We are increasingly seeing women with very round shapes on the streets of cities. If they were previously estimated to be over the age of 45, now more and more young girls under the age of 30 are also suffering from the problem of being overweight. Improper nutrition, a sedentary lifestyle make a mark on our appearance, sometimes more strongly than genetics.
Surprisingly, many young women don’t even think about taking health and weight loss seriously, they think it’s too difficult, or on the contrary, too easy a process: you just have to want it - and the fat itself disappears. But this is not the case at all. And the sooner we start to control our weight, the easier it is to keep it at normal levels.
How do you motivate yourself to lose weight, what goals do you set for yourself, where do you have to start so as not to ruin and bring the matter to an end? After all, not only is weight loss important, but also the long-term consolidation of low weight to make it the norm.
How not to start losing weight
Suppose you are serious about losing weight. Sports and diet immediately come to mind. And then comes the cherished Monday when you start a new life, enroll in the gym, give up buns, sweets, eat only vegetables and cereals without salt, torture yourself with daily physical exertion.
Then a couple of weeks will pass, there will be some holiday - and you will be smashed. After all, 1 slice of cake, 1 missed sports day does not affect anything. "I'll fix it later, " you think, taking the second piece of candy.
After such interruptions, it will be harder to train in the gym next time, I would really like to feel sorry for myself, reduce the load. After that, you’ll skip a few more workouts, skip it all weekend, and have a barbecue in nature. The enthusiasm gradually wears off, the sport is not a pleasure, it becomes a strenuous activity, it is becoming more and more difficult to follow the diet, and the pounds lost in the first weeks return.
This is the most losing weight loss scenario: start exercising with great enthusiasm and lose weight intensely, then relax. After that, few can start over.
To prevent this from happening, you need to lose weight gradually. It is forbidden to limit yourself to eating until the loss of consciousness, as well as to exercise with the last little effort. And the biggest key to success is the right motivation! The stakes should not be placed so much on refusing to eat as on sports and regular training.
Motivation is the key to success in losing weight
Now let’s see where the right weight loss process begins, which can easily become a habit, a lifestyle, and doesn’t require extreme effort or excessive restraints.
How do you motivate yourself to lose weight? There are a number of simple guidelines for this:
- Remember the reason the thought of being overweight came to mind. For example, a badly convex belly in his favorite outfit, failed photos, a feeling of great inner discomfort in the background of thin friends. The desire to dislike the opposite can be an important stimulus. Or maybe you’re terrified of the start of the summer season and afraid to undress on the beach?
- Once the main causes of the desire to lose weight are realized, you will feel very uncomfortable with these extra pounds. Decide for yourself if you are just starting to lose weight, forget the mystical "next Monday"!
- On this day, change your diet, make sport a daily activity! Find out about fitness centers near your home, buy a subscription to one.
- Discard any food that appears useless, harmful, or unhealthy from the refrigerator without regret. Just be guided by your own logic. In the future, as you expand your knowledge of proper nutrition, the habit of buying exclusively healthy foods will become imperative. After a few months of such life, it will be hard to imagine how it was possible to eat what is now on the shelves of the fridge!
- Print your ugliest photo, hang it next to a photo of the shape of your dreams. If you have an irresistible urge to eat something very high in calories at night, check out these photos.
- Repeat to yourself: a delicious cake will only stay in your mouth for a few minutes and in your belly for several weeks. Remember that 100 grams of sweets is a minimum of 30 minutes of intense sports activity!
- Make sports an integral part of your life. In the beginning, you force yourself to go to the gym. But if you don’t give up, you’ll defeat yourself, in a month or two it will be hard to imagine your life without training!
- Start buying smaller, pretty clothes. If you cut in, that's a great incentive!
- Reconcile with your conscience. Don't test your willpower. If you just crave something unbearable or unhealthy, eat it. Only such "weaknesses" can rarely occur, as an exception, for example, if you reward yourself for a longer practice.
- Avoid rigid diets. The main rule to follow every day is, "The number of calories consumed with food should be less than the number spent in the gym. "
Sport is the most important factor in successful weight loss
For those with a good metabolism and a moderately active lifestyle, sport is not as important as for those prone to being overweight.
Normal daily activities of thin people are enough to restore energy balance. But if you are already overweight, sports should become a regular and mandatory activity, such as brushing your teeth.
If you’re new to the sports field, it’s best to train with a coach for the first few months. It tells you how to organize your day properly, describes proper physical activity, diet, and teaches you how to use training equipment safely.
When you start exercising, keep in mind that each workout should start with warming up all the muscles for 10 minutes and end with stretching and stretching.
It is advisable to alternate strength training with aerobic exercises to provide 1-2 days of rest for different muscle groups after strength training.
The most effective, energy-intensive exercises are interval training, cross-fit, and complex sports activities in which all muscle groups are involved.
Every time the sport gets annoyed when you get tired of your workout, think about your favorite dessert. This is one way of good internal motivation. If you are actively exercising, burning 600-900 kcal per workout, you can afford 50-100 grams of cookies or dark chocolate. After all, the caloric content of such sweets is 2-3 times lower than your energy costs.
The right diet for weight loss and active sports can look like this:
- Morning - carbohydrate, high calorie food. I prefer slow carbs.
- Lunch: fruits, sweets, proteins.
- Lunch: protein and some fat.
- Before sports training - fast carbohydrates + quality proteins.
- After sports - protein food. Remove fats, fast carbs.
You should eat 4-5 times a day, give up snacks between meals, be sure to eat before sports.
Final recommendations
The key to improving motivation during weight loss is to see the first results. They usually appear only 1, 5-2 months after the change in the usual rhythm of life and become an integral part of the sport.
With some nutritional restrictions, there will be no noticeable improvement with 3-4 workouts a week at first. This period will be the most difficult. After all, I had to give up so much, it’s so hard to do, and the result is zero. But if you persevere in the first weeks, the pounds will start to melt from the second month. Believe me, this will be the best motivation to continue this lifestyle!
Try to surround yourself with like-minded people, strong people who pursue the same goals. Together, it is much easier to follow the right diet, to observe the training process.
Remember, a positive attitude, a strong desire, sports and maintaining a negative calorie balance is really all that is needed to successfully overcome the problem of being overweight!