Are you like me? Really good at being there for others but then not asking for help when you need it. Or perhaps you have tried asking for help and not got the response you expected?
This can put you off asking for help again. However, we have to just acknowledge that sometimes the people you help may not be the people who can help you.
Asking for help
So today, I am publicly asking anyone reading this for help to motivate me on the weight loss journey!
Just to clarify here – I know what I should do, I am not looking for suggestions on what to eat, what exercise to do. I am looking for some ideas around motivating myself to do all of that!
A big issue for me is I do not have a competitive bone in my body.
- When I write blog posts, I don’t care if people get more views than me.
- When I play Candy Crush, I don’t care if I am ahead of friends or getting more points on a game.
- When I do a FB Live, I don’t care if other people get more people joining in their FB Lives.
- When I join in a Fitbit challenge, I don’t care if I am bottom of the board.
So as you can imagine, I can’t use competition to lose weight. I don’t want to be the skinniest or fittest or fastest or the person who runs the longest distance. It just doesn’t matter.
I could say I don’t have time but we all know that’s just an excuse. I could easily find the time. I am just not motivated by being the biggest loser!
Last year I did a whole month of sharing my Fitbit steps on Instagram. This held me publicly accountable. I made sure I hit 10K a day so I could share the screenshot of my Fitbit dashboard; even though I doubt anyone would have noticed if I didn’t post (Instagram’s Alogrithm changes almost daily so you never know who sees your posts in their feeds anymore).
The only thing about being publicly accountable with my weight is actually sharing those horrible numbers. Not sure I could deal with the thought of that. I don’t think publicly shaming myself is the way to go.
However, I know public accountability works for me.
I have used slimming clubs in the past with great success. That action of getting weighed in front of someone else each week was the reason it worked (not because I followed a set diet).
However, weekly clubs are not something I can commit to – life is too chaotic at the moment with lots of appointments and meetings. So I can’t attend a class every Wednesday morning or whatever.
So I think I need to be publicly accountable in a virtual way.
Any suggestions you have would be really appreciated as I am struggling here and being personally accountable doesn’t work for me.
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7 Comments
I am competitive, so I haven’t much advice, but if slimming clubs worked for you before, why not set up a virtual one – even a FB group – where everyone is encouraged to report their weight, fitbit results etc at a set time every week?
This is so me too! Shall we start a weekly online weigh-in?! I’d never go to a slimming club, but I agree accountability is key #TheMMLinky
Steph’s idea of a weekly weigh in online sounds good. But first, have you asked yourself why do you need to lose weight? Sometimes just pondering on the idea of why can help you find your way of doing it. For instance I spent years fed up of my body shape, but it wasn’t until I realised that i needed to eat differently because of my health that I changed my diet. Good luck x
#TheMMLinky
I am so competitive, which means I’ve never been able to do anything unless it’s a competition against time or others, I love a challenge. However, I agree there has to be accountability. I think the idea of a private Facebook group with weekly weigh ins in a good one. How about you decide your ideal weight and a realistic time frame in the future and then work out how much you need to loose each week between now and then to achieve that?
I need to get back to healthier eating in a bigger way. Accountability is always very good for me and I lose more when I report in to people how I am dong and neatly that usually helps other people too so win-win. You can do this so go for it and be proud of every baby step #TheMMLinky
I put on a huge amount of weight due to chronic illness, decrease in mobility & drugs….oh and hitting 40s at the same time. For all sorts of reasons I couldn’t get motivated to anything….but for meI think the fact that my clothes were no longer fitting and I didn’t feel like me any more acted as a motivation. Our financial circumstances changed (hubby now my carer) so I couldn’t afford to join a slimming club, so at the beginning of the year I thought I would try kick starting by doing sugar free Feb and hauling hubby along for the ride. The only thing I can say is it changed my taste….so many things seemed too sweet after and I kept up some of the healthy eating. Some weight started to come off and the biggest motivation was getting back into my old clothes! Oh and feeling a bit more like me. So hard though….good luck TheMMLinky
I’m not remotely competitive, except battling you in the fitbit challenge for bottom place! Have you considered an online slimming club? I find the classes a huge help. Otherwise I would go with the online weigh in, amongst a very select group of friends, strictly private x