Weight Loss Goals

How to Stick to Weight Loss Goals

Every day there are people making a commitment to lose weight. The sad fact is that most of them have tried dozens of times before and will try dozens of times again. The weight loss industry is huge and the only way any industry gets huge is by having hundreds of regular customers. So how can you give yourself the best chance to stick to your weight loss goals?

Make any goal you set out to achieve... achievable. That may sound obvious but ask any trainer at a gym and they will tell you stories of new members starting out with huge enthusiasm, then quitting after a couple of visits. If you have taken no exercise at all for several years you are not going to run a marathon in a month. Start from where you are and add a little each week. This applies to starting an exercise program or starting a diet. Start out with an extreme change and you are unlikely to stick to it.
Make your reason as strong as possible. Once you have decided you want to lose weight write down every reason you can think of. It may help to list your reasons under categories. Health. Fitness. How you feel about how you look... Once you have your list pick out strong reasons and make them as real as possible. Use photographs or medical evidence of the effects of obesity to strengthen your resolve. Remember how it was to be able to run up the stairs. Make a scrap-book of your reasons and the evidence that backs your wish to lose weight.
Set out your goal as a series of small steps rather than one major goal. Your motivation will be lifted each time you reach a small accomplishment. Mix up the ways that you will measure your success. It is a fact that weight loss is rarely regular. You will lose some and then gain a little. Sometimes your weight loss will plateaux. But all the time the numbers on your scales are fluctuating you will be passing other measures of success. Maybe your trousers are looser, or your get into that size? Or you walk up the stairs without needing ten minutes of recovery time.
Get a team of supporters behind you or even working alongside you. This is one of the ways that weight loss clubs work. The social pressure will motivate you to carry on. Let a supportive partner or friend know your goal for the week - you won't want to have to tell them you didn't make it. But make sure you set the goal as one that is achievable 2 - 3 pounds is sensible for a week.
Protect yourself from the negative. There will always be those that sneer at another's efforts. Just recognise that they have their own reasons to knock your success. Maybe they tried and failed. Allow any criticism to strengthen your resolve. It is very satisfying to prove a critic wrong.
Never give up... change. If things are not going well it is not the time to give up it is the time to change. Mixing up the way you cut back on calories of the way you are burning them off is a great way to keep up your progress. It's too easy to give up if your progress slows, but changing could be just the thing your need to kick-start further loss.
Have a reward that you are heading for. Once you get to your target weight how are you going to celebrate. I read a great cost free way of motivating yourself with a real tangible goal. Go visit your favourite store and pick out an outfit you will buy. Pick it up in the size you want to be. Touch it and imagine how you will look when you have slimmed to that size. Make that image real. If clothes are not your thing then choose something else that you will do when you have slimmed. Make those pictures of you as a slimmer self as real as you can.

And the most important step of all? Keep taking action. Weight loss can be a long journey but if you stick to taking action you will continue on that journey to success.

If you would like more motivation and practical help go to http://weightlossadvice4.blogspot.com/ where I have gathered together my favourite Tips and Strategies for losing weight in the real world