Motivation

Ok, so it happened. Things were going along swimmingly, you were on top of the world and it was all falling effortlessly in to place when suddenly, there it was: temptation, smacking you in the face!

I know for some folks, having a "lose-by" date can be motivating and help keep them on track, focused.

But these dates can sometimes be a bigger obstacle than help. You may be asking the wrong questions here. Instead of asking, “How can I lose X pounds by this date?” Maybe the question should be, “How can I continue to make progress that I can maintain?"

Find out if your lose-by date is helping or hurting, and what you might focus on instead...

Guilt. It's pervasive in the life of a many a person looking to lose weight. Guilt over what you've eaten. Guilt over what you didn't eat. (Are you wasting food? Don't you remember those starving children in China your mother mentioned when you didn't clean your plate?) Guilt over skipping exercise. Even guilt over "wasting" the last X years of your life by not watching your weight. If only you had been more vigilant before, you wouldn't be in this situation. Guilt, guilt, guilt!

All that guilt is enough to make you fat. Really.

Now, I know that's a mighty big promise. And you're not reading a back issue of the Weekly World News where the next article is about Batboy mating with the alien chick. Nope. This is a one-step primer for how to totally eliminate all tempation from your life. But before we get rid of it, let's define it.

Negative self-talk hurts. It doesn’t motivate. It doesn’t clarify. It doesn’t prompt personal responsibility or better choices or more progress or any other positive outcome. Period.

This is one of those elegantly simple truths, if you ask me. It borders on a no-brainer, except that emotionally, it’s SO easy to slide into the trap—BWAP!—so maybe you should give it a second thought, Sparky.

A common dieter's disease that you see running rampant: Scale-itis. As in: How can I lose 2 kajillion pounds in three minutes? Or something along those lines.

Now I get this. I so get it. But if you stop for a second and think about where it comes from, it may change your perspective a bit.

See, it's like this: You've seen people who have EVERY SINGLE indication of being successful at losing weight, short having the scale read what they want, and what happens? Blind panic, right?

I watch people. In particular, I watch folks with weight issues deal with them. And you can see certain attitudes, opinions, and "self-stories" that seem to have a pretty strong correlation with failure rates. Now, I'm not saying I don't think you can overcome dysfunctional attitudes. You certainly can!

Answer this question as True or False for yourself: "After I lose all this yucky extra weight, I'll feel better about myself."

"What did you say to me?" -Mr. Brain

No. We're not talking about heavy sweaters!  When you're losing weight, many things change that you probably wouldn't have thought about previously. Stuff you take for granted.

[Author's Note: Now, I don't respect you any less if this is what you do. This is just how I feel about it, OK? Everybody has to find their own path, I know..]