To effectively and permanently lose weight, you need to take into account two components - proper nutrition and sufficient physical activity. These two methods improve health and correct the figure. But the transition to a healthy lifestyle is most often difficult, since old habits and laziness are stronger than the desire to be healthy and slim. Therefore, if there is no willpower, a woman or girl needs strong motivation.
Choosing a motivator
Only the right motivation will help you lose weight by radically changing your diet. It is she who charges you with energy and enthusiasm, allows you to focus on the final result and achieve it by any means. Therefore, if you don’t know how to go on a diet, if you don’t have the willpower, start by making a treasured list.
Add to it all the reasons that make you struggle with excess weight. Moreover, the minimum number of points is 10. This is necessary so that as soon as one of the motivators fades at some stage, you, having looked at the list, will immediately be inspired by another.
To make the task easier, we bring to your attention several very effective motivators.
- Strengthen your health (excess weight means shortness of breath, aches throughout the body, frequent colds and other problems).
- Show off your perfect figure in a swimsuit.
- Attract the attention of men.
- Pull on your favorite jeans from your past life.
- Admire yourself in the mirror.
- Look better than your friend (neighbors, colleagues, sisters, rivals)
- Compare yourself today with your future self and be proud of the results achieved.
- Keep an online diary so that you won’t be ashamed to publish your results in front of others.
- Finally, flood social networks with beautiful photos with an ideal figure.
- Prove to your ex that you still have willpower (as well as a beautiful figure).
- Be the most stunning on the beach this summer.
- Still buy that beautiful dress in the shopping center, which is now 2 sizes too small.
To force yourself to go on a diet, read over and over again the motivators that matter to you. You wake up and dream of losing weight. When you go to work, imagine yourself looking slimmer. When you talk to a friend on the phone, think about how surprised she will be when she sees your changed figure. When you fall asleep, create images from the list you have compiled. This is the only way to achieve what you want.
As motivation, you can hang posters of slender and beautiful girls in your room and every time you get angry that you are far from them. But, as practice shows, the most severe stimulus is a photograph of your ex’s girlfriend, who has stunning curves of a delightful body... Are you weak?
From the world of stars. John Travolta (American actor) does not like diets. But the profession requires you to always be in shape. Therefore, in order to maintain his figure, he reduces the portions of his favorite dishes. If, for example, he wants a cheeseburger, he eats only half of it.
Reviews
Reviews from those who were able to motivate themselves and lost weight:
Alexandrova Anastasia
Nutrition and healthy lifestyle specialist and author of myfitnesblog.com. For many years, she has successfully helped women and men lose weight and maintain a beautiful figure.
Diet selection
The incentive has been chosen, the motivators are outlined. The next step is to choose the right diet.
- If you have eaten half a bar of chocolate every day for 25 years of your life, it is simply unrealistic to give up this habit. Therefore, approach your diet choice very wisely. Don't imagine your diet without a piece of bacon - Dukan will allow you to eat it. If you love milk, protein diets will come in handy.
- Even if you don’t have money, you can always choose a budget food option. This is not an excuse for not losing weight. Cabbage and buckwheat cost pennies.
- A mono-diet and severe hunger strikes are not your path. Avoid them. You will get nothing but breakdowns and disappointments from them.
- Choose gentle long-term regimens that guarantee slow but steady weight loss. As a rule, there is an extensive list of approved products that will allow you to withstand the test to the end.
- Create a detailed menu according to your chosen diet. Rate it: are you satisfied with this diet?
So you'll have to sift through a lot of information to come up with a diet that you can stick with until the end.
Modern reality. Unfortunately, today many young girls fanatically worship beauty standards. According to statistics, beauties who are not yet 25 years old are more afraid of excess weight than cancer, nuclear war, and even the death of their parents.
Why do breakdowns happen?
Most women who set weight loss as a goal have experienced failures.
The causes of failures are:
- Strict prohibitions in diet and habits. Abrupt removal of favorite foods from the diet or strict dietary rules provoke a breakdown. The body was no longer given its favorite foods and daily habits were denied. Example: abrupt withdrawal of sweets. This will not only affect the state of the body (it does not understand what is happening), but also the psychological state.
