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Health & Wellness

2007-12-01 09:11:00

What motivates you to lose weight?

I know that I need to lose some weight, but I can’t seem to get serious about doing it. I have tried diets in the past and failed. Now whenever I think about taking off some pounds, either the timing is bad and I don’t start, or I start but soon quit. You have been successful at losing weight. What motivated you to keep at it?

Answer: Whenever we think about doing something challenging, there are always plenty of reasons for not doing it. Let’s face the facts. The reasons for not taking on a difficult task are almost always easier than the reasons for proceeding. That’s why it is called a challenge. If it were easier to meet a challenge head-on than to walk away, we would already be taking the easier road, and there would not be an issue. In facing the challenge of losing weight, it is much easier to think of reasons not to proceed than it is to make a commitment and stick with it. The key then is to have a reason to lose weight that is stronger than your reasons for not making the effort. Could you make the commitment to lose weight if you knew your life depended on it? What if losing weight would make the difference in whether or not someone special found you physically attractive? What if your self esteem was at stake? In the end, you have to find what is important enough to motivate you. In my case, I was 63 years old, 6 feet tall, and my weight had crept up to 220 pounds. I did not like being so out of shape and I did not like how I looked in the mirror. Also, I would see my wife maintaining her figure by eating wisely, walking and going to the gym on a regular basis. She was taking care of herself, and I was feeling guilty for not doing the same. In the back of my mind, I thought she deserved something better for a husband than some old guy with a pot belly and poorly fitting clothes. Maybe it is vanity, but I wanted her to be proud of me, and I wanted to be proud of myself. I guess my motivation to start losing weight was in wanting something better for both of us. That initial motivation carried me through June and July of this year. I started eating more of the good foods and less of the bad foods, and I started getting some exercise by riding my bicycle some in the evenings. That alone was enough to lose 15 pounds, but after getting down to 205, I was stuck. My weight leveled off, and I was getting discouraged, because I was not losing any more. Still, the medical charts indicated that my ideal weight should be in the 185 to 190 pound range. That looked like an impossible goal. It was early August when my friend in California told me about the new drug-free appetite control patch that had just come on the market. He said that he had used it to drop 10 pounds that he had never been able to get rid of, and he knew several people who had gotten similar results. His enthusiasm got me motivated to have him send me some patches to try. I may sound like a broken record in retelling my story so often, but the patches arrived mid-August, and the results I experienced amazed me. By the 3rd day, my desire for food was greatly diminished, and I was totally satisfied with having much smaller portions of the same foods I had been eating before. I lost 8 pounds in two weeks without feeling I had made a big sacrifice and without any discomfort. For me, the process was so easy with the appetite control patches that it motivated me once again to continue. Today, I weigh 191 and my weight is pretty stable. I no longer feel the need to wear the appetite control patches every day. However, when I am going to be where I know there will be a lot of food temptations, I put the patch on in the morning and wear it all day to help resist overeating. When I do gain a couple of pounds, I know I can start wearing the patches again and easily bring my weight back down. Motivation is an interesting thing, because it changes over time. My motivation to use the appetite control patches today is that I am proud of having lost about 30 pounds. I am proud of my new body and I want to maintain it. I know how easy it has been for me to lose weight by using the appetite control patches, and that motivates me to keep some on hand and to use them on occasion as needed. If I needed more motivation to lose weight, the news that was on all the networks recently quoting studies confirming that weight loss has proven important in reducing several common forms of cancer would have done it. Cancer is a word that scares the heck out of me, and when the news was reported, I was glad that I had already lost the weight. My experience with the appetite control patches has also motivated me to look into the other drug-free patches from the same company that are designed for different results. There are patches for more energy, others for enhanced sleeping, and still others for pain relief. Maybe I can share information on my experiences with them in some future edition of this newspaper. Back to what might help motivate you to lose weight, I only have one question. What could weight loss help you to achieve in your life that is more important to you than all the reasons for not doing it? If you can answer this question honestly, you should have all the motivation you need. Let me know how you are doing.