Weight Loss Motivation 101

By Joshua Wayne, MA

I get emails from people everyday sharing their frustrations and challenges with weight loss. About 60% of them say they lack the motivation to stick with their weight loss program. They report that they do well for awhile and lose some weight, but inevitably fall off track- whether due to a loss of focus or some other kind of self-sabotage.

As a Personal Development Coach specializing in weight loss, and who was originally trained as a psychotherapist, it’s very easy for me to give them advice, but as I sat down to write this article, I thought it might be nice to really start at the most basic, fundamental level of understanding motivation, and to then work up from there.

So armed with my trusty Mozilla Firefox I did a quick Google search for a basic definition of the word. Here is the first thing that Google gave me to consider (it came from an online dictionary associated with Princeton University):

“the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and the condition of being motivated.”

So let’s pull some key words from that definition and see if we can come up with a useful way to apply the concept to weight loss.

Action Toward a Desired Goal- Taking action here implies that there is a desired goal in place, so the first thing that you must be absolutely clear on is ‘what is your goal?’

The challenge here is that it’s usually not sufficient to just come up with a number. 20 pounds or 30 pounds isn’t going to cut it. You’ve known that for perhaps years, and telling yourself “I need to lose 20 pounds” over and over again hasn’t gotten the job done. Just having a number in mind is not provocative enough of a goal. Read The Next Page

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Joshua Wayne, MA is a Personal Development Coach and trained psychotherapist with an emphasis on weight loss motivation and mind/body wellness.

In his private practice Joshua has helped his clients achieve their weight loss goals, shape their life direction and resolve a wide range of family problems from relationship difficulties to out of control teenagers.

Joshua has a Masters Degree in Counseling. He has also been intensely interested in and studying personal development, fitness and spirituality for close to 20 years. Joshua also heads up the PEERtrainer 12 Week "Point Of No Return" Coaching Program.

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