Long-Term Motivation

Ellymondo

Hi all,

I'll just give you a brief background... I am just starting my latest quest to improve my fitness and lose weight. Naturally I lean more towards being a couch potato than a fitness fanatic. For a few years now I've tried different activities, and hoped eventually I'd 'catch the bug', but so far no luck.

So that's my story, my question to anyone who has any suggestions is, how do you keep motivated in the long-term? I tend to manage anything up to 12 weeks of counting the calories, and / or exercising, but then I start to get into old habbits.

E

clahut

Hi

I have suffered from the same problem in the past and have got a few strategies that seem to have worked for me this time (8 months in!).

1. Don't view it as a diet - view it as a new way of life. Then you cut out all the 'short term gain' feelings. This is about me having a healthier relationship with food and making sure that I live well enough most of the time so I can have a pizza or chinese takeaway once in a while and make sure it is the kind of treat it should be (rather than a regular occurrence).
2. Finding exercise that I enjoy. I used to find exercising a drag but I have now found some exercises that I don't mind so much. I'm even looking forward to going to the gym tomorrow morning because I have a program I like and is getting results.
3. Setting myself challenges. And as soon as I meet one, I set another one. At the moment, I'm doing the 200 situp programme. When I finish that, I might try the 100 pressups one. I plan the C25k when the weather is better.

Now that I am seeing results, I have more energy and I just feel healthier all round, that is all the motivation I need to keep me going.

C