What Motivates You?

By: Louisa Latela, MSW, LCSW

Do you follow a specific eating plan simply because you want to lose weight? Chances are if this is your only motivation you will experience some difficulty making permanent lifestyle changes that will support long term weight loss. If youâve ever dieted before to simply lose weight then you may have had the following experience: You stick to a particular meal plan for a few days or even weeks and feel great because you are losing weight pretty easily. You KNOW that this time is IT and vow that you will eat this way the rest of your life!! Then it happens: Your weight loss slows down, you get frustrated which causes you to lose motivation, which then leads to you reverting back to your old ways of eating which in turns makes you regain the weight youâd originally lost and then some. Sound familiar???

Obviously you were not motivated in a way that would help you summon the strength to not give into your compulsion to go back to unhealthy ways of eating when temptation reared its ugly head.

Motivation must come from the inside out. The number on the scale cannot be your only driving force to eat well. If you are having difficulty maintaining a healthy eating pattern, I encourage you to put some time aside to be very still and quiet with yourself. Ask yourself on a deeper level why you are having such difficulty. Are there things other than weight loss that would motivate you to eat well?

I once worked with a client who was a very successful business woman. She had a career she loved, great friends an adoring husband and 2 wonderful children. The only thing she struggled with was her weight. She went on endless diets throughout the years and would do well for a while until life got too hectic. Then one day her 7 year old daughter asked her who would take care of her if she died. My client didnât understand why she was asking this question. Then her daughter told her she was worried that something would happen to her because she didnât think she ate real healthy. When she realized the example she was setting for her daughter in terms of lifestyle, priorities, and stress management strategies everything changed for my client. She made a commitment to living healthy to be a role model for her children. She also recognized the fact that she owed it not only to herself but also to her loved ones to take care of herself. Seeing the number on the scale go down was not enough motivation to keep my client from giving into the temptation to overeat when she was stressed. However being a good role model and setting a healthy example for her children was. She set the intention for her life to live in a way that supported good health and good energy. She also would ask herself throughout the day when she was handling what might be a stressful situation âHow would I hope that my daughter would handle a situation like this?â Then when she listened to her answer she would follow through with her own advice.

Because we experience our life through our physical bodies how we feed and move our body directly affects how we experience our lives physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I find that when my clientsâ actions are motivated by an internal desire to feel good physically, have emotionally healthy relationships with the people in their lives, and have some sort of spiritual connection they begin to make many small but significant lifestyle changes that just happen to have a side effect of weight loss if need be.