How to Lose Weight With Cognitive Motivation


A big problem for many people wanting to lose weight is the fact that most want to do it while they are still overweight. Once you've dropped a few pounds it's hard to get off, but losing ten pounds is a different story. If you have a short term attitude when you go about losing weight, you will most likely be off that diet track before you have achieved your goal. Here is what you need to know about losing weight while keeping the weight off.

why is it so hard to lose weight

You have a short-term attitude Most people who are overweight have a kind of short term attitude when it comes to their weight loss plan. All they see is that they can't lose weight in a certain amount of time and so they decide that they don't care. This is usually the hardest to break through since this kind of thinking will always maintain your weight gain as long as you live.

You have an all-or-nothing mindset Another reason why it is so hard to lose weight is because your all-or-nothing mindset keeps you focused on losing weight. When you have this all-or-nothing attitude, there is no room for compromise. It doesn't matter if you don't eat something today or if you skip a workout today, you are going to have to drop this amount of weight in order to get your body back into shape. Since your mind and body are in agreement, this type of thinking won't allow for any flexibility at all. In short, this type of mindset only allows you to fail miserably at losing weight.

We have all heard stories about people who go their entire lives without eating one meal and still maintain the weight that they had when they went on a diet. Their all-or-nothing mindset forces them to continue to eat even when they are not physically hungry. This is the mindset that got them in trouble in the first place! It's kind of like saying that you won't stop eating until you have lost ten pounds. If that were true, then no diet would work because everyone could only lose ten pounds, right? So, just because you have a strong all-or-nothing mindset prevents you from being flexible.

All-or-nothing thinking also causes many to give up before they reach their goal because they simply don't know how to motivate themselves. It's very hard to find a method of motivation that works when you are following this type of thinking. Motivation is something that can be worked at, nurtured, and developed over time. With a mindset that forces you to give up before you can achieve your goal, that's not motivation at all.

Another reason why is it so hard to lose weight is that many times we see those who have made it through a weight loss phase, and we immediately see their efforts as failures. We want to emulate their success, and give up our own attempts before we can do it ourselves. This is especially true of women. We are often blamed for being fat, thus reinforcing our belief that we must diet in order to lose weight. Once we lose weight, it's generally believed that we will keep it off because no diet will be able to keep us from being fat.

So the first step to motivation is changing the way you think about weight. You must realize that what you eat is just as important as what you do with it. If you are putting calories on before you've even had a chance to eat them, you will have very little motivation to continue. If you choose the wrong foods or fill your body with poor nutrition, this will also serve to decrease your motivation. If you take the time to pick out the right foods and make an effort to put them in front of your mind each day, it is more likely that you will keep those new healthy habits.

The second step to motivation is to find other people that you can talk to about your eating problems. There is nothing like seeing a real live person that can empathize with you and help you get your head back into the game. People that understand you and your struggle are usually more motivated than someone that just knows you have some issue. It's not always easy to find these types of people, but once you do, getting your motivation from them will be very helpful in getting you to your goal of learning how to lose weight.


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