- Poor nutrition, strict diet. The main mistake will be choosing a diet that will help you lose 10 kg per week. It is possible to achieve this goal, but due to sudden weight loss, the body is under stress and after the diet it will gain “reserve.” Diets are not effective for long-term weight loss. Carefully consider your weight loss plan and the products you want to switch to.
- Poor motivation, lack of it. For example, during the holidays. Ill-thought-out motivation does not allow you to adjust yourself - you may not expect any effect. Start when it is determined: what is being done for and what results can actually be achieved.
It’s easier to prevent any breakdown in your diet than to set everything up all over again.
What to do and how to adjust yourself if a breakdown occurs:
- Don’t be upset, realize and return everything to the way it was. After the breakdown, spend 1-2 fasting days, arrange a protein-vegetable day or a fasting day on cereals.
- If you want something sweet, you can have kefir, fruit, honey, a little dark dark chocolate.
- In his free time, he will take care of walks or his favorite pastime. This will distract you from the thought of losing weight.
- Create a menu and lesson plan, taking into account all the details. Adjust your head and brain to your dream. You need to push all bad thoughts aside.
Failure is not scary, it’s scary and unpleasant not to reach your goal.
Preparation
Once the best diet has been chosen, you need to prepare yourself mentally and physically. At this stage, you will have to change not only your daily routine, but also your way of thinking.
Moral
- An already compiled list of motivators, which you need to review more often, will help you set yourself up for weight loss.
- Read stories of people who inspire others with their example and were able to lose 30, 40, or even more kilograms.
- Watch films about such heroes.
- Find your old photographs where you are captured as a young, slender girl without flaws, admire them. And then immediately look in the mirror and be horrified by your ugly folds of fat.
- Write down your parameters in a special diary: weight, chest, waist and hips. And next to it is the final result that you are counting on.
- Select any items from your wardrobe that are too small for you and try to fit into them.
- Enlist the support of someone (household, relatives, friends).
Physical
- Gradually train yourself to drink a lot of water - up to 2 liters per day.
- Move more: walk several stops, skip the elevator, wash the floors without mopping, etc.
- Do sports that you enjoy: aerobics, swimming, cycling, etc.
- Treat yourself to SPA treatments, tanning in the solarium, anti-cellulite massage - all this is very pleasant and at the same time will benefit the body.
- Gradually give up foods that are on the prohibited list in your diet.
If you properly prepare for a diet, this will increase the chances that you will be able to stick with it and not fall through the cracks. Much will depend on the first days.
Did you know that... the effectiveness of any diet without physical activity and exercise is almost zero?
Stages of forming the right motivation. Advice from psychologists
The lion's share of success lies in motivation, but it must be correct.
All other things being equal, the one whose motivation is stronger will always achieve greater results.
Psychologists believe that proper motivation begins with a clearly defined goal. Some people need to lose weight in order to get rid of this or that illness, others are overweight prevents them from getting a prestigious job, and others are ashamed of their obesity in front of their own child, because they want to be an example for him in everything.
Think about what your real goal is, what do you ultimately expect from the new you?
Now visualize all the pros and cons. Take a sheet of paper and divide it into two parts.
- In the first column, describe all the negativity that you experience due to excess weight: for example, the inability to wear fashionable clothes; fear of approaching the person you are interested in; shame to appear on the beach or visit the pool; shortness of breath that occurs after just a few steps, etc.
- On the second half of the sheet, write down all the benefits that you will get by getting rid of the hated kilograms.
Mikhail Gavrilov, psychotherapist, nutritionist, that the technique described above will help in the future to replace harmful pleasures - in particular, stress eating - with more useful ones that help maintain harmony.
Start of the diet
What is the best way to start losing weight so that on the second day you don’t overeat forbidden delicacies and hate yourself for being weak-willed?
- A series of holidays are not the best days to follow a diet. Guests, a feast, it’s inconvenient to refuse a treat... However, just like a vacation. Choose an ordinary period in your life, which is characterized by routine, and the upcoming celebrations will not be soon.
- As for the day of the week, it is better to start a diet on Monday - it’s so convenient to count the weeks and tie the result to them. And morally it’s easier.
