How can I stay motivated to eat healthy and lose weight?
I’m 5’9 and weigh 145. I want to lose about 15 to 20 pounds. This isn’t just about looks, I want to be healthier and have more energy as well as look better. I like walking and tennis, but either I get unmotivated to walk or I have no one to play tennis with. I need some health tips on how to stay motivated and how to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Good and healthy recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, tips for motivation, etc. Thanks!
June 29th, 2010 at 4:51 am
You HAVE to put yourself first. Not just fit in your exercise and healthy eating when you have a few minutes left from everything else. ALSO, if you keep on doing it day after day, after about 3 weeks it will become a habit and it will feel strange to you NOT to exercise and eat healthy! So make yourself do it, set yourself a reminder and reward yourself!
June 29th, 2010 at 5:22 am
Make a list of reasons you want to lose weight and post it in a prominent place. Find a group (such as Meetup.com) or club so you can exercise in a group, meet people and be accountable to others for your exercise.
Use a site such as Sparkpeople.com (free) to track your diet and exercise and find support from others. Give yourself a timeline, e.g. “I will lose 5 lbs by such and such a date.” POST THIS TIMELINE. Reward yourself when you meet one of these milestones (but not with food)! For example, buy yourself a new outfit or do something you enjoy.
Always give yourself options when you go out–take bottled water and healthy snacks so you’re not forced to eat crap out of a vending machine because you’re starving.
Watch out for emotional eating. Plan ahead—for example, if you crave chocolate when you’re down, keep low-fat fudge bars around for “emergencies.” Fill up with things like fruit and water.
Don’t beat yourself up if you mess up occasionally.
Also…Sparkpeople offers recipes and motivational information.
In the long run, though, your desire to look and feel healthy has to outweigh your desire to please your tastebuds or stay sedentary.
Good luck
June 29th, 2010 at 5:30 am
I think that you probably are already healthy at that height/weight. But if losing the weight is what will make you happy, you should have a friend or someone else who is on the same mission as you, to be your workout partner. So you two can be each other’s support. Its alot easier to start and maintain a health regimen when you have someone else to motivate. Then it will become about you not wanting to let them down and be lazy. Sign up for this website called workout.com. They have soooooooo many different excercise moves to choose from. Start out with 3 arm moves. Do 12-15 reps of each move. Then repeat that cycle of all 3 moves 3 times. Then do 3 leg moves. 12-15 reps of each, for 3 cycles of all 3. Then do 3 ab moves for 20-30 reps for each move, in 3 cycles. Change up your moves as often as you can. At least every week. You should do that 2-3 times a week and some sort of cardio (such as running, jogging, swimming, jump rope…) for at least 40 mins 3-4 times a week. Some days you will have to do both. When you run out of excercise moves on that website, Google “workout” to find more. If you do this for just 2 weeks, you will feel stronger and look better-Guaranteed!
As far as your eating habits go, you should start to keep count of the nutrients you are taking in. There is a free website that I have found to help me track every thing I am doing. From foods I eat, to my workouts, to a journal, to reports on what % of my foods come from fat or protien or carbs. When you can see how the foods you eat are broken down, it makes you want to eat healthier foods. Its called FitDay.com. You should try it!
Once you start to see and feel the change in your body, that should be motivation enough!