Weight Loss Motivation

Welcome, Beautiful! In this blog post, I can’t wait to help you get your weight loss motivation soaring!

I’m Holistic Nutritionist Nathalie Norris and I know that motivation is key to successful weight loss.

And today, I want to share tools you can use to help you re-gain your weight loss motivation.

So let’s jump in!

Weight Loss Motivation Technique # 1: Notice how you feel in your body right now.

I would love for this to be a head-in-the-clouds blog post for you about how you can naturally lose weight.

And yet, what I can say is that the women who make the biggest weight transformations are the ones who’ve hit a point where they really don’t feel good. They’re aware that they need to change for themselves, their family or their happiness.

Often times when you’re gaining/have gained weight, you’ll disassociate with your body (all the while continuously mentally beating yourself up).

You won’t feel how your clothes feel on you, you’ll throw yourself into work or sabotaging habits. Or you’ll criticize yourself internally when you do eat more, but the scariest thing is to take a moment:

A pure, full, moment, and just feel what it feels like to BE in your body right now.

This isn’t so that you can beat yourself up. This isn’t so you can judge and hate on yourself.

It’s just so you can feel where you are now.

If you’re sad with where you are, or if it feels heavy or upsetting, here’s my next step.

Weight Loss Motivation Technique # 2: Know that it’s possible to change.

The next piece is knowing it’s possible to change.

Throw away the past diets. Let go of the old counting or points systems.

Start getting interested in what foods are good for you, and what foods fuel a happy mood and energy.

When you are energized, aren’t you more willing to say, “YES!” to a workout? Or “YES!” to an after-dinner walk? Or “YES!” to trying a new, healthy recipe?

Of course you are.

So aiming for energy – and not weight loss – can help give you a completely new way to lose weight:

By caring for yourself.

Fuelling your body with the right nutrients and foods is caring for yourself.

Weight Loss Motivation Technique # 3: What do you want to DO with the energy you’ll create?

Once you’ve sat with your body for a minute and really felt how it’s feeling, and then you’ve made even a tiny, tiny opening to the possibility of weight loss (that’s all it takes!), the next step to re-gain your weight loss motivation is to figure out what you’ll do with your new-found energy levels.

Will you go for long walks in the park with your dog? Will you chase your kids around a park or backyard? Do you dream of training for a marathon that you’ve secretly always wanted to do?

It’s important to take a moment to really think about what you want to do with your new-found energy and vitality. Otherwise, how will you expect to achieve it?

Those realizations will guide your next steps, and keep you inspired along the way.

Weight Loss Motivation Technique # 4: What are you protecting yourself from with the weight?

The amazing and late Louise Hay said that obesity, being overweight or fat came from a need to protect yourself. She said that you feel scared with life right now, or that you need to reject yourself.

So in this method, it’s important to find out what things in your life feel scary at this moment, so that you can find more productive, sustainable and healthy ways of coping with the stresses of your daily life.

You don’t have to hurt yourself with food. And hurting yourself with food never fixes the real problem, anyway.

If you do have a lot of stress in your life right now, eating too much “junk food” or unhealthy snacky foods can deplete some of the crucial nutrients that you need for healthy coping.

So not only will you not solve your problems by “punishing” yourself with food, you’ll actually make every single problem feel much less solvable.

Weight Loss Motivation Technique # 5: Get your iron levels checked, and a few other simple blood tests run.

If you’re looking to lose weight, one of the best things to rule out to make it easier is an iron deficiency. I recommend asking your Doctor to test your Ferritin levels (your iron storage amounts) and your Hemoglobin levels (the active iron complex that brings oxygen around your body).

As I mentioned in point # 2, energy is the critical, feel-good element that’s needed for maintaining weight loss.

And if your iron levels are low, you’ll feel exhausted, out of breath, out of shape and you’ll likely have some pretty heavy periods, too.

I generally also recommend that clients also get their TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels checked, just to make sure that their master metabolism gland is running smoothly.

If any of those levels are found to be low, replacing the depleted nutrients with good quality supplements is essential.

Some Doctors are amazing at keeping up on the absorption rates of new supplements, others are not. So make sure to speak with a qualified healthcare practitioner (like a Holistic Nutritionist or Naturopath) to get the best supplements recommended for you personally.

Weight Loss Motivation Technique # 6: Support your liver

Your liver is one of your most prime fat-burning organs. When you care for your liver, weight loss can happen nearly as an easy side-effect (instead of a frustrating attempt).

Making sure you focus on eating lots of broccoli, broccoli sprouts and kale can help support your liver to detoxify (get rid of) fat-boosting estrogens.

Ensuring that you eat 1-2 tablespoons of ground flaxseeds each day (or chia pudding like this creamy, chocolate pudding from the inspiring Kelly Childs) helps to give your body a great boost of fiber which is absolutely essential for your liver health.

And ensuring you drink half of your body weight in pounds, in ounces of water each day is SO amazingly helpful for your liver, too. (Ie: if you weigh 200 pounds, drink 100 ounces of water per day, preferably filtered. If you weigh 300 pounds, drink 150 ounces water each day).

The first few days, this will feel like a LOT of water – especially if you’ve been chronically dehydrated. But after about a week your body will level out and actually CRAVE this amount of water. That makes it easier to keep up.

(For the easy trick I recommend to clients to stay mindful of their water consumption, click here).

Weight Loss Motivation Technique # 7: Use Superfoods to Boost Your Energy Levels

Superfoods are one of my favourite ways to help you lose weight, through helping to naturally improve your mood, energy levels and motivation.

