The Best Ways to Motivate Yourself to Lose Weight

Don’t feel bad if you have trouble losing weight. If you can’t do it yourself, joining a weight loss support group or losing weight with a friend can help with motivation. Beware of popular “fad” diets that offer a quick fix. Instead make permanent lifestyle changes like eating more fruits and vegetables as well as exercising regularly. A healthy and reasonable goal for weight loss is 1 to 2 pounds per week.

Write in a Food Diary: Double your weight loss when you keep a detailed food diary according to a Kaiser Permanente study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the August 2008 issue of the “American Journal of Preventative Medicine.” Writing down what you eat motivates you to consume fewer calories, said Jack Hollis PhD the lead author of the study. Participants turned in the food diaries at weekly support meetings and followed the heart healthy eating program called Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. A control group followed the same protocol without writing in a food diary. The intervention resulted in an average weight loss of 13 pounds for the 1,700 participants.

Join a Weight Loss Support Group:
Frequently attending a weight loss support group motivates participants to lose weight according to a Weight Watchers study published in the May 2010 issue of the “American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.” The 61 overweight and obese adults who completed a six month group program and went to at least two-thirds of the scheduled group sessions lost an average of 14 pounds.

Lose Weight With a Partner: Participating in a weight loss program with a partner who successfully loses at least 5 percent of their body weight motivates you to lose more weight than if your partner loses less than 5 percent of their body weight, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The results of the study, published in the October 2009 issue of the “Archives of Internal Medicine,” compared participants who enrolled in a weight loss program with a partner with those who enrolled alone. Overall, after six months in the study those who enrolled with a partner lost between 11 to 13.2 lbs, while those who enrolled alone lost between 6.6 to 8.8 lbs.

Beat Your Weight Loss Plateau: During a weight loss program people commonly experience weight loss plateaus. Maintaining motivation through these periods may prove difficult. To get through your weight loss plateau, measure your success in more than just the amount of pounds lost. A healthy weight loss program combines a healthy diet with exercise. For motivation, focus on how much faster or farther you can walk since you first started and maintain your progress. Read your strength training diary and congratulate yourself on becoming stronger and losing inches from your waist and other problem areas. During a weight loss plateau, congratulate yourself on sticking to your diet although you may not be seeing immediate results.

*Feel free to post a link to this weight loss article on your blog or website.

Resources:

1. Medical News Today: Want To Lose Weight? Keep A Food Diary
2. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine: Type 2 Diabetes Risk Reduction in Overweight and Obese Adults

3. Trial of Family and Friend Support for Weight Loss in African American Adults


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