What is it that drives you to keep going?
How do you do it?
Again, these are questions that people have been asking me.
Believe me, there's been more than a few occasions when I have felt like jacking in my efforts to get fit and lose weight. There are days when I can't be bothered and quite frankly, I cannot face going to the gym or to a class. Days when I don't want to get out of bed half an hour early so that I can get a quick workout in before I go to work. There are nights when I don't want to have to think about what I'm going to be eating the next day. Days when I've got PMS or work is getting to me and all I want to do is go home and bury my face in a big dirty bowl of pasta. But I make myself do what I need to. I have found that if I didn't shift my lazy butt and get on with it, I regretted it afterwards, not a good feeling!
I usually have a quick word with myself or a little pep talk, reminding me how good I will feel once I actually get through whatever I need to and that if I don't get up and do it, the scales won't be shifting the next time I stand on them. At the end of the day, the onus is on me, no one else is going to do the hard work for me.
The encouragement from my friends and family has been a great driving force for me to keep going. When enough people tell you that you are looking great or that they can see a real difference in you, you eventually start to believe it. I've never been very good at accepting compliments, probably because I never really believed them before. Nowadays, when someone tells me how good I am looking I say thanks with a big smile on my face because I feel great.I think proving to myself that I can do this has been my biggest motivation. In the past I would get so far, but once the weight loss would slow down or stop, I would give in and go back to my old habits. This time there is a real difference. In seeing the results I am getting it has spurred me on to keep going. I was fed up with failing and reverting to my old ways, I had to prove to myself that I could do it for once. I feel so good these days that I can't imagine ever going back to the way things were. And because I know that I can and am doing it, it gives me so much more self-belief, not only in reaching my weight loss and fitness goals, but in other aspects of my life.
I think if you have a lot of weight to shift it is easy to get caught up in the mammoth mountain ahead of you. Instead split your big amount into small chunks, it makes it seem more managable and achievable in your head. I remember going to Weight Watchers and Scottish Slimmers for the first time and standing on the scales and the class manager saying I was 4 stones away from my ideal weight, that makes it seem a daunting and inobtainable goal, I remeber thinking I may as well give up before I even start, i'll never be able to do that.
I've learned that there's a benefit in breaking it up. I always aim to shift 1/2 a stone each month. When you think about it, 1/2 a stone is nothing, 7lbs over four or 5 weeks is only 1-2 lbs per week which is more than achievable. In achieving the small goals it all adds up and before you know it, a few months down the road, you are totting up stones.
Set realistic and achievable goals!
Don't give up when the going gets tough!
Don't make excuses, get on with it!
Embrace the pain, you will learn to love it!
Believe in yourself!
& most importantly ...
STAY POSITIVE!
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