One of the common problems with dieting is keeping yourself motivated, especially if you’re dieting slowly over a long period or have a lot of weight to lose. So today I wanted to share some of the tips I’ve found useful for boosting my motivation.

Motivational Photos

Use photos to aid motivation

This can be a bit scary – but be brave, as it does help! Take a photo of yourself before you start your diet and keep it somewhere prominent, like on a shelf in your bedroom or on a noticeboard. If you don’t want all and sundry and seeing it (and I quite understand), then stick inside your diary or a notebook.

When you’re feeling under pressure with dieting or feel like you want to give up, look back at the picture to give yourself a visual reminder of why you’re dieting. You may like to also pair the picture up with and older photo of you when you were at a weight you were happy with.

Record Your Measurements

Regularly weighing yourself once a week is a good way of seeing how you weight is changing, but to boost your motivation further, it’s a good idea to regularly take your bodily measurements too. As you lose weight, your measurements will change and, sometimes, when your weight appears to be moving at a slower pace, seeing your new measurements can be reassuring.

Don’t take your measurements too often, but perhaps record them on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Keep a record of each measurement and, hopefully, you’ll eventually get to benefit from seeing how much they’ve each gone down.

Set Yourself Goals

I’ve found that it helps to set myself goals with dieting and that helps keep me motivated from month to month. For example, you could set yourself a goal for losing weight ready to go on holiday, promise yourself that you’ll buy a new dress for a party when you lose a stone or have a special day out when you reach your next weight loss goal.

Little goals along the way can help, but having big or special goals on the horizon can keep your motivation going even more.

Dieting is hard work, but having all sort of motivation factors to help you on your way can make the process easier. Good luck with your dieting!

Have you got any motivation tricks that you use? I’d love to your thoughts!

1. by Jeff | Motivationed July 27th, 2010 10:10 pm

   I look for other bloggers and facebook groups to stay close to for starters just to stay in the healthy conversation…as well get any ideas that seem to be working. I also really enjoy listening to audio cd’s that are motivating.. talk about goal setting, living life to the fullest etc.. When you feed you brain this activity it really transfers over into other areas of your life.

   Tony Robbins TV Series starts tonight… that is a show to check out IMO.

2. by Peter Stockwell August 7th, 2010 5:07 pm

   Goals are great for motivation, but set yourself realistic goals. Many people give up dieting because they say they just cannot lose weight. What they mean is they lost a lot less weight than they expected. Remember, slow weight loss is healthy weight loss.