Tag: Motivation

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Weight Loss Exercise

Where to Find Support For Your Weight Loss Efforts


Losing weight is not an easy thing to do, especially when you’re tackling it by yourself. With some support from people around you, you’ll be more likely to help yourself to get through the tough points, and you’ll have someone else to show you how far you’ve come.

Humans are naturally social and generally rely on each other for their wellbeing, whether it’s completing a task together or just giving emotional support to one another. This applies even more when you’re trying to lose weight. It’s not easy at the best of times, let alone when you’re trying to do it alone. So where are the best places to find support?

Friends And Family

Friends and family are the best people to get support from when you embark on your weight loss journey. After all, they’re the closest people to you and can understand you the best. You may also feel more comfortable sharing your weight loss experience with them.

Make sure you look for someone you trust and are close to when you ask for their support. This can be anyone, for example your best friend or a sibling. You can tell them about your goals and plans for your weight loss efforts so that they can keep you on track. You can also share your difficulties with them when you bump into a wall during your efforts.


If you are not content with just telling your family or friends about your weight goals, you can also get them to actively participate in your efforts. You can ask them to play some sports with you on the weekends, or join you when you go for a jog. Having an exercise buddy is always a good motivation!

Whatever you do, don’t ask someone who doesn’t believe in you and tells you that you can’t do it. Although some people are motivated by negativity, you’ll be far more likely to succeed if you have some positive encouragement from those you know and love.

Weight Loss Clubs

If you’re not very comfortable getting support from your friends and family, you can always join a weight loss club or fitness club. By joining a club like this, you can meet others with goals similar to yours. You can befriend many people who go through the same experiences you do, and all of you can encourage each other on your weight loss journeys. It can also be fun to share experiences and ideas on how to lose weight.

Besides getting support from club members, you can also get to know the gym instructors and ask them for guidance on effective weight loss.

The most important point is that you get health and motivation from somewhere. Numerous studies have shown that people are more likely to see success in their weight loss efforts when they track their progress and take advantage of the support of others.


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Weight Loss Exercise

Changing How Gyms Work


A couple of weeks ago I signed up for a quick 14 days for 14 dollars deal at a local gym right near where I live. Actually I even wrote a post here about it. Although I do work out at my workplace in the company gym, I was trying this out so that I can have a gym close to my house.

I was excited and I have worked out there a few times including a killer spinning class that I did on Sunday. My membership has ended and although I would be interested in joining permanently but I am disappointed that there has been no follow through.

Problems with Gym Follow Up

Changing how gyms work

Initially I filled out a bit of a questionnaire and the girl that showed me around the gym tried to do a hard sell to get me to sign up right away but she did back down and let me go through my 14 day tryout of the gym.

The trouble is I never heard anything back. No Email, no phone calls, no way to close me on a membership. I simply came to the gym a few times and worked out and left. The staff was great and friendly but frankly they did not move me toward a decision to join the gym.

So what should have happened instead?

Well, as a person walking into the gym the staff there should have my motivation in mind. The questionaire tells them what I am looking to do and they should have been leading my along so that I could accomplish a few easy goals in my first two weeks. I can imagine that in the initial meeting when I did the questionaire they could have taken a snapshot of me and put me on a wall of fame. This wall of fame would include all new gym folk and would be great for everyone. It creates a sense of community, it helps the old timers recognize the newbies, and most importantly it gives the staff a chance to help out the new people in any way that they can.


I am very self reliant when it comes to being in a gym. I have belonged to a lot of gyms over the years and I have always seen this sense of community missing. I think that if a new person came to a gym and didn’t figure out things quickly enough they would never show up and over the years every February we have seen people do this. Just quit.

Stop Charging for Trainers!

One of the things that the gym was pushing me on initially was three sessions with a trainer for $250 or so. As a new person I think the gym should give some initial free trainer time to get the new people moving in the right direction.

Another thing the gym could have done is assigned a trainer to me that could see me for a few minutes before every workout, give me an idea of what to do so that I would make gains. They had my phone number and email so a trainer or a staff member could coordinate times and days and when I came in I would have some kind of workout plan.

