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I believe what separates the ones that successfully lose weight and keep it off versus the ones that try but fail is their level of motivation. The ones that succeed have motivation arise life changing events. I like to call it their wake-up call.
Yesterday, I was watching the “Today Show” and they had a woman who lost 109 pounds in 3 years. She looked amazing! She looked healthy and so happy. When she told her story of always being overweight growing up and especially more after having two daughters, she mentioned what set off the trigger in her mind to want to lose weight.
Her husband was only 29 and had a heart attack. With two young daughters, she wanted to be there with her kids in the future. She saw a heart attack is possible if she kept living the life she did. So seeing the negative effects of being overweight and out of shape, she was determined to change her life around.
Three years later, she’s changed her body and changed her lifestyle. It was an amazing story and when I hear stories of individuals losing weight, the extremely successful ones have a wake up call.
Ones that I have read before:
- I can’t run around and play with my kids for more than a minute without being tired.
- I want to be there for my kids in the future.
- I see myself in the mirror and hate how I look.
- A close family member or friend has a heart attack at a young age.
- Walking for a few minutes tires me out and makes me sweat.
- I want to be a firefighter but I can’t now because I’m so overweight.
- Realizing if I don’t lose weight, I’m going to die.
In contrast, here are some weak reasons to lose weight. Any sound familiar?
- I want to fit into my wedding dress.
- It’s almost summer and I want to look good for the beach.
- My high school graduation is coming up.
- It’s my New Year’s Resolution.
Do you see the difference in importance and motivation level?
For myself, it was January 2007 when I woke up one morning, after another huge dinner, in New York City feeling the worst I’ve ever been in life.
In all my years of school, I never missed a day of school because of illness. I rarely miss days from work because of illness. So this feeling came as a shock to me. No matter how much I slept that day, I still felt tired. I know my body so I know this was not just being sleepy.
I don’t know ultimately why I felt that way because I felt better the next day. It sucked to feel that way. It was my wake-up call.
That day was three years in the making. I made bad food choices. I did not exercise. Being 5′10″, I went from 165 pounds, which has always been my comfortable weight, to a whooping 180 pounds!
Now I know that may not seem that heavy but for me that made me feel uncomfortable, my pants were tight, I hadn’t been sleeping well, I had low energy and felt more stress in my life. I probably would have gotten up to 200 pounds if another three years went by doing the same thing.
Fast forward to 2 months later. I lost 15 pounds. Ran a 10K race. Felt confident. Had more energy. Felt happier with myself. To this day, I’ve gone back up to 180 pounds because I’ve added muscle without adding fat to my body.
Where is your wake-up call?
You don’t need to wait for a wake-up call to happen in your life. Start examining your life and find major reasons losing weight would be good for you. Think of the positives. Think of what it would be like to be down to your ideal weight.
Think about how you want to be in the future. Do you want to be sick all the time? Always seeing the doctor? Tired? Knees and back always in pain? I don’t think so.
If you want to make that dramatic change, you have to have that major motivation. Temporary motivation will just be that when it comes to losing weight. Temporary.
The truly successful ones examine their lives and find reasons they want to lose weight and keep it off for life. Successful people make these changes a daily habit, therefore it’s easier to maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle.
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At 185 pounds I was always fatigued. ALWAYS! Then I saw picture of my fat leg. People kept lying and said I didn’t look fat. After all, I birthed chidren? Well now that I’m almost 40 pounds lighter, those same people tell truth. “Yeah, Josie, you were fat.” Well thanks a lot , people!