So what do you do if your brain says you’re willing to give it a go but your heart says “forget it, I’m sick of trying.”?

Here’s 5 ways to help you fire yourself up and find the motivation to lose weight.

1) Write It Down
Why do you want to lose weight?
Is it because of a health issue; because you want to be around for your children; because of an upcoming special event; because you’re sick and tired of being fat; or some other reason?

My motivating factor was my annual checkup where my doctor told me I had to get my body mass down if I wanted to live longer and avoid serious diseases. My blood sugar was in the pre-diabetic range; my blood pressure was borderline high; and I needed a stress test for my heart.

I finally realized how my excess weight was negatively affecting my health and how I was literally eating myself to death.

If you’re having a hard time finding motivation to get started on losing weight even though you know you should, sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and write down the reasons why you want to lose weight.

Then keep that piece of paper handy and look at it as often as you need to in order to stay motivated.

2) Give Yourself Rewards
Rewards are a lot of fun to look forward to. Plan rewards for yourself as you reach each of your weight loss goals. For example, treat yourself to a pedicure or to tickets to a game for losing 5 pounds, 5 percent of your body weight, or whatever goal you want to set. Plan a bigger reward or two as well for when you reach the halfway point or when you reach your goal weight or size.

Avoid food rewards though! Yeah, you might be thinking “duh,” of course I won’t reward my weight loss with food but it’s likely to be the first thing that pops into your mind because our society seems to celebrate everything with food! (Is there anything we don’t celebrate with cake?)

Is your budget tight? There’s lots of rewards you can give yourself that don’t cost anything such as a day hanging out at the park and relaxing, spending time at the library catching up on reading your favorite magazines, or just being a couch potato and catching up on your favorite television shows. Giving yourself the gift of free time is probably the best reward you can give yourself (as long as you make it guilt free – no thinking about things you’re not getting done.)

3) A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words
Many of us don’t see how we really look when we stare at ourselves in the mirror but pictures don’t lie.

Three things you can do:
A: Take a picture of yourself today and put it where you’ll look at it every day. The refrigerator door is a good place because it might motivate you to leave the door closed and not stuff your face with what’s inside.

B: Find a picture of yourself before you gained weight and put it where you’ll look at it every day to remind yourself of how you want to look.

C: Find a picture of somebody you don’t want to look like. It could be a family member or a complete stranger. Use that picture to remind yourself why you want to lose weight.

4) Think About What Will Happen If You Don’t Lose Weight
Overweight people have more health issues than normal weight people and excess weight can shorten a life and make the years you do have less enjoyable.

For example, Type II diabetes is related to obesity and can have severe adverse effects on a person’s life. I see what it does to people every week when I take my mom to kidney dialysis. At least half the people are there are on dialysis because of complications of their diabetes and a few of them have lost at least a portion of one of their limbs because of their diabetes. Having to spend several hours a day, three times a week hooked up to a dialysis machine completely changes a person’s life.

I’m not saying you’ll get Type II diabetes if you don’t lose weight. You may be lucky enough to never experience adverse physical ailments because of it.

But even if it doesn’t cause physical problems it may cause other ones. Does it make it difficult to play with your children? Do you avoid certain activities you once enjoyed such as golf or skiing or hiking because the excess weight makes it too hard? Do you hate going to movies, concerts, or to fly because the seats are too small and uncomfortable? If you don’t lose weight will you continue to miss out on things in life that you think are fun?

5) Start Your Day By Doing One Thing To Help With Weight Loss
Every day goes better if you can start it out on a positive note. Try to start your day out by doing something to help with your weight loss because it can help motivate you to stay on track for the rest of the day. Here are some examples:

- Exercise first thing in the morning. If you can get out for a morning walk or can get to the gym that’s great. If not, get a workout video and do it for 5 or 10 minutes in the morning, get a mini trampoline and start your day by bouncing on it 10 minutes, get a weighted hula hoop and use it while watching the early morning news, or go online and find a workout routine.