- Remove all unhealthy foods from the refrigerator so they don't tempt you.
- Ask your family not to crunch on chips in front of the TV in the evening and not to invite them to a karaoke bar, where it will be difficult to refuse a glass of beer.
- Reward yourself for a day without a breakdown. Believe me: a slice of chocolate and a piece of your favorite bacon will not make you fat if all other principles are followed.
The most difficult thing during a diet is not even the feeling of hunger, which can be drowned out by the same motivators. The side effects of fasting are more difficult to deal with. For example, what should you do if your stomach has been twisting or you have a headache for several hours in a row? First, eat something - nibble on a carrot or enjoy a handful of nuts. Secondly, take a pill. If the symptoms recur the next day, you need to interrupt (temporarily!) the diet and undergo a medical examination so as not to harm your health.
Interesting fact. The fear of gaining excess weight has its own name - obesophobia.
Consider the best options for stress relief
Losing weight is always a certain stress for the body, especially considering the fact that for many people food is a favorite option for relieving accumulated nervous tension, and it’s not for nothing that the expression “eating stress” exists! However, when losing weight, “eating stress” is definitely extremely undesirable, and therefore you will have to try to choose for yourself other, much more appropriate options for getting rid of stress in this case. And it’s best to think through them in advance, even before you start losing weight, and not just think through them, but also try them out in action, and also understand that they really work!
For some, the best method of relieving stress may be knitting, for others - cross-stitching, and for others - meditation or leisurely walks in the park. In this matter, everything is very individual, so there can be no unambiguous advice and recommendations here!
Reality and expectations
In order not to break down, initially prepare yourself for the fact that there is no such thing as instant weight loss. All these express diets are a difficult test for the psyche and body, which does not end well.
There is a very useful formula. According to research, the most correct and safest weight loss is minus 1 kg per week. So determine for yourself a figure for exactly how much weight you plan to gain. 15 kg? Divide by 4 - you will have to wait about 4 months for the result. Yes, this is quite a long time, but at the same time you will initially count on this and not expect miracles. But what a joy it will be to achieve the desired effect before the designated period (this usually happens with those who are firmly committed to reaching the end).
Through the pages of history. Of the noble ladies who went down in Russian history, Princess Dashkova, an associate of Catherine II, was the first to actively lose weight on diets. She loved to arrange fasting days for herself with water and red wine.
As you can see, losing weight at home will require a lot of effort. But, re-reading the motivators, you need to understand that they are simply necessary. Stop hiding your body in baggy sweaters and looking 10 years older than your age. Stop turning off the lights every time you undress in front of your loved one and feel embarrassed about your folds on your stomach and sides. Life without the hated kilograms is a bright, beautiful wardrobe that emphasizes the ideal figure; this is the absence of complexes and a sea of admiring glances. Isn't this an incentive to go on a diet soon?
Motivation for losing weight - where to start, and how to find your true goal for losing weight?
The term “motivation” is usually used to describe a complex of individual motives that together spur a person to take specific actions.
Success without motivation is impossible, because without it, any attempts to achieve success are just self-torture. It is motivation that gives a charge of vivacity and an impetus to achieve the next step with joy and ease, with the inevitable pleasure from the very methods of achieving the goal.
But the desire to lose weight is not motivation. This is just a desire from the series “I want to go to Bali” and “I want rabbit fricassee for dinner.” And it will remain like this (“I’ll definitely start on Monday!”) until you find your motives for returning your body to a beautiful and healthy state.
What to do if the weight has risen: how to force the body to lose weight again, and to believe in a good result
Often on the way to the goal there is a plateau effect - a kind of delay in losing extra pounds, when the number on the scale is in no hurry to change, despite all our tricks. Should we panic? In no case.
- Remember that the reasons for a sudden “break” can be completely different: from the onset of menstruation to a slowdown in metabolism.
- Often, a plateau effect occurs when someone who is losing weight is addicted to diets and limits themselves in everything. Make the right diet and eat well.
- Do not overdo it with physical activity - too intense training can lead to metabolic disorders. Spare your body - choose walking, swimming or aerobics, but not the treadmill, weight training or hours of self-experimentation in the fitness club.
