Self-Improvement Psychology
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Weight Loss Motivation
Getting Weight Loss Motivation
Let your brain help you lose weight
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
~Viktor E. Frankl
When it comes to weight loss motivation, there are several different reasons to lose weight. None of which matter if none of them actually push you to get yourself in shape.
I bet you already know that being overweight is going to send you to a miserable, early death punctuated by shame and loneliness. You already know how hard it is to get a date being overweight. You are well aware that if you don’t have it already, you are on the road to diabetes.
You’ve probably known all of this since you were old enough to say “no” yet you’re still struggling to lose a few pounds and keep it permanent. Contrary to what most of us believe, humans are born with very little useful willpower (but an overabundance of guilt).
So how do you find weight loss motivation if you have no willpower. I advise a two step approach: automate your eating and work on willpower.
How do I automate eating?
“…And what the heck are you talking about?” The answer is simple, diets do a whole bunch of telling us what to do. Does anybody like being told what to do? They say you have to eat all protein. They say you have to eat a bunch of cabbage. They say you have to boost metabolism by eating a bunch of cayenne pepper. Blah blah blah.
After a week of eating only meat or only cabbage, you’ll be ready to freak out and will have completely diminished any weight loss motivation you might have had. This brings us to automating this part.
Do you know how many calories you need per day? Do you know what that looks like? The problem with most diets is that it will tell you how many nutrients are in broccoli, but it never really lets you know that you can switch it up with asparagus or many other similar veggies. Or it might be helpful to know that you can substitute certain kinds of pork with that boring serving of chicken you have been eating every single day.
What if you could know all of the equivalencies of similar foods? What if you could do that for over 13 THOUSAND different foods? Do you think you would get sick of your “diet” then? Do you think you could turn this into a lifestyle instead of the next weight loss roller coaster ride?
There is an amazing bit of software called Meal Plans 101 that allows you to pick the foods you want to eat and build a weight loss plan around that. It’s so simple and intuitive that it becomes a habit way before you have a chance to get sick of it.
The magic of automating what you eat is that you stop obsessing over what you are going to eat next. Eating then becomes a function of living and not something that rules over you.
Working on willpower
The next giant step in weight loss motivation is actually doing something about the problem with willpower. We all have what is called a “triune brain.” What that means is that there are three different parts of our brain: the “lizard brain” which is basically all of your insticts. Lust, hunger, desire, and safety are some of the functions here. The next is the “monkey brain” or the emotional side. This takes care of love and fear among many others. The last part is our human or rational brain. This is where all the higher reasoning comes from.
Have you ever wondered how you are such a smart person, yet you don’t even have enough weight loss motivation to even lose 10 pounds for longer than a month? You chow down a bag of Doritos feeling guilty the entire time…
Much of this ravenous desire stems from our caveman days. Back then, you ate when there was food. If the tribe killed a mastodon, you had to eat the whole thing fast. There were no refrigerators and you had no idea the next time a kill would happen. So our instinctual brain tells us, “There’s still food on your plate… Don’t know when we’ll eat again, buddy!” Even though your rational brain knows you can eat whenever and wherever you want.
Your rational brain can’t figure out why it can’t stop eating so it rationalizes it to appease the emotional part of your brain, “I did a great job on that report today so I really deserve to eat this tub of caramel ice cream.”
The cycle only continues until the next time you hit a low point and make a resolution (a definite one this time) and get some serious weight loss motivation.
That is until something seriously decadent plops on your plate. All bets are off again. Now you feel guilty and decide to punish yourself with even more food.
It’s a horrible way to live (but you don’t need me to tell you that). So what are you gonna do? What makes this time different from all the others. What is going to give you some serious weight loss motivation?
This can only come from you.
Get the willpower to succeed
The best weight loss motivation is kicking your lizard brain in the teeth and letting the rational brain take over. Add to that the monkey brain who’s sick of feeling so badly about yourself all the time and you’ve got yourself some resolve!
Resolve doesn’t just happen because you say it does. You need to dig deep into your psyche and do a little psywar on the instinctual part of your brain.
And given how we love the ability to automate this process, we’re going to point you to another piece of fabulous software: The ACTION Machine is like having your own little valet to remind you of all the things you need to do during the day. Not only will it crush your procrastination, you can make sure it trains you to learn how to eat so your body never feels hungry.
You can also have it remind you to plan your meals on Meal Plans 101!
The simple secret to weight loss motivation
That’s all you need, two things that will help you shed the pounds, keep them off, and become a super hottie: get smart about food, and solid willpower.
Of course you can do both of these on your own, or use any type of system that involves both aspects of weight loss motivation, but combining these two does something that up until now you’ve never been able to do. And that is to take the food completely out of the process. When you don’t have to think about anything you eat, the food no longer is the issue because you got two powerful computer systems letting you know what yummy food you get to eat next is.
You’ve tried all the hard ways, now do something that really is easy and will give you all the weight loss motivation you need to make it work this time… finally and forever.