How to motivate someone

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  • Noreenmarie1234
    Noreenmarie1234 Posts: 7,493 Member
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    Wow thank you all for the responses. They were all EXTREMELY helpful, more than I can explain and you have all given me ideas. I am going to incorporate all of your ideas and think about the best way to approach the situation. If I see success I will be sure to come back and let you all know. I really appreciate you all taking the time to provide such thoughtful feedback.
  • ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken
    ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken Posts: 1,530 Member
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    Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »
    Wow thank you all for the responses. They were all EXTREMELY helpful, more than I can explain and you have all given me ideas. I am going to incorporate all of your ideas and think about the best way to approach the situation. If I see success I will be sure to come back and let you all know. I really appreciate you all taking the time to provide such thoughtful feedback.

    You are very welcome! She is very fortunate to have someone in her life who is willing to take the time and effort to help her. Many people just walk away or turn a blind eye. If she has you in her corner she is so much more likely to make the change she needs to be healthy!
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
    edited November 2016
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    Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »
    She keeps saying she is desperate to lose weight but will not take anything I say seriously. I just feel at a loss because she is telling me how depressed she is and I feel like I can't help.

    Then she's just blowing smoke up your butt. And hers. ;)
  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
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    Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »
    I have invited her to the site but she did not seem interested. If it helps, she is not good with computers, she can barely email, she is 70. I just love her so much and see her complaining about weight and in so much agony and depressed because of it but she won't listen when I try to tell her. She keeps wanting a quick fix or magic program. Thank you guys for the input though, I really appreciate it. I will share that article abiteofbliss.

    At that age she's set in her ways. But at that age she's perhaps experiencing health problems which come with growing old. Is she attending a doctor? What is the doctor saying about all this? Is the doctor commenting on any other aspects of her health? Some people only make changes under "doctor's orders".
  • melaniedscott
    melaniedscott Posts: 1,349 Member
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    Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »
    I don't know how to get through to her and any help would be appreciated. I was thinking of asking her to post her story and issues on this site asking for advice in hopes that if multiple people tell her what I've been telling her she will see the light.

    You can't motivate her...only she can do that. But you can ask questions that may result in her motivating herself. Research in motivation and behavior change (Miller/Rollnick, Prochaska/DiClemente, Albert Ellis) all say that the more someone argues for something, the more we resist it. A lot of us on MFP have seen this...someone says how do I do this and people tell them...and the response is "I can't" or "I tried that for 5 minutes and it didn't work" or "I thought about trying it for 5 minutes and it didn't work" or (my favorite) "You just don't understand".

    The best way to motivate someone is to get them to argue for the change. Ask questions about how her weight impacts the quality of life, what she would like to do that she can't. What changes she can make, what her specific perceptions are. She thinks FroYo is better than Ice Cream. She's probably right...but how big a diff is it. There is actually a science to motivational interviewing and it is pretty cool. There is a book called Motivational Interviewing by William Miller and Steve Rollnick. It is very long (warning) and focused primarily on motivating change from the perspective of substance abuse but the techniques are what matter. And, honestly, they work. So well that it is crazy. I do some motivational interviewing for my job and...well.

    I think there are some videos W Miller did on YouTube...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj1BDPBE6Wk that might help.
  • melaniedscott
    melaniedscott Posts: 1,349 Member
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    No idea how I got the video to show up...but cool.

    MI might sound like this for weight loss:

    Her: I feel so bad. My weight makes it hard to breathe and get around but I can't lose it.
    You: You're experiencing some health problems because of your weight. Losing weight is hard and it seems impossible.
    Her: Yeah. I've made all these changes. I switched from ice cream to frozen yogurt and I hardly eat. But nothing happens.
    You: What does "hardly eat" look like? How many calories do you think it is?
    Her: Well, I don't ever eat a big meal. I'll have a bowl of frozen yogurt. Or I'll have a snack. I'm hungry a lot but I try to avoid eating a lot at one time. I don't know how many calories. I tried calorie counting once. ONCE. But it didn't work.
    You: When you counted calories, how many were you eating?
    Her: I'm not sure...It is just so hard to figure out what everything weighs. And somethings I let slide. Frozen yogurt...that's pretty low calorie, it doesn't even count. Maybe 2000 calories?
    You: You tried to count calories but it was complicated and you didn't write everything down. You don't think frozen yogurt has very many calories, but you don't know how many...
    Her: Well. Yes. I guess so.
    You: What do you think the benefit of finding out how many calories you actually eat might be?
    Her: What?
    You: If you sat down and counted all your calories, including the yogurt, what do you think you might get out of it. Not cutting out food. Not avoiding meals. Just counting the calories you eat right now. What do you think you might learn?
    Her: I don't know. ..

    There is no actual change. No push to do anything. No judgement. But she's thinking about it. And that's where motivation starts. In our heads.
  • carolinafirefly
    carolinafirefly Posts: 33 Member
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    Previous posters are right. She's not going to change until she's ready. All you can do is plant a couple of seeds and let her know you're always open to helping when/if she is ready.

    You said she's sedentary. Does she watch a lot of TV? That British show Secret Eaters is pretty eye-opening about the difference between how many calories we think we're eating and how many we really are eating, and it's pretty fun to watch. She might absorb some of the info more readily since the focus is on "those people" instead of herself and so less threatening to her self-perception. There are a lot of episodes online for free.
  • crzycatlady1
    crzycatlady1 Posts: 1,930 Member
    edited November 2016
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    You lead by example and then keep your mouth shut. This method has worked pretty well for me.
  • courtneyfabulous
    courtneyfabulous Posts: 1,863 Member
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    carolinafirefly wrote: »
    Previous posters are right. She's not going to change until she's ready. All you can do is plant a couple of seeds and let her know you're always open to helping when/if she is ready.

    You said she's sedentary. Does she watch a lot of TV? That British show Secret Eaters is pretty eye-opening about the difference between how many calories we think we're eating and how many we really are eating, and it's pretty fun to watch. She might absorb some of the info more readily since the focus is on "those people" instead of herself and so less threatening to her self-perception. There are a lot of episodes online for free.

    That's a good show- eye opening.

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