That said, any image sharing platform that you enjoy will work just fine.
