Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Ultimate Motivator


Let's face it we all need a boost in motivation to push ahead sometimes and stick with the plan. The ultimate in motivation is progress! Look back to yesterday, last week....did you make better food choices? Did you stick with your workout plan? Give yourself a pat on the back, set goals for today and attack your plan with a renewed motivation to achieve those goals.
Progress can be measured in so many ways....do you find you need to tighten your belt another notch? Better yet are you in need of a shopping trip for a smaller size? And don't forget progress regarding your attitude, have you have a more positive spin on the obstacles that have gotten in your way? Do you have a healthier relationship with food? Do you still see exercise and healthy eating as another chore on your to-do list or have these become part of your identity? Living a healthy lifestyle needs to be part of you, not something you do.
While the changes in attitude are harder to objectify, let's take a look at some objective means of seeing physical progress towards your goal of living  a healthy lifestyle. A valuable tool is using your eyes...looking in the mirror each day or even better take pictures. The day to day changes are hard to see but compared side by side with a photo from last month? What an incredible boost of motivation for continued compliance with the plan. I never really realized the benefit of taking photos (seemed silly as you are also probably thinking right now) but I am a firm believer of their benefit after surprising myself with the progress I made over the Challenge when comparing my before and after photos. BlogBooster-The most productive way for mobile blogging. BlogBooster is a multi-service blog editor for iPhone, Android, WebOs and your desktop These changes the result after only 49 days!
SLIM GUIDE SKIN FOLD CALIPER REDBe wary of watching the scale to judge your progress. You may find it very frustrating to base progress solely on scale weight loss, particularly if you have included a weight training component to your program  and you should as strength training  is important in achieving a healthy lifestyle. Scale weight may not change very quickly, particularly if you are new to resistance training as you are adding lean muscle mass to your frame, this can  increase scale weight! This can lead to frustration, seemingly not seeing progress because the scale is not going down. Enter body composition analysis, sounds expensive and complicated, it can be, but it doesnt' have to be. Inexpensive body fat calipers can be purchased online, allowing self testing at home. Their accuracy may not be astounding but certainly sufficient to monitor progress when used consistently. During the Challenge my scale weight decreases plateaued but body fat testing revealed consistent progress! And the proof is in the pictures!
So, where do you stand? Are you making progress? With a critical eye, take a honest look at yourself, how far you have come, are you moving closer to achieving your goals?  Make new goals and adjust your plan! Look back and find motivation in your progress!

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