5 Main Reasons Why People Lose Motivation to Lose Weight

As an independent Beachbody coach, I help a lot of clients to overcome multiple obstacles in their efforts to lose weight and increase overall level of fitness. Achieving the body of your dreams is not always easy, and a lot of people give up half-way without realizing the cause, or causes, of their frustration and dissatisfaction. In this article I am trying to outline the main reasons for loss of motivation, and hope it helps you to avoid common mistakes, such as:

1) Inadequate assessment of where you are at the begin of your body make-over process.

To make a successful transition, you need to reasonably assess were you are at the start of your body make-over. If you judge yourself lighter or heavier, or more or less physically fit than you actually are, you won’t be able to set realistic goals and determine the best plan for your transformation. After you achieve your intermediate goals you need to reassess your situation and create a plan for the next stage of transformation.

2) Unrealistic goals

If you set unrealistic goals, let’s say to lose 5 pounds a week, you won’t be able to achieve it and will give up in frustration. The healthy and reasonable goal is to lose no more than 2 pounds a week, and even then weight does not come off at programmed intervals. Weeks can go by until the pounds come off, and then they come off 5-6 pounds all at once. Also, depending on how much weight you are trying to lose, the time it takes to lose weight may vary: if you need to lose 50 pounds, first 30 may come off much faster than last 10-15. The less weight you need to lose, the more time it usually takes. Not knowing this may lead to unrealistic goals, frustration and ultimately loss of motivation. You should approach weight-loss goal setting with much thought and research.

3) Unrealistic expectations.

After achieving of your weight loss goals, you may still be disappointed, because you expected to look like a picture on the program you bought or a body builder in a magazine whose advice you followed. You may be unsatisfied with the size of your biceps or your stomach not yet looking like a washboard. Don’t be discouraged by your reflection and sabotage further progress! For a lot of people who picked up fitness after years of neglect it will take some time to reawaken muscles, turn around metabolism and generally turn back the clock. It can be done, but it takes time, effort and patience.

4) Inadequate progress measurement

You may be making great progress, but due to inaccurate or inappropriate progress evaluation you don’t realize it! When trying to lose weight, the scale is not the best tool – you need to learn to use a tape measure or judge the progress on how loose the clothes are fitting you since you started the makeover process. The great gauge of your progress is body fat indicator, most accurately measured by using caliper or BMI calculators available on line.

5) Insufficient support system

Everything I describe above is hard to juggle on your own. People who achieve the best shape of their lives rarely do so without a support system: a network of fellow fitness enthusiasts and experts. A lot of our perception of our bodies is subjective, and people from your support network are there to give a second opinion when you think your progress is insufficient, dispel disappointments due to incorrect assessments and suggest new approaches when nothing seems to work.