The misunderstood psychology of weight loss — how to lose 30 pounds PART 3

Why?

Before you do anything, you need to figure out why you want to lose weight (or put on muscle). You need a compelling “why”. This is the psychological part of weight loss you’ll never hear about in an infomercial, but it’s the driving force behind the stunning physical transformations you see on shows like The Biggest Loser. Without your “why”, you’ll yo-yo diet and put all of the weight back on within a few months. Guaranteed.

Your “why” is something that should make you cry if you can’t have it some time in the future. It should be EMOTIONAL. It should be something you feel. It needs to be bigger than “Look good at the beach”. The thought of not having it should steer you away from temptation (because you will slip up, many, many times) and shock you into action when you feel lazy.

It should also be measurable and time bound. So what’s a good “why”? Here are a few you might want to use:

·         Get back to my college weight of [weight] so I can FEEL strong, confident and fit again by December 31st 2016

·         Be a ROLE MODEL for my kids and make them PROUD of me by losing 45 pounds in 2016 and keeping it off for life

·         Lose 45 pounds by December 31st 2016, so I can TEACH others how to do what I’ve done

·         ENJOY watching my kids grow up and have enough ENERGY to chase them around the house by losing 45 pounds in 2016

·         Get in shape by losing 45 pounds to FINISH the 2016 New York marathon

·         COMPETE in an all-natural body building contest in 2017 with body fat of < 7%

Before I got started losing weight back in 2008, I found a photo of me from 4 years earlier. I was about 30 pounds lighter and was in good shape. So my “why” revolved around that photo — “Lose 30 pounds and then gain 20 pounds of muscle by the end of 2010 so I look BETTER, have EVEN MORE ENERGY and FEEL AS GOOD as I did in that photo”. I kept that photo in my wallet and looked at it every day for motivation. And it worked. Really well.

https://medium.com/personal-growth/the-misunderstood-psychology-of-weight-loss-how-to-lose-30-pounds-in-2016-c26fbd8e16f3