Tag Archives: motivation

Weight Control – The Facts Make It Easy – Part I

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If you know what to do, then why CAN’T you control your weight?

The simple answer to the question is motivation, because everyone knows how to lower their weight – everyone. Yes, ALL adults know (albeit many are in denial) that their undesirable or oversized fat stores are a result of eating or drinking more than they need. Therefore, everyone knows the one and only answer is to eat less, move more or a combination of the two – hello!

I travel and lecture all over the world and I have yet to meet an adult who truly doesn’t know that they’re overweight because they eat or drink too much. Nor have I met a person who wants to become overweight. So why is the majority of the adult population overweight? The first part of the answer is that people can’t see or feel daily weight changes. The average adult gains 1-3LBS per year, or in daily numbers, ~1/365 -1/182LBS per day (or an average of 10 to 30 calories per day more than you burn). This leads to the second part. Body fat creeps up so slowly it’s easy to ignore it until you’re forced to put energy into losing weight – and the perceived effort, which is any weight loss program or method, requires motivation. Motivation to change your lifestyle means motivation to change your behavior, and it requires lots of thinking, planning, actions and sometimes counseling.  And the method you choose may not fit your lifestyle, which means you ultimately achieve weight regain. Yet, as previously mentioned, you DO know why you are overweight.

How do we lower the need for motivation?

Let’s go back to where we started. You are overweight because you ate more than you moved, meaning more than necessary. You also know that now you need to eat less and/or move more to fix it. Okay, nowhere in this conversation did anyone tell you what to eat or how to move, right? So what’s the simple answer to reversing the problem WITHOUT life-changing or threatening motivation?

You CAN eat ANYTHING you want – you just CAN’T eat EVERYTHING you want

Meaning, do what you do but just a little less and/or a little more. Reverse the behaviors that got you here. That’s right, no lifestyle change is required, just a minor adjustment. The rest will take care of itself. As soon as you make a big deal out of losing weight, you take your first step toward failure.

To succeed you only have to pay attention to a number, but you need to know what that number is.

You WON’T manage what you CAN’T see and you CAN’T manage what you DON’T know

To successfully achieve your goal weight YOUR way, you need to know how many calories you use every day so you know how many you can eat to lose weight or not get fat. Now you have something to manage that’s controllable daily: simple numbers.  And remember, numbers don’t lie.

Motivation will come from seeing body fat coming or going in real time at any time — hourly, daily, weekly, etc.  When you can SEE your daily body fat gains and losses, it’s simple to manage them because it doesn’t take much effort to eat one less bite or take 10 extra steps to stay on track. The “icing on the cake” is that you will actually be motivated by having visibility into real time changes in your body fat. When you use a flexible program like dotFIT Me, you can view hourly and daily changes in weight and body fat as opposed to waiting until they are confirmed by the scale or change in clothing size. Flexibility is critical to your success.  We’ll explain why and how in Part 2.

Desire, Motivation and Follow Through

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Have you ever imagined what it would be like to win the lottery? When you hear of some lucky person winning $100 million, does your mind begin formulating a list of all of the things you would buy? The places you would go? The things you would do? Mine does. I have told my wife many times that if I ever show up to the house out of the blue in a brand new Aston Martin, that I have obviously won the lottery. Here’s the kicker though; I never purchase lottery tickets. So, what is the likelihood that I will win it? Slim to none and slim just left in my Aston Martin.  What does any of this have to do with fitness? Well, I have talked with hundreds of people over the years who have very specific fitness goals. They talk about how they would love to lose 10, 20, 50 pounds. They would love to have a smaller midsection or a butt and thighs that were not so flabby. Often, I hear these comments while they are in the process of doing things that are taking them farther from their goal, not getting them closer. While ordering dessert after pizza “I wish I could wear my bikini at the pool party, but I’m too out of shape”. It happens often and it makes me scream….on the inside.

Changing your current circumstance takes three simple things: desire, motivation and follow through. Most everyone gets the first part. They have the desire to change. They have a crystal clear idea of what they would like to look like. There may even be motivation. They join a gym, start a diet or make a verbal commitment by telling everyone they know that they are going to lose weight. But, like my failure to buy a lottery ticket, no true action is taken. There is a lack of follow through. Thinking about fitness will not make it come true. It takes action. Showing up to your workouts, scheduling time for yourself and not cheating yourself out of that time is follow through. Not giving into every temptation (and they are everywhere, always) and eating what is better for you, not just what tastes great, that is follow through.

A wise man once said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Take that first step. At least you will be moving toward something rather than standing still. Make a commitment for 30 days to do what you know is right and under no circumstance waver from your commitment. Heck in my case, I’m 42 years old…it is only a .2% commitment of my life. Why do I ask for 30 days? Because it will give you an opportunity to establish new habits and patterns. My experience shows me that habits tend to be self-perpetuating. Do the right thing (or at least do better) for 30 days and it will feel weird if you deviate from it. It becomes easier to stay the course.

So, enough of thinking of making a change, MAKE a change.