The Single Most Important Aspect To Losing Weight. What’s Your Big Fat Why, Bay Bee?

The Single Most Important Aspect To Losing Weight. What’s Your Big Fat Why, Bay Bee?

Many women who are in despair about carrying extra weight lament, “no matter what I do, I cannot lose weight”.

My question to these gorgeous ladies is always the same.

“Can’t or won’t”?

I sound like I’m being facetious. But it’s a well-intended question and comes from a place of love.

Here’s why I ask.

If you’re currently chunkier than you’d like to be and you tell yourself a similar story, you might want to seriously ponder the scenario below.

If I promised you that I would pay into your bank account one gazillion dollars if you lost the extra weight, I reckon you’d find a way to do it.

You would, wouldn’t you!

You’d find a way to make it happen.

Since you’re a smart woman so you can see why this is called the carrot approach.

Alternatively, if I took the opposite tack and told you that if you didn’t lose the extra weight, I’d sneak around to your home in the dead of night and kidnap everything and everyone that was near and dear to you, I reckon you’d also find the where-with-all to lose the weight.

Welcome to the stick approach.

Yes, I hear you. They are extreme examples. But they do prove the point rather well, don’t they.

You CAN lose weight.

We can all lose weight. It’s just that up until now, you haven’t discovered a compelling enough carrot or a stick scary enough to make it a MUST for you.

When your carrot or stick is MASSIVE, you will find a way to make weight loss happen.

We ALL have our hot buttons. It’s simply a matter of finding what they are. They are the key to your motivation. Think turbo-charged internal motivation switch.

When you get clear on Why Weight Loss Is A Must For Me in your own heart and mind, everything else falls elegantly into place. You’ll find a way around, over or under all of those trickster obstacles that you’ll come across on your weight loss journey.

If you’re unclear on your Big Fat Reason Why Weight Loss Is A Must For Me, you’re setting yourself up for failure. After the initial burst of energy, when you hit bump in the road you’ll collapse in a heap of excuses. Like all those other times.

I encourage you to pour yourself a glass of something yum, make yourself comfortable and ask yourself the following question:

“Why weight loss is an absolute MUST for me…..”

Make a list of all the reasons. Go crazy. It’s your list, no-one else needs to read it.

Because some of us are motivated to move towards pleasure (carrots) and some of us are more motivated to move away from pain (sticks n stones), you’ll have some reasons that are carrot-y and some that are stick-y.

Both kinds are great. Include ‘em all as the more you can write down the bigger your motivation will be. And that’s a good thing.

I dare you to come up with a list of 100 reasons.

On that bit of paper list every single reason that weight loss is important to you.

If you want to be there for your kids (or grandkids) or if you wish to really go for it big in life and you realise that your weight issues hold you back then write that down.

If you are fed up with yourself, and the kind of body that you’ve created for yourself and you can’t stand living like this anymore then write that down.

Dig deep.

Get it out on paper exactly why you want this, exactly why it’s important to you.

If you want to look great naked … write that down.

If you feel like you’ve let yourself down for long enough because you tell yourself that you’ll “do it someday”… then write that down.

Good on you.

I encourage you to share in the comments section your most important reason around why weight loss is a must for you which will encourage other women to dig deep as well.

The brave soul who submits the comment that touches me the most (read: the one that makes me cry), will a free coaching session with me which will fast forward your weight loss journey.

Dig deep.

Love etc, Avril

PS: Just so we’re absolutely clear…I don’t actually have a gazillion dollars (yet). Nor do I know where you live, so I encourage you to sleep well tonight, OK honey. But first of all, write your list of reasons Why Weight Loss Is Important To Me 🙂

Avril

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8 comments

Sally

My biggest reason for losing weight is to be a good role model for my daughter. She’s at school and I’m worried she’s going to get teased for having a fat mum. I would be devastated if she became as fat as me, and I feel awful knowing that I might not be around long enough to see her have her children and help her through that time.
If not now, when?

    Avril

    Hi Sally. Thank you for sharing your thoughts out loud. It takes courage to do what you’ve just done. Wow. ‘To be a role good model for my daughter’ is a beautiful reason Why I Must Make This Happen. Would you like to get some more leverage on yourself and take the the next step? Good, I can see you nodding your head 🙂 I’m curious Sally, what would being a good role model for your daughter give you, that you don’t already have? You’re absolutely right, if not now…when? Right not is the perfect time to do it. If you could see me now…I’m taking my hat off to you 🙂

Anna

Just loving the articles, Avril!
I want to lose weight so that I can look like a Yummy Mummy, not a Slummy Mummy and get back into all my sexy clothes again. I’ve got 2 boxes of clothes waiting for me! 3kgs to go – why are the last 3kgs the hardest?! Also in competition with my little sis who has the same goal as me – can’t be beaten!!! I’m seeing her in 6 weeks time …. XXX

    Avril

    Thank you Anna, I’m LOVING writing them!
    You go girl, you go be the Yummy Mummy that you know you are hiding under that Slummy Mummy pretense. Good on you for getting specific (what gets measured gets done) and making it fun by turning it into a challenge. Nothing like a bit of sibling rivalry! The best thing is you’ll both be winners by losing…arf arf. Now you know your WHY, what’s the one thing you must do each and every day so you can fit that box of Mumilicious clothes? XXX

Annie

Probably my most important Big Fat Why would be (should be) my health but that doesn’t seem to really rate as a motivating factor for me – too abstract and hard to focus on given that on, a day by day basis, my health is just fine. So I suppose the most motivating Big Fat Why for me would have to be eliminating the “shame” factor associated with having a fat mum that my boy endures.

