"It's just science, but because hunger and craving is such an emotional thing, the real challenge is to create motivation that's stronger than those emotions."
How I did it: The way I lose weight is by making it a game. Games are fun, and if you happen to be highly competitive like me, offer a way to create motivation to achieve your goal beyond the normal motivations of looking better and feeling healthier.
Make it a game by giving yourself short term goals, on the scale of a week or a month. Recruit others to play as well. Determine a list of arbitrary rules that you think will result in a healthier diet and exercise routine, and talk about it in the context of the game rather than in the context of weight loss.
Tricking yourself into feeling motivated is have the challenge. Maybe the whole challenge.
Some ideas:
- Create an arbitrary "reason" to lose weight, like throwing a big party.
- Create enough rules that it is clear that you are stepping outside your normal routines for a period of time, like a month. For example, I choose rules like "no alcohol, caffeine, or dairy" which alone are responsible for layer of fat throughout my body.
- Not going out to drink means I have extra time to kill. Use it to go on walks, start a 100 pushup challenge, or take up yoga.
Lessons & tips: Remember the whole time that losing and gaining weight doesn't need to
have high emotional trigger potential. The emotional weight is what we
need to work around first, and then you can deal with the science of it
alone, which is a much more formidable task.
Avoiding processed foods, alcohol, dairy, refined sugars and flours is 75% of learning to be healthier. The other 25% is adding a bit of walking and other activity to your life where it wasn't before.
Long term changes that could improve your quality of life, and therefore your motivation, and therefore your ability to accomplish goals could include things like moving to the city where you can walk to grocery stores, parks, gyms, and even work. Or taking up a new interest and researching the hell out of it til you feel like an expert in something you knew nothing about before. Experiment with new things, find the ones that stick. Building self-confidence is a great motivation for losing extra weight.
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Sep 10, 2008, 11:46AM PDT
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