Knowing why you want to lose weight is an important initial step to creating your goal and deciding how you’d like to reach it.
The Importance of Why You Want to Lose Weight
Setting a bodyweight management goal and working to achieve it can be hard. It involves changes – both big and small – to your lifestyle. They’re steps you’re going to want to make over the long-term, not just until you reach a certain number on the bathroom scale. For this reason, knowing precisely why you want to lose weight can play a vital role in your motivation and your willingness to keep working on those new healthy habits, even when you might not feel like it at the time.
There are lots of different potential reasons why you want to lose weight. In fact, there might be several of them driving you, not just one. Knowing precisely what they are will mean that you have an important tool to keep you going and guide you along the right track.
How to Find Out Why You Want to Lose Weight
Use these simple steps to discover just why you want to lose weight. Discover your motivations so you can better understand what you’re aiming to accomplish and use them to drive you forward.
Step 1 – List General Statements
Write down all the reasons you can come up with that help to explain why you want to lose weight. Be broad about it. You can add focus in a later step. List them all in no particular order. Examples might be “I’d like to be healthier and live longer,” or “I want to get fit to keep up with my kids,” or even “My doctor told me I need to lower my blood pressure.”
Step 2 – Prioritize
Go over your list and identify the top 3 reasons why you want to lose weight. You can either just circle them or write out a new list that includes only those top 3 motivators. Though all the points you’ve written down are relevant, there should be some that truly stand out to you as the ones pushing you forward.
Step 3 – Add Why to Your Why
For each of the 3 top drivers, ask yourself why they’re reasons why you want to lose weight. For instance, “I want to be fitter to keep up with my kids” might result in answers such as “I want to take part in the activities that interest them so we can share quality time together,” or “I am tired of feeling exhausted after only a few minutes playing with them,” or even “I want to keep up my independence for as long as possible so I don’t burden them as their own lives are taking off.” Do this for each one.
Step 4 – Select Your Absolute Top Reason Why You Want to Lose Weight
Now that you’ve created a gorgeous list of explanations for yourself, select the one that is the most motivational to you. Though all those drivers are valid and important, this will be the one you repeat to yourself every day to keep you going. Don’t forget that you’re also not alone. Intechra Health has a range of weight management products, allowing you to select the perfect match to support your healthy strategy.