    Avril

    Hi Annie, thank you for your comment. You’re so right, health is often too abstract an idea for us to use as a motivator. That is until it’s not there..then it’s mega-motivational! Well done for seeing that ‘shoulds’ NEVER serve to motivate…they just stay there on the To Do list, loitering, making us feel stink. How about you and me babe, let’s make a pact and ditch the shoulds? Fair? They never get done anyway 🙂 Thanks again for responding brave soul that you are.

Deb

Hey Avril,

Can you imagine, I’ve been getting the emails, but had no idea they were attached to blogs! Silly me!

This is a great questions and something that is hard to work out…. there are so many motivators that people tell you should be the things that motivates us;
Be a good role mole, have a longer life, have a healthier life, look good naked, have fun shopping, look and feel sexy, not to be ashamed of ourselves, be proud to stand tall, stop traffic…. but none of these things really resonate with me. I am proud, I am beautiful, I am everything that I want to be – but I am fat and I don’t want to be fat.

So what is it that will motivate me when all the standard things just don’t seem to change if I’m fat or not. I guess for me; I don’t want to think I will make a helicopter fall out of the sky because i’m too fat to be lifted up (true story, happened a month ago – was scared for that one reason and that reason alone), not want to be fearful that the only reason I am single is because I am too fat to be found attractive (a stupid thought that is dis-proven all the time, but there it is in the fear bank anyway), not want to be fearful that I will not be able to carry children…. quite possible. But fear aside, that still isn’t motivating enough – it is just a good reason to feel sorry for myself and think it is all too hard. So what?

Maybe it is about that things that make me uncomfortable; like wanting to be able to fit into a airplane seat and bring the tray table down, wanting to be able to run around a field without getting puffed out after 5 minutes, I want to be able to play a sport – and feel like I could contribute, I don’t want to automatically be given the front seat of the car because I’m too fat to fit in the back with 2 other adults, I want to be able to go on a horse and carriage ride, para glide, get on a jet ski, go skiing, fit into a free t’shirt, fit into a harness, go on a roller coaster without thinking it will break, go on a water slide (I read the fine print, I’m often over the weight limit).

Most of all I want to go through my life doing what I want to do, when I want to do it – without thinking if my weight is an issue (or even worse, not thinking about it and then realising that it is an issue when I’m in a situation). Nothing worse than going to an old movie house to find you don’t fit into the seats!

    Avril

    Dear Deb

    How funny! I’m delighted you’ve found the blogs. That’s great feedback for me….perhaps I need to make the email to blog link more obvious! Thanks too for taking the time to get in touch.

    SUCH a great question Deb. What to do when all the ‘usual’ motivators don’t resonate with you. GREAT Qn. We’re ALL different so what motivates me, might leave you completely flat. Horses for courses, so to speak.

    What’s I loved reading was that you feel sexy, proud and beautiful – irrespective of your body size. That’s awesome. (There are a lot of skinny women out there who don’t feel sexy, proud or beautiful.)

    So a couple of Qns for you Deb:

    1. How IS being overweight an issue FOR YOU, Deb? Two things here: is losing weight really something YOU WANT to do or is it a ‘should’. Have you noticed how ‘shoulds’ never get done. Maybe by ditching the ‘should-ness’ of it, you’ll relax and it’ll happen naturally, rather than you using your weight as a chance to beat yourself up. If it is a WANT then…..

    2. What DOES resonate with you? What scares the shit out of you SO much that you HAVE to take action? Or what magnetises you forward? We ALL have our hot buttons.

    3. Quit ‘looking for’ motivation. Usually it’s best to have a ‘why’ for your weight loss. Because if you’ve got your ‘why’, the ‘how’ takes care of itself. But we’re all a bit different. And it sounds as though you’re using your ‘lack of motivation’ as an excuse to sabotage. If you’re not getting results, change what you’re doing. Sometimes we get so stuck ‘looking for motivation’ that it basically becomes a procrastination technique. It’s like ‘finding the motivation’ becomes an excuse or delay tactic because if I ‘can’t find the motivation’ then I ‘can’t change’. So, quit looking for it and instead DO what you know you must to lose weight. Eat a little less than you expend. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

    4. Use your imagination to suss out what it is you DO WANT in terms of your body and your life. Then dig deep and stare directly into the face of what your life will look like if you don’t change. Get a good hard look at that – not fitting into plane and movie seats etc (crashing helicopters) and use THAT as leverage to change your day to day habits.

    5. It sounds as though FEAR is playing a big role in keeping you where you are. It’s a trick of our ego to tell us that nothing’ll really be any different if I lose weight, and all sorts of other fear-based BS which convinces you to stay in your comfort zone doing the same old stuff. Quit listening to the fear-based voice of the ego.

    6. Everything we do, we do because on some level it works. What are you getting out of being overweight? Trust me darling, you’re getting something. Our natural state is to be in good health. It takes ALOT of energy to be overweight and keep a problem in place. How does being overweight work for you? Your reaction will probably be, “ya kidding me….it doesn’t!!!!!”. Honey, it does. On some level it does. Dig deep and have a conversation with your ego.

    I really trust this helps. Keep me in the loop, darling Deb : )