Hardest part?

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To help you find alternative solutions to food, its is necessary to look at two types of motivation: negative and positive motivation.

Positive motivation: All the good reasons you have for changing your behaviour – look slimmer, more energy, etc.

Negative motivation: All the reasons you have to continue with the behaviour. This is what locks unwanted (consciously) behaviour in place. It tends to be more powerful than positive motivation and it must be transformed to bring about lasting change in behaviour. The behaviour is fulfilling some emotional need in the person. You either have to transform the emotions that are driving the behaviour and /or find a new way of meeting the emotional need.


It is helpful to think of this process as a balance scales. There are needs on both sides of the scale and the side with the greater needs tilts the scale to behave in one way or the other. The greater the emotions linked to the reasons to behave in a certain way, the more it exerts pressure on the scales.

An example of a temporary change in thinking with an emotional charge: A girl who is overweight with bad eating habits is getting married in six months time. She has a great desire to look slim in her wedding dress, so she goes on a diet. The emotion involved exerts pressure on the positive motivation side, so it tilts the scale to good eating habits and she loses weight for the wedding day. Her mind was prepared to temporarily suspend the benefits from overeating due to overpowering need to be slim for the wedding day. However, now that the need to be slim for the wedding day is over, the need to use food to deal with everyday negative emotions comes into play again and tilts the scales again.

The girl didn’t just want to lose weight for her wedding but EXPECTED that she could do it due to the importance of the day – so she succeeded.
 
For me it's most definitely the motivation. I feel like I have all the knowledge that I need in order to succeed, but it's extra difficult for me to actually propel myself into changing my habits and into a healthier future.

Celebrating small victories seems to work for me and helps with motivation. I know 'one day at a time' seems cliche, but our lives are made up of the choices that we make, and if we can make healthy choices and celebrate the small victories on a daily/smaller scale, pretty soon we will wake up and realize that all those choices have shaped us into healthy individuals leading healthy lives.

Just rambling at this point :blush5:
 
2016Aga said:
What would you say is harder: knowing what to eat/exercise or having the motivation to do what you know you should? For me it was the avoidance of sugary temptation!
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I think it's the second one :) I noticed from my own experience that knowing what to do is a really pleasant thing, you aren't scared and so on, you feel the motivation... But then somewhere in the middle you feel the lack of motivation, lack of your will and how dificult is to continue... :eek: I remember how I fought with this problem as also with my laziness during visiting the gym, the one thing which I liked there among all others was , it helped me have fun and be motivated at the same time :D But there were also such days when I wanted almost nothing... And the hardest was to overcome that periods without loosing your productive way :whistle: Because if yes, you need to begin from the start again :ambivalence:
 
The hardest part which I have in order to lose weight is the laziness. I think I'm better off with this mentality - "I will do it tomorrow". I have started slow and taken some healthy foods in recent years. Now I have lost about 4 KG in a money by exercising and drinking organic fruit juices.
 

Motivation is so important, you should never start a weight loss program unless that motivation is high and you are ready.

The first of my four previous programs, my motivation was my wedding day, not wanting to look like a blimp on the photos that would last a lifetime.

The next three programs and the current program (No5) were driven by my extreme discomfort and the thought of how much worse it would be if I was as large as some of the people I see around me. When the last hole on my belt started to become elongated, then I knew it was time to start.

Holding the weight at bay is the difficult part. Due to inexperience, after the first two programs the weight came back fairly quickly. After the third program I lasted 17 years before I declared defeat. Half way through the fourth program a contract job came up and I was living in a hotel in China, with very little control over my diet. Boredom, beer and take-a-way meals took its toll.

After the contract finished, I controlled my weight with constant monitoring and even lost 5Kg over some 9 months, but I was not ready to start a full program. Then one day I wrote a long article for Facebook, it was too long to post there and too good to waste so I created a website and used it as the first post. I was now ready to start the current program.

Motivation is also very important during the program:

My 'before' photo is pinned on the wall where I can see it all day long.

I record data and draw graphs of everything.

I set myself mini-targets but keep them flexible so that there is never any disappointment if I miss a target.

I also record all the milestones between targets: a new belt notch, a new kilogram number, 5Lbs, half a stone, a new BMI number and so on. This way I generally have something to smile about every week.

I also keep a daily diary on my website and post a few articles. This is for my own motivation and interest, there are no members. I occasionally post a link to FB and soak up on the encouragement of friends and family all over the world. I thrive on people noticing, a few days ago, my motorbike taxi rider noticed that I had lost a lot of weight. People noticing feels especially good and provides strong motivation to continue.

Even my avatar is motivational. I update the sugar pyramid every time I click over a new kilogram. I imagine loading the bags of sugar into a back pack and wearing it 24/7, this reminds me how I used to feel and puts the achievement into perspective.

Latch on to every piece of motivation you can find, invent your own. Keep driving forwards towards your goal, the ultimate motivation.

Dave

 
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For me, the hardest part is the motivation. I know what I should and shouldn't be doing but when it comes to actually doing it, there's a little voice in my head that says, "Do it tomorrow, enjoy this ____ tonight." I struggle at nights mostly, and I need to overcome the demon in my ear telling me that tomorrow will be a better day to exercise/eat better/go to bed on time because with that attitude, tomorrow never comes.
 
Well, if you have a motivation, there is no problem with knowledge in modern world)) But the main thing you must realise what you really need))
 
For me motivation as well. But I have started to use some sports tracker with social functions, so my friends motivate my and I motivate them.
Additionally I have started to write some blog about my case, and it also gives big portion of motivation.
As I remember, at the beginning of this year, I fought against my lazy soul - I thought: should I do something or not, should I go out the house or stay in bed? And usually I stayed at home:(
Now after few months I can't stand lack of activity - I just have to go out to the fresh air, doesn't matter what kind of weather is it. I lost 16 kilograms (I was 102 kg at the beginning of the year), and every step is more and more easy.
 
A bit of both for me but mainly motivation.. Also money is a factor, when I get to the shop I see all the easy and cheap ready meals and pizzas and it's more expensive to buy e.g a pack of chicken plus all the extras for a stirfry. But it always comes down to the motivation for me, I start of well but after a few weeks one treat turned into 20 and before I know it I'm back to square one.
 
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