...these are your two friends on your journey to losing weight.

Motivation

Motivation is basically your reason why.

There are two types of reason i) things you don't want and ii) things you do want.

And it's things you do want that are really motivating in the long term. Something concrete that you can be inspired to reach. Examples are...

• Inches of your waist
• Going down 4 holes in your belt
• Clothes/T-shirt size (fit in this pair of jeans)
• Run 8 miles in 2 hours
• Row 2000m in 15 minutes
• Walk up 5 flights of stair without being out of breath

So my first recommendation is to set a goal something you want to achieve.

Next to achieve that goal you need to set several small milestones to that goal.

Write these down on paper, in your journal is good.

For example:

• Run 1 mile 3 times a week
• Run 3 miles 3 times a week
• Run 5 miles 3 times a week
• Run 8 miles
• Run 2 x5 and 1 x8 miles every week until I can run 8 miles in 2 hours

Signed: Date:

Remember to keep this goal (along with the other couple you have chosen) somewhere you can see it every day

So let’s move on the second thing...

Commitment

This is what gets you past the first day.

You see starting is hard, but keeping going is harder.

For example people quit smoking, but relapse quickly. Because they don't commit to it.

This is where motivation helps alot and to keep motivated you need something to help. The longer you commit the easier it is to keep going because you build momentum.

So you need to keep that goal in your mind you need to give you the reason to keep going.

If nothing else you need the goal that you are feeling better and better about your body every day.

For me personally it is to improve my times when running or do circut training with ease.

An example in my life of how I stoped smoking is that I joined a class where there was an intesive conditioning exercises for the first 20 minutes. Forget normal circut training at your own pace - this was non-stop and to the max. I struggled to keep up and was doing 5/6 pressups in the time others were doing 10 for example. Later in the evening I thourght to myself how good it will feel to get up to the standard of the other guys in the class - what could I do to get there quicker... quit smoking... there it was... and I can tell you it worked and feels great.