Diet, training: I lost my motivation. What to do?
That’s it, it’s decided, you’re going for it. Bye bye the 4am donut every day and the morning hot chocolate / croissant, you are motivated to make the right choices for your body.
Everything is going great at first, you see the first results, it’s so cool, and you are convinced that it will last forever. However, sometimes, and a bit randomly, there is something that can stand in your way: decreased motivation. You know, that moment when we say to ourselves “to what good? Green beans, what’s the use, going to the dining room, what’s the use, you might as well stay asleep with a maxi best of menu on your stomach. ”
Whether it’s during an episode to lose weight or gain muscle, this is a feeling that EVERYONE knows. the “Arf, too bad”.
That said, ABSOLUTELY NOT should be pissed off – sorry, bother – by this kind of unnecessary feeling. It’s NEVER “too bad”, because you are making consistent choices, which are in the direction of a long-term goal, and which are in your best interest.
And you are going to be delighted to learn that there are stupid solutions to fight against this loss of speed, and start afresh.
Here are 3 of my favorite tips:
1. set yourself realistic goals
There is nothing worse to get discouraged than trying to reach goals that are too far away. That doesn’t mean you’ll never reach them, just that for now, you have to aim less. Taking steps is the best way to stay motivated for the long haul. Saying to yourself “I want to lose 10 kilos” is much less motivating than “I will lose 2, then 2, then 2 …”
Think short term .. without losing sight of the end goal.
Likewise, if you set time limits, take into account what is humanly feasible: – 2 kilos in 2 months seems quite achievable, losing 20 kilos by the day after tomorrow, much less. You are not in a miracle diet pop-up.
2. Find a way to visualize your progress
Being able to see the effect of the efforts that you make on your daily life is THE best motivation. Whether it’s eating better to lose weight, building more muscle to gain muscle, or just improving your overall lifestyle), you need to SEE the interest. Good news, it is entirely possible.
Weight is the easiest way, but beware! this is a very abstract value. It is neither representative of the evolution of your fat mass / muscle mass ratio, nor of your actual weight loss (hormones, water retention, what you ate at noon… EVERYTHING can come into play. )
If you still choose weight as an indicator, 3 rules to follow:
– we ALWAYS weigh ourselves at the same time under the same conditions. Whether it is in the morning when getting up or before going to bed it doesn’t matter (you will be lighter in the morning, just sayin ‘) , but it must be constant. If it’s always before you go to the bathroom in boxers or panties, it’s ALWAYS like that, if it’s in full sports gear, it’s ALWAYS like this. We do not vary anything, otherwise it is not representative. And of course, still on the same scale, that goes without saying.
– we weigh ourselves ONCE OR TWICE A MONTH. It makes no sense to weigh ourselves every morning, your weight varies according to what you have eaten, the water you have drunk and withheld , your period of the month if you are a girl… Anyway. The weight can vary from 1 or 2kilos (without any gain or loss of fat or muscle mass), so we do not rely on day to day. Every month on the same date (preferably outside the hormonal peak period, * blink blink girls *), and there we will see the trend take shape.
– and most importantly, we don’t forget that it’s just a numeric value . So, ONLY EVOLUTION COUNTS , the number itself is NO important.
BUT WEIGHING IS NOT THE ONLY SOLUTION
(and certainly not the best.)
And we can instead choose a more motivating measure:
and we note your progress month by month (being careful to always measure the same place, eh.) Muscle is heavier than fat, as we have seen, and you can totally lose 2cm of thighs and 3cm of waist, and yet gain weight.
we all have jeans that serve as a benchmark. The one that fit 2 years ago and doesn’t close now, or the one bought yesterday, and that you would have preferred two sizes down.
well use it as a measure . We try it once a month, we see how it feels … and we quickly see if we have lost (or gained muscle!) Depending on how it looks.
By far, far, my favorite solution. A photo in a mirror (it’s a selfie, yes, but for a good cause), in underwear or in the simplest device that we take each month on a fixed date . Whatever face you have on it, it’s not for Snapchat, it’s just so that you can look at you with an outside look. We tend not to see the progress, since the change is slow and that we see each other every day. But in photos, it immediately becomes very, very obvious. So we take the first photo today, and see in a month whether we made the right choices or not. Easy as pie.
(And so rewarding. When you lose motivation a bit, are lazy to go to sport and think that a bigmac wouldn’t hurt, you look at a comparison of the photos. we remember, and it goes again. Dozens of times I have needed this, and I very much regret not having pictures at the very beginning. So… start now!)
3. Be proud of yourself with every progress, however small
Sounds a little silly, or put it like that. But really, it is important. Because gaining muscle, or losing weight, takes a long time, and it takes a lot of effort, you have to know how to congratulate yourself whenever there is something better. Even if it’s just managing to run up 3 floors instead of 1, or close one more notch in your belt. It doesn’t matter, be proud of yourself. We always think that once the ultimate goal is achieved, we will be good in our body etc etc. No. Feeling good in your body is something that you build up very slowly, and that takes place with each little victory. You can lose 30kilos and still not feel good about yourself. Or you can rejoice for 500g less and the ability to do 10 push-ups in a row without the knees. So yeah, it does take a bit of self-persuasion at first. But it makes moving forward so much faster.
