Does Your Motivation to Diet Run Out Too Soon? Discover How to Keep Motivation High

Starting a diet is exciting - you are finally doing something about this problem that has been bothering you for so long. The first week requires quite a change in diet but the work is worthwhile because you drop 5 pounds! Your motivation is high and you feel psyched about the prospect of having a new body.

Unfortunately after the first week your weight loss progress tends to slow making it hard to stay motivated, you begin going through the "dieting motions" and your focus slowly shifts away from "How great life will be when you are at your goal weight" to "What can and can't I eat?" It is this shift in focus that causes many to quit a diet before its time.

In order to succeed at any goal you must keep your eye on the prize. You must have a clear picture in your mind's eye of what you want to accomplish and be able to vividly picture how enhanced your life will be when you hit that goal. Visualizing is an exercise used by business people, actors and pro- and Olympic athletes; it is what drives them to work hard and reach their goals. The road to reaching your goal is no different, you might not be focused on winning an Academy Award or hitting a home run in game seven of the World Series but you are setting out to accomplish something few other people do; lose weight and keep it off. Therefore, you have to work as hard mentally as you do physically.

When you have been dieting for awhile it is easy for your focus to drift toward the day to day tasks that come with weight loss: you must plan your meals, be mindful of your portion sizes, and pack lunches and snacks, these things can easily take over your focus if you let them. So the solution is, don't let them. You can accomplish this by clearly embedding your vision of success in your head. Create a one- to three sentence vision statement that describes in vivid detail what life will be like when your goal is reached. Read it several times a day until it becomes so crystal clear in your mind that it would seem wrong for it not to happen. This becomes your tool to get through the times when dieting inevitably becomes boring or temptation strikes.

The reason dieting becomes so hard after a couple of weeks is because you lose sight of what you are working for. Develop a vision statement and plant it in your mind so you never lose focus on the goal and you will find the strength, determination and persistence to continue dieting and reach your goal.

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