I am not sure if it is fair but I always look at the guys that are selling you on gym memberships as being closers and not trainers. I think that these guys should be marketers too and help all those people with a spark of motivation and a half a plan to get to their goals. Not only would this raise the image of the gym but over a very short time these gyms could rely on referrals from their own members instead of the ads and hard sell they need to do today.

Are there any gym owners or managers out there that do this? What about you when joining a gym? What were your experiences?

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burn the fat feed the muscle is an exercise and diet program. My review of Burn the Fat shows that it is designed and written by an ex-pro natural bodybuilder but is a system that was written for regular guys and gals. Teaching you how to workout and eat to lose weight.

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How Can I Lose Weight For Christmas?


Christmas is just around the corner and I always have people asking about losing weight for this holiday or that and now people are wondering, how can I lose weight for Christmas?

Well truth is this is the worst time of year for most people to lose or even to maintain weight. We have lots of temptations and not a lot of support.


Temptations? Let me count the Christmas eating extravaganza that this season has in store for us. Christmas parties with lots of food and booze, cookie exchanges, Christmas baking in the office, holiday get together, eating food at the mall while shopping, Costco hotdogs. In fact this time of year is so busy that some people do not cook a meal between December 1st and December 24th.

And then the lack of support and motivation. Have you had anyone say, “Just one cookie, you are looking so good a cookie can’t hurt”. This is not the only chance for someone to stop you from making good choices, there are all the opportunities above to make sure that you have an excuse to blow off the gym for eggnog (double whammy) or just to sneak out for a bit of shopping. Even the best laid plans can be threatened by people that we tend to lean on for support.

So what’s a person to do? Gain 10 pounds of holiday fat? Maybe just be healthy for 11 months of the year and have a cheat month? There is some ways to make some good choices and makes the most of the month of December.


How Can I Lose Weight for Christmas

How Can I lose Weight for Christmas

How Can I lose Weight for Christmas

Make a schedule. I am bad for scheduling time until I get down to a crunch time and surely this is that time. All you need to really do is sit down and look at your social schedule, your work schedule, and your shopping schedule, and your family schedule…you get the point, look and see what you need to do and then fit in where the workouts can go. Most months our workouts will just happen on schedule but in a month like December that can be difficult so you just need to find the right times

Eat the Best Possible Foods. You will eat some bad food but the real problem this time of year is indulging in way too many white carbs and fats. What you need to do is control your breakfast and other meals as well as you can. You do have lots of control over at least breakfast but really you can control almost all meals.

We will get a lot of other foods that are terrible for us and if we keep control over all, or almost all of our meals and make sure that we are eating all those healthy fruits an veggies that will fuel our bodies and minimize all those crappy processed carbs and fats.

In fact if you don’t do this already I think it is great. Looks at the food you are about to put in your mouth and decide – is this fuel? or is this crap?

Social Events with bad eating and drinking. OK so I think that you kind of have the eating and exercise taken care of if you are planning your schedule and eat planning now there are those other times. The times out at the mall or at a party or other get together

First off I have to say don’t use fitness as a crutch not to be social there are lots of options when going out. You are out to socialize and there are lots of good things that come out of that, like having a life and stuff.

So eating can be a problem. I have found that there are always choices and whether you are at the mall or if you are at a Christmas party you can still find the meats, fruits, vegetables that will fuel you. Just try not to eat too many of the fried foods and cookies and keep a level head.

Don’t stay out too late. we all know that later in the evening our decision making abilities become hazy and sleep is a very important part of healthy lifestyle.

Drink in moderation. I tend to drink too quickly so my best hint here is to make sure to pace myself. I will have a beer and then have a big glass of water. Water is really good and the alcohol flows a little too freely in the Christmas season.

OK, I gotta say I always feel like a party pooper with a list of tips like these but really the fact is that most of us don’t have any willpower and that’s why most people gain so much weight in the month of December. It all comes down to planning, healthy eating, exercise, and willpower.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any great tips for how to lose weight by Christmas?



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