Most of us need to stick to a plan or system to achieve our goal, especially when we are talking about such a delicate subject like weight loss. It is not only delicate but also very hard to approach. It's pretty easy to declare that tomorrow (next week, next month, next year or choose other option) you begin to work on your weight loss program - diet, work out, fast or whatever. But it's really hard to reach the finish - the place where you want to be by the end of the weight loss race. Just in a couple of weeks or even days you start thinking out different reasons to take a break in your diet or not to go to the gym this evening. You provide to yourself bazillion of reasonable (like you think) excuses for that eaten by you piece of delicious cake.
Therefore, I would like to share with you a method to motivate yourself to lose weight which I successfully used by myself. The method helped me to carry all the way out and to get the fantastic shape I was dreaming about since college. The system I am talking about has "the carrot and the stick" approach in its basis.
Here how it works: you make a small plan by dividing your weight loss program into many smaller steps, let's say checkpoints. When you reach the next checkpoint, you get rewarded. But if you get back to the previous checkpoint, you get punished. By the way, you are the one who is going to take everything under control. If you don't trust yourself, you can ask your friend, room-mate or another person you trust.
Feel free to use all the potential of your creativity to think out rewards and punishments suitable for you personally. It is the most important point in the whole system. Rewards need to be really motivational. They need to challenge you to reach the next checkpoint. Punishments need to be unpleasant enough to push you forward. But at the same time not so hard to make you feel feared. Don't overdo:)
And the last point I'd like to talk about is time. It is much more effective to set time frame for each section of your system. How much time you are going to spend overcoming each stage you should define by yourself. You can find some info in the Internet to have some idea about possible time range. But the best way in my opinion is to set time range by yourself. You can try to reach the first or the first two checkpoints without any time limitations and see how it goes and how much time takes.
In conclusion I want to show how it may look like:
- 01 Aug 2010, 210 pounds Award: brand new 17" HD display laptop (I dreamed about) Punishment: living without TV, DVD and computer games.
- 21 Aug 2010, 190 pounds Award: Trip to London to a soccer match Punishment: personal car selling and 2 months of public transport using
Something like that. As you can see, I give myself 3 weeks to lose 20 pounds. If I lose them and reach the mark of 190 pounds, I reward myself. But if I don't reach the mark of 190 within 3 weeks or get back behind that mark later, I punish myself. Pretty simple and effective!
5 Tips to Make Yourself Motivated [http://www.motivationtoloseweightblog.com/17/5-tips-to-maintain-your-motivation-to-lose-weight]
Motivation to Lose Weight Blog [http://www.motivationtoloseweightblog.com/] - tips and tricks how to maintain your motivation and get into shape easily!
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