In my 7 Superfoods for Energy guide, I recommend schisandra as one of my *favourite* superfoods for energy-boosting. (You can get the guide for free by signing up for emails from me at the bottom of this blog post, I’d love to share it with you!).

Schisandra berry is such a simple, fast addition to your diet that frequently makes quick believers of even the most skeptical people about food impacting your body because it’s impacts at raising energy level are near-instant.

I get it in powder form from trusted herbal stores, or I recommend St. Francis’s tincture of schisandra.

Always read and follow the label. I add it to a big glass of water with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice for a kind of berry-lemonade.

Always speak with your healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, supplement regime or lifestyle.

Schisandra is generally safe but may interfere with some medications.

Schisandra is not recommended during pregnancy or early breastfeeding.

Weight Loss Motivation Tecnique # 8: Balance Your Hormones for Weight Loss

Hormonal balance is crucial for women looking to lose weight.

In fact, it’s so important that if you’ve tried to lose weight before and your efforts had not paid off, I would highly suspect you had a hormonal imbalance.

When your hormones (especially as a woman) are imbalanced, weight loss can be incredibly hard. That’s because you’ve been trying to fix the EFFECT of the hormonal imbalance, not the CAUSE of the weight gain.

When instead you sort out the underlying hormonal imbalance, weight loss motivation increases tenfold because you suddenly start seeing results.

Hypothyroidism and subclinical hypothyroidism are reasons I commonly see for weight gain and stubborn weight.

Adrenal burnout (stress exhaustion) is another common cause that especially causes a “hanging belly” of fat.

Imbalanced blood sugar levels often result in weight that is hard to lose. It particularly creates weight gain in the love handles regions of the body.

Sex hormones that are imbalanced often cause weight gain in the hips, butt and breasts. So if that’s where you tend to gain weight, the underlying cause of that weight is likely estrogen and progesterone that are a little out of balance.

Working with an awesome natural practitioner who’s trained in hormonal weight loss can help you get to the bottom of your weight gain, and finally achieve the weight loss you’ve been wanting – easily.

And when you do, you’ll find your weight loss motivation skyrockets because you’re *finally* seeing results that match your effort!

Weight Loss Motivation Technique # 9: Change Your Cravings for Weight Loss

One of the first questions I ask clients who are looking to lose weight is what caused the weight gain?

What foods have you been over-eating that you really feel caused this?

Usually there are a few really clear food causes.

“I love chocolate. I have a weak spot for chips. A bag of pretzels is in front of me, and I eat the whole bag. Ice cream has played a bigger role in my late-night eating than I’d like it to, I just can’t control myself.”

Whatever the food craving, I love to give substitutes of foods that will fuel the body, but also cover what your body is likely craving in the moment.

Example of what you can do if you crave a LOT of chocolate:

Chocolate can be a craving for magnesium or iron on the nutritional side. On the emotional side, chocolate can be a craving for romance and love.

If you’re someone who constantly craves chocolate, I’d listen to your symptoms (how you feel) to see if you likely had an iron or magnesium deficiency.

Ie: if you’re exhausted all the time, out of breath, crave naps and never feel rested, I may suspect iron and recommend a great supplement to supply some added iron into your body for long-term controlling of that craving.

If you were low energy regularly, didn’t sleep well, couldn’t relax very easily and you were sensitive to noise, I’d suspect a magnesium deficiency and recommend a great supplement to help refill that deficiency. That would naturally leave you with less cravings for chocolate.

On the emotional side, I might ask what things make you feel really loved.

Once you have a list of things you and other people can do that make you feel loved, you can ask for them. You can also prioritize them for yourself. And you can start filling your life up with love and naturally alleviate the chocolate craving.

Lastly, we’d refill the chocolate craving with some healthy chocolate recipes – whole food sweets made out of natural ingredients that totally crush the craving and are very quick to make.

(I often recommend a chocolate smoothie, these chocolate truffle balls, or unsweetened, almond chocolate milk with 5 drops liquid stevia added to it are common, easy replacements).

Weight Loss Motivation Technique # 10: Start Making The Most Effective Changes to Your Diet

One of the best things that I get to do as a Nutritionist is look over diet diaries.

I LOVE it because I get to see what you’re eating, and make the MOST impactful recommendations first. That means you notice results really quickly which keeps your weight loss motivation levels HIGH.

One of the very first recommendations I give to clients who are looking to lose weight is to focus on eating more fruits and more veggies.

When you’re making something, or even ordering take-out for an easy night, ask yourself, “how can I ADD veggies to this?”.

I know that it’s a simple strategy. But if you follow through on it, ask yourself, and find new ways of adding more veggies into your diet, you’ll almost certainly start noticing some beneficial results.

I also love this technique because instead of limiting or restricting food (the old paradigm of weight loss), you’re focusing on ADDING more into your diet. And when you’re adding fruits and veggies to your diet, you’re adding fiber. That helps to make you feel full naturally (only when you’re drinking enough water – see technique 6 again for amounts).

And if you want to find some cool ways to make vegetables *actually* taste good enough that you’ll crave them, here’s another post with my 7 favourite ways to coat veggies in goodness and taste!

Now I’d love to hear from you!

Which weight loss motivation technique touched your heart? Which will you implement?

Or, what’s your favourite technique to re-gain your weight loss motivation? I would absolutely love to hear in the comments.

I’m sending such easy weight loss vibes your way,
Nathalie Norris, CNP, NNCP
Holistic Nutritionist