- Eat a healthy breakfast (include lean protein and whole grains).

- Drink a glass of water.

- Eat a piece of fruit.

- Pack your lunch (a healthy one). Include mid-morning and afternoon snacks so you’re not tempted to have fast food or hit the vending machines.

- Plan your day. Plan healthy meals, time for exercise, and some down time to relax.

Keep these 5 tips on motivating yourself to lose weight in a handy place. Then any time your motivation starts to go away you can look at them and help yourself get your motivation back.

And a surgery in July (my son’s) is what got me off track last time. Okay, well that’s not really true.  It’s what I used as an excuse to get off track last time when my son’s surgery, my Mom not feeling well and having lots of doctor’s appointments that I took her too, and then several parties and a wedding, all became my excuses to not exercise regularly and to completely fall back into my old unhealthy eating habits.

So I’m hoping for the best and that I’ve lost at least 2 of the 5 pounds I need to get back off so I’m back to the 57 pound loss I was at before I lost my focus in July.

I’ve really worked hard at eating healthy and exercising this past week.  Although I always told myself Iwouldn’t set hard and fast deadlines for myself I always thought I would have lost at least half of the 120 pounds I want to get off by the time a year had passed.

Now I realize that’s not going to happen because my one year anniversary at Weight Watchers is this Thursday, September 3, 2009.  So this is where I have to look on the bright side (just like PollyAnna – ugh!) and realize that I’ve done well to have lost over 50 pounds in the past year.  I’m happy about it but honestly it makes me sad too.  I know I could have gotten at least another 25-30 pounds off this past year if I wouldn’t have had so many “lapses” where I gained a little weight back and then had to get it back off again.

Some days I really wish for that magic little weight loss pill……….

I did okay until the middle of July, managing to pare 7 pounds off between May 1 and July 15.

Then, as my husband likes to put it “life happened.”  My Mom had some health issues, one of our children was injured and needed surgery, and then last weekend we had a family wedding. Plus in between we had lots of other parties (why do they all revolve around food?)

Can you guess what I did when I got stressed?  Yep, I ate and I didn’t eat just anything.  I was really picky about only consuming foods high in sugar, fat, carbs and starch.  Forget the carrots and apples.  They held all the appeal of a piece of cardboard.

Plus, because things we so out of whack and crazy in my life I missed some of my Weight Watchers meetings  and up until July I hadn’t missed a meeting since the beginning of the year.

At the beginning of August I started pulling myself back together.  I found the courage to go to Weight Watchers and step on the hated scale and was thrilled I had only gained 2 pounds.

For some reason that led me to think I could continue to be haphazard about what I put in my mouth (cuz after all only gaining 2 pounds after eating junky food for 3 weeks wasn’t too bad).

And, then all hell broke loose last weekend with my eating.  I didn’t pay attention to what I ate at all (although I can tell you I had 3 pieces of wedding cake).  I gained 6 pounds over the weekend!  I can hardly believe that’s possible but my scale at home gave me the same horrifying number each of the 11 times I stepped on it hoping it was wrong!

That means I had a sum total of zero progress since the beginning of May 2009.  I’ve gained back every pound I lost the 3 months and I feel like it.

The clothes I purchased this summer in a “just fit me size” are a little snug and I feel completely lethargic.

Now I have 2 choices.  I can either get back on track and be more determined than ever to lose weight.  Or I can give up and gain back all the weight I’ve lost since September 2008 (I’m still down 50 pounds despite my dismal summer).

I’m choosing to get back and track and start once again.

Even though going to Weight Watchers tomorrow and stepping on the scale is going to be incredibly painful and disheartening, I have only myself to blame.  Nobody forced me to eat anything.  All the junk I ate was, unfortunately, a decision I made.  And nobody told me I had to cut back on my exercising.  I just got lazy.

So, here’s to starting over one more time!

I know I can do it.