How to feel motivated when you lose weight slowly:
It’s an exciting feeling when your pants begin to feel loose or the scale shows a lower digit (no matter how much you know the scale isn’t always the most reliable).
Still, your confidence levels rise and you stand a little taller.
It’s that feeling of succeeding and reaching closer and closer toward the end goal that keeps the motivation high.
Especially if you’re tired of feeling tired, and you don’t recognize yourself in pictures anymore.
That’s when the desire for results NOW becomes a major motivator.
That’s when it becomes complicated.
While you would love to get results quickly, you’re done with deprivation, restriction and the word “diet” all together.
You’ve done all of that in the past and it’s never lasted. Not to mention, it didn’t necessarily feel energizing, healthy or good.
If the only way to get results is to eat nothing but unseasoned chicken, egg whites or one more disgusting shake, there’s no way you’re willing to do it.
For argument’s sake, even if you were willing to do it one more time, there’s no way you’d stick with the results long term. Restriction just isn’t a sustainable way to lose weight.
You’re also done that with joint pounding workouts that feel more like a punishment than a healthy positive experience.
Besides, what’s the point of feeling sore, achy and unable to move for days?
You want the energy, the strength and the health to live every moment of life, whether that be to dance the night away, to lift the grandbabies up, or simply to lift the groceries into the car without feeling the agony of last week’s workout.
You’re at a point in life where you understand that in order break free from the on again off again fitness and weight loss cycle you’ve been doing for years and finally achieve lasting strength, optimal health and an abundance of energy in your 50’s 60’s 70’s and beyond, you’ve got to do things differently!
And learning how to do things differently, and finding what works to get results on your terms could mean you lose weight slowly.
So, if results are what drives you to continue toward your weight loss, increased strength and optimal health goals, how do you continue to feel motivated when you lose weight slowly?
These are my two favourite tactics I use, not only to sustain my own weight loss for over 20 years, but also to help hundreds of women over 50 achieve their lasting weight loss too.
Focus on the Fast Results:
This may sound contradictory but while the scale or the pant size may take it’s time, there are an abundance of fast results you’ll begin to experience almost immediately.
When you tap into those fast results, not only does it motivate you to continue, but it can heighten your pride and your confidence in a way that the scale will never do.
One fast result I know you’ll feel excited to achieve is Increased strength:
After only a few sessions of weight training, many notice a rapid increase in strength.
The workout becomes easier, the amount of weight you lift becomes higher, and your arms quickly feel firmer and more defined.
That’s why it is so important to record your workout progress and stick with the same workout for at least a few weeks when first starting a new weight training workout.
To show you how quickly you’ll achieve strength, I created a special workout you can do for the next 4 weeks.
Change The Frequency You Use the Scale:
No matter how valuable the scale may be in helping you see results, there is nothing more demotivating than working diligently towards your goals, eating healthy, working out,
but the scale decides to jump up a pound and down a pound playing with your heart and mind as you wonder “what am I doing wrong?”
Since, this time, you’re doing it differently, and creating a positive and joyful healthy life, instead of weighing yourself daily, choose to weigh yourself weekly or monthly instead.
More importantly take your measurements every 4 weeks.
Not only are measurements a better tool to gauge actual fat loss, but they can also gauge how much healthier you become.
Take your waist measurement for example. As your waistline decreases, your risk of type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease declines too.
Your waist measurement literally has the power to predict your fat loss and your health
Focus your attention on exciting, real changes that your health, your strength and your body makes even when the number on the scale says you’re losing weight slowly.
All of these uplifting changes transform a weight loss journey from what it once was (a daunting and negative experience) into an uplifting and positive experience, filled with ongoing trackable progress every step of the way.
Downloadable Your 4 week Progress sheet and workout here: