Photo by bruce mars

Not everyone was born to be a fitness model, or to love the gym for that matter. In fact, spending hours on end during the week slaving over a treadmill just to get a couple of pounds off your frame is not exactly the ideal pastime activity people crave for. Nevertheless, maintaining a healthy diet is important not only for your brain health but for your overall well-being as well.

Alas, kick-starting a healthy lifestyle and sticking to a fitness and diet regime is not as easy as it might initially seem, and more often than not people will abandon their fitness journey mere days after its inception. So here to help stick to your weight loss goals and maybe even develop a healthy fitness habit are the seven bulletproof motivation tools that are bound to get you on the right track.

So what motivates you?

To some people, the motivation to eat right and exercise regularly comes naturally. If you’re not one of those people, don’t worry, you can definitely develop the drive and zeal to overcome every obstacle down the road. You only need to find your true source of motivation that will keep you going.

Motivation can be found in the weirdest of places, and sometimes it doesn’t even have to do anything with the reflection in the mirror, or how the unrelenting gaze of passersby affects your psychological or emotional state. Sometimes, motivation can simply be the inner desire to be able to fit into a pair of jeans, and other times, it can be the powerful desire to lead a long and healthy life. The choice is yours, but the key lies in finding a truly powerful source of motivation right from the start.

Photo by Alexander Redl

Setting a goal is half the battle

Like anything in life, the journey inevitably becomes easier and more enjoyable with a clear plan in place. After all, how can you hope to persevere through adversity, which will inevitably come, and keep pushing forward when the going gets tough if you haven’t visualized a clear goal you want to achieve? Speaking of visualization, it can be a powerful tool you can use to your advantage.

Visualization goes a long way

The old saying goes: a picture is worth a thousand words. This means that no matter how much you tell yourself that you will start exercising or that you will start eating right, you will have a much harder time sticking to your resolutions if you don’t envision yourself at the actual finish line. Visualization can be that swift kick in the right direction you need, so a good idea is to envision yourself where you want to be, and to let that single image guide you on the road to success.

Photo by Emma Simpson

Time to design your new lifestyle

Naturally, motivation by itself is useless if your diet and fitness regimes are not tailored to your specific needs and goals. Too often will you see people want to change, but they simply don’t possess the knowledge, or have the professional guidance to turn their wish into a reality?

In order to avoid the common pitfalls that follow a poorly-devised fitness routine and a dubious diet plan, you need to do your research, making sure you ditch the fads and find a program that works. For instance, look for lifestyle methods such as the ONE3ONE method that focuses on changing your entire life for the better rather than putting you on a rigorous diet plan that is bound to cause a yo-yo effect in a couple of weeks’ time. Remember, knowledge is power, and the more you know, the more you will be able to transform your life for good.

Stick to the daily plan

There are long-term goals, and there are short-term goals. When it comes to fitness and nutrition, finding motivation in the little daily goals can prove to be extremely effective in keeping you on the right track. So instead of just focusing on the end result, you want every day to have its own diet and exercise schedule that will build a healthy weekly routine. As the weeks go by, you will find that this routine has seamlessly become an inextricable part of your lifestyle.

Photo by Ev

What are your negative emotional triggers?

Humans are emotional creatures, and there is a myriad of external and internal factors that can influence your mood and your overall mental health. Needless to say, your emotional state can make or break your fitness journey, so learning how to control and even eliminate daily stress is vital in sticking to your new lifestyle. Cortisol, the notorious stress hormone, is not only a strong catabolic agent, but it also increases unwanted fat gain, so all the more reason to find a way to shed the stress and negativity of the outside world.

Keep it interesting and diverse

Monotony can quickly set in if you just keep following the same old fitness plan and eat kale all day long. You need diversity on a daily basis in order to keep your mind interested, and give your body a reason to change. So if you want to stay motivated over the long term, you need to equip yourself will a myriad of delicious, healthy recipes, and try our different training routines as well, such as cycling, lifting weights, and everything in between. If you’re not sure how to cope with all that by yourself, you can hire a professional fitness expert to help you out!

Motivation is oftentimes an elusive concept many people struggle to understand or implement into their daily lives. While the road to health and long-term well-being is long and full of challenges, there is nothing you won’t be able to achieve by finding your motivation and letting it guide you to your goals.