Motivation for Weight Control: Keep it!

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Praise the pros and can the cons

There are always going to be pros and cons to weight loss.

To keep yourself motivated, you need to constantly reinforce the pros by thinking about them, writing them down, and imagining them occurring. Equally, you need to challenge the cons and stop them from sabotaging your efforts. Let’s work through a couple of typical examples:

• "Diets have never worked for me before, so why should one work now?"
  That may be true, but why didn't they work? Maybe the timing wasn't right. Perhaps the diet was too restrictive or you had lifestyle issues that took precedence. Give yourself a break from negative criticism and think like Thomas Edison. He didn't see his countless attempts at inventing the light bulb as failures – he saw them as part of a process; a “bright idea” in the end. 
  
  
• "Diets mean boring food. I won't be able to eat out and I'll miss my favourite foods."
  While it's true that you can't eat exactly as you would like, there are wide varieties of good tasting lower-fat and lower-calorie options at home and at restaurants. You just have to find ones that satisfy you. This con, like most cons, is really an excuse in disguise!

Use mini-motivators

Each goal you achieve is a mini-motivator

Setting reasonable, specific, and measurable milestone goals is a great way to keep motivated. Each goal achieved is a mini-motivator, supporting and sustaining you along the path to your final goal.

Make sure you record and reward each success along the way, no matter how small you think it is. For example, you might say that: "By January 21st, I will be eating 40 grams of fat per day." If you eat 90 grams of fat per day now and by January 21st you are eating 60 grams, you can still acknowledge your progress. Don't beat yourself up because you didn't hit 40 grams!

Acknowledge and revel in all achievements. The more successful you feel, the more successful you will be, and the greater your motivation to continue will be.