Is it difficult to motivate yourself to lose weight? Well look around you…do “diets” work?…”me” thinks not, judging by the majority of overweight people I see around (in a lot of the westernised countries) and who are on the hunt for the next “Get thin quick diet”.

We have so much choice in the way of fad diets…you know the ones…”Lose 3 Dress Sizes by next week”, “Massage This Miracle Cream In 3 Times a Day, and Your Fat Will Disappear” or a personal fave ” only eat Grapefruit and Turkey for 7 days”…What!

Don’t eat this…eat loads of this……when we are far better off just eating small portions of healthy natural food.

SO WHAT DO WE DO?… HOW DO WE LOSE WEIGHT AND KEEP IT OFF?

How do we get our heads into the healthy and slim mode?

It takes a great deal of “self pushing” in other words keeping the negative voices in your head quieter than the positive ones cheering you on! Those negative voices need to be shshd and this takes practice, it is not something that can be learned overnight, it will be a constant battle in the beginning, after all the negative “I can’t lose weight” voice has probably been around in your head for a long time, living very happily.

Now is the time to evict that old voice and get the positive “I can do it” voice speaking loud and clear to you. It is there, you just have to listen and trust it!

You need to really believe that you CAN accomplish this, you CAN succeed and you WILL lose weight. After all the only person stopping you from losing weight is you. No one is force-feeding you, no one is making you eat too much food. So the choice is in your hands or your mind really.

You have to take control of your life, decide whether this, losing weight, is what you really want and whether you want to sacrifice eating fatty, sugary foods every day and whether you are willing to work hard for this goal, the goal to be slim and healthy and fit. Then once that decision is made, and you can begin.

Now I know that it is easy for me to say, “Begin now” and I also know that you may be reading this saying, “there is no way I can start today/this week because……(think of anything really, and you can make yourself believe that this is not a good day!)”. But just think if you had begun last week you would be really proud of yourself because you had taken that first step and losing weight already!

It doesn’t have to be difficult and you don’t have to be filled with horror at not being able to eat what you want everyday.

I think we can all agree that we are completely bombarded by tempting, delicious, fattening foods everywhere we go these days, and every model in the advertisements for these foods is slim (and airbrushed within an inch of her/his life!). So it’s understandable more and more of us find it difficult to say no or to even start a weight loss program.

Don’t let food control you…the companies making these foods really don’t care about your health, they want to make their products as appealing to you as possible and addictive as possible…..and most of the time they succeed…but these foods are making us fat and unhealthy and our children fat and unhealthy and taking years off our life.

I know when you are alone in the house and you are feeling a bit down, the temptations are there to have just 1 of those cookies or just 2 of those chocolates……..DON’T DO IT! They all add up to way too much. Don’t buy treats in the first place, avoid them in the supermarket. Don’t be fooled into believing that you will have just 1, it just doesn’t happen, you will eat the entire packet and feel sick and down on yourself about not being able to resist! If you want to have a treat and think you reserve it, then go out and enjoy it then come home to a healthy stocked pantry and fridge.

AND sometimes well meaning friends can be all too generous sharing their tempting, delicious, fattening offerings too!

You have to think smart, be junk food savvy….If a friend was tempted easily by some unhealthy foods and was upset by that fact, what do you think you would suggest to them them?…that’s right…don’t go near it….don’t go down that aisle in the supermarket…don’t go into that shop…don’t buy anything for anyone else in the household.

Now I am not suggesting you do this for the rest of your life…but it really is necessary until you have come away from the grips of the junk food…they will try to pull you in, looking at you, pleading…”buy me buy me”……So until you can confidently walk past knowing that will not put just one in the trolley…YOU MUST STAY AWAY.

So, to begin, you must trust that you can succeed, listen to the voice inside your head telling you that you might actually be able to lose weight and keep it off and make that positive voice loud and clear.