Nope, this ain’t another “how I did it/You can do it” post/blog. I actually don’t give a fuck about how people lose weight. Every body is different; my only hope is that people do it safely and naturally. Find what works for you and stick with it.

This post is about motivation. Motivating yourself to eat right, motivating yourself to exercise, motivating yourself to make right decisions regarding your weight loss, and whatever else you need motivation for.

In my humble opinion, in a general sense, motivation for long term success doesn’t exist.

If I waited for motivation to kick in, I wouldn’t do anything. If I waited for motivation to go to the gym, I’d never go. If I waited for motivation to throw itself around me, I wouldn’t have lost any weight. Motivation, in this sense, didn’t exist for me. If I was so motivated, I would have BEEN lost the weight, I would have BEEN made good decisions regarding my health. But I didn’t.

That’s not to say that something didn’t motivate me to start my weight loss journey, because something did. But it only gave me enough strength to join a gym, and get duped into hiring a personal trainer (I had nothing to lose at that point). But, did that thing (which is a photograph) motivate me to go to the gym? No. Did it motivate me to eat better, nope.  So, how did I lose weight?

I had to make a conscious decision without external or internal motivation to go to the gym and hoped that motivation caught its ass up to me once I got there. I hated (and still do most days) going to the gym. Who the hell wants to walk almost a mile to the gym in the rain? Shit, in the sun? Or when its gray outside? Or when it’s snowing? Or when the temperature is just right that all you want to do is relax and twirl in that perfect weather? Not me, shit.

I had to decide to eat better or less when I really really really wanted to do the opposite. I had to say no to cake, double and mega stuffed oreos, Pot Belly’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, candy (ALL KINDS), Cold Stone, Cheesecake Factory’s Louisiana Chicken Pasta, whole bags of xtreme blast goldfish crackers, soda, pizza twice a week, trader joe’s sublime ice cream sandwiches, zebra cakes, etc. times in-fucking-finity when I wanted to say yes.

Motivation is fleeting. It feels good for the here and now, it can drive you to do better, but it doesn’t make an appearance each time you need to do what you know is right.

So I say all this to say, don’t wait on motivation. Motivation is not always going to be there, motivation exists when things feel good; and unfortunately, progress doesn’t happen when you do things only when you feel like doing them, cause 9 times out of 10, you won’t/don’t feel like it. Make a conscious decision to go to the gym, make a conscious decision to make better choices. Your health is important, WAY more important than waiting for motivation.

Oh, and for the record, I love my personal trainer, and I still eat some of that shit I mentioned in moderation.