Hello, and good morning. I want to welcome you to another episode with yours truly, Patrick Ocheni on the Body By Patrick podcast. On today’s episode, I’m going to share with you how to find motivation to lose weight.
If for some reason you cannot seem to take the first step to begin the journey of transforming your life that way you can achieve the body you’ve always dreamed about, this episode is for you.
What spurred today’s topic is that recently I was talking to a friend of mine and she was saying to me, you know, Patrick, I’m trying to lose weight. In less than six months, I’ve gained over 40 pounds. And, I have all the tools I need to lose weight for some reason though, I cannot do the things I need to do to make it happen.
This person is athletically gifted, but she could not figure out how to get motivated.
As we dug deeper into the conversation, it became very clear to me that the issue was not the “how”.
You see, sometimes we focus on the how; we think that, If we know the exact exercises to do that will be the magic trick to losing weight.
But guess what, the how is not always the solution. Sometimes we fall into that trap of thinking if we know the how, then we’ll be able to achieve our goal.
When it comes to losing weight, it is not just about eating and exercising right.
There’s a psychological component to losing weight that a lot of people don’t think about.
The first tip I want to give you right now is that, I want you to know that being overweight is a symptom of a deeper problem.
Your weight gain is a symptom of a deeper problem. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, Ooh, I want to overeat.
I want to stop exercising. I want to become 300 pounds. Nobody does that. Just like nobody decides to become a drug addict.
People think that somebody who might be addicted to drugs is way different for somebody who’s overweight. No, the emotional problems are the same.
The person who’s on drugs is trying to” numb a pain” just like the person who is overweight is trying to numb a pain in this case with food.
Going back to my friend, she said to me, Patrick, I went to a party recently and I knew that all the food that they presented was bad for me, but yet I continued to eat it.
And as I was eating it, I knew I was not even enjoying the food that I was eating. I was not enjoying the food. It didn’t taste great. My stomach was feeling bad, but yet I continued to stuff the food down my throat. She said it got to the point that her throat was starting to hurt yet, she continued to eat. She couldn’t stop.
It became very clear that she was trying to “stuff” her emotions.
Until you become aware of that deeper issue, all you going to try to do is try to run away from your problem.
Going back to my friend, it turned out that she had a personal crisis and she started running to distract herself from that problem, and she was able to do it.
For months she ran, and she lost a bunch of weight.
But, guess what happened?
After a while, it came to a point that she couldn’t run anymore.
She got tired.
After she stopped running, that deep emotional problem was still there waiting for her.
And, because she couldn’t run and distract herself anymore, she turned to food. Consequently, because she turned to food to suppress, to distract yourself this time around, she gained back all the weight and some more.
So, the first tip I have for you right now, like I said, is your weight gain is a symptom of a deeper problem. The first thing you’ve got to do, if you’re trying to get motivated is identify what that issue is, what that emotional issue is.
I call it competing emotional priorities because, guess what, it requires emotion for you to go work out, to figure out what to eat to lose weight– that takes emotional energy. But, when you have something else already competing for that emotional fuel, if you will, it’s going to be very hard.
You’ve got to figure out what is it that’s bothering me?
Is it my relationship?
Is it my job?
What is it?
I’m going to tell another story that happened in my personal life, that kind of brings home the point I’m trying to make about how your weight gain is a symptom of a deeper problem.
Before I became a personal trainer, I used to be an Engineer. For those of you who don’t know my educational background, I went to University of Maryland, College Park.
I got my degree in Electrical Engineering. People ask them all the time, you have an engineering degree, how in the world did you end up becoming a personal trainer? That’s a different topic for a different time, but suffices to say I became an engineer.
And, I hated that job.
I was doing it because I thought it was the right thing to do.
Family and friends told me that: Hey, when you’re an engineer you’re to make more money, it carries more prestige, you gain more respect from people, you get to dress up nicely, you drive nicer cars.
So, I bought into that whole myth.
But, every day I showed up to work, I was miserable.
Consequently, I started to stuff my emotions with food. And before I knew it, I had gained over 60 pounds in a short amount of time.
It wasn’t until I identified the root cause, which was me doing something that was not in alignment with my personal vision for my life, and I left that job– I took away that emotional burden from myself– that I was finally able to gain the emotional energy which led to me having the necessary motivation to be able to lose weight.
And, in so doing, I was able to successfully lose 60 pounds in 180 days.
The point I’m trying to make is that, you have got to address the emotional component of your journey. That’s the first step.
Now, I’m going to now share with you some other tips that will help you after you’ve addressed the emotional issues going on that’s competing for your priority.
The first thing is, whatever path you choose to help you get in shape, you’ve got to be having fun.
If you’re not having fun, it’s not going to last.
Part of having fun is knowing that you are doing things for the right reasons. Otherwise, if you’re just doing it to distract yourself from a deeper problem is not going to work.
It’s going to show in your workouts, because you’ll just be going through the motions.
The second thing is, you’ve got to have a long term perspective. Remember, this is a journey, this is not a sprint.
The other thing is, to help you stay motivated to lose weight, you cannot be too fixated on the end goal.
If you’re trying to lose 30 pounds and every day you wake up, you think to yourself, I’ve got to lose 30 pounds, guess what?
You’re going to stress yourself out, you’re definitely not going to have fun, and each workout becomes drudgery.
You don’t want that.
The other tip is that, you’re probably trying to do it alone.
Trying to lose weight by yourself can be very, very challenging. They’re going to be days you don’t want to do it, but when you have friends at the gym waiting for you to work out with the experience, the journey becomes more palatable, correct?
You need a community.
The other thing is, it’s hard to have success without a plan.
That’s one of the benefits of having a trainer. If you don’t know how to design a plan, hire an expert who creates a plan for you– just follow the plan for success.
So, when you combine all those tips together, you well-positioned yourself to getting the motivation to be able to lose weight.
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