Whatever we do, everything is easier when our mind is prepared for it. Nothing is different with weight loss. Whether it’s to become more confident in yourself or recover your health and fitness, mentally preparing yourself is vital as losing weight requires strong commitment, consistent focus, and preparation.
Going through losing weight without proper mental planning can make your efforts go down the drain. Your motivation may deteriorate, and you can lose focus. If you’re serious about it, you must make an effort to prepare yourself psychologically. To help you with it, check these power tips.
1. Set Your Goals
Any plan without a goal is bound to fail. Setting your goals early is an effective way to keep your focus in place. The first tip is to establish a realistic goal with small milestone goals along the way. This way, you can monitor your progress on a regular basis, not to mention it will keep your eyes on the bigger picture.
Secondly, make sure to put your goals into writing somewhere you can easily see. A tangible, written goal will continuously remind you of your plan and power your motivation to achieve it. You can even write down, along with your goal, the reason for it.
2. Keep Your Goals Long-term
Whatever your reason for weight loss is, doing it for long-term is advisable. While short-term diets and weight loss are the trends in our society nowadays, following such often leads to regaining weight or becoming worse than before. To successfully maintain your desired weight, think more about diets and plans that will help you establish changes in your lifestyle. Rather than merely adopting one temporarily, consider some sustainable choices that you can benefit from even for the years to come.
3. Dispose Of Any Junk Food
If you’re just like any person, a box of junk food is probably sitting in your house. Once you decide to lose weight, disposing of any triggers that can ruin your plan should be done. This includes leaving fast food alone and throwing away junk food and any other types of food that aren’t beneficial to your goal. Avoid compulsive overeating by keeping any visual trigger away from yourself.
4. Plan Self-rewards
Keeping your motivation level at an all-time high is essential in weight loss. With the numerous happenings around us, it’s easy to lose focus. Prevent this by setting occasional rewards for yourself for every milestone you achieve, and a bigger reward for the final goal. Giving rewards is an effective way to remain positive and encourage yourself to go further.
To many, losing weight is hard – the reason why they give up in the middle of their plan or even before starting. This happens if an individual is not psychologically prepared for it. Don’t underestimate the significance of mental preparation in weight loss and reach out for assistance from someone like TG Psychology for more help.
Todd Griffin
Todd is the Director and Principal Psychologist at TG Psychology, in Penrith, NSW. He has over 14 years of experience working with adults and young people in both public health and private practice settings. He has treated people from diverse cultural backgrounds, with a variety of emotional health and behavioural issues, including: depression, anxiety, relationship issues, anger, addictions, trauma and grief. He has also facilitated a number of group programs, treating a wide range of issues: from quitting cannabis, to social skills training, self-esteem development and deliberate self-harm behaviours.
