I was looking around for ideas for motivation, and I'm a very visual person.
I found this idea, I believe it was a WW thing, I'm not exactly sure, but all the weight loss participants would have lengths of ribbon representing how many total inches they've lost. Cute!
Does anyone have any unique visuals that help motivate you? And can you think of a time it has actually worked? For instance, you were sooo close to binging and then saw it and it actually pulled you back from the edge of that cliff? I'd be really interested to know how effective visuals actually are.
I don't have a physical 'visual' but I visualize in my head all the time. I imagine how I'll feel. I 'see' myself going through my daily activities minus the fat suit! Stuff like that.
I am not sure if its a "visual" or not, but I keep a pair of pants and a top that are a size smaller than what I am in currently hanging on the back of my closet door as a reminder of where I am going and I try them on every couple of weeks and then when they fit, I buy a new one to hang there. Works for me!
I have graph on the back of a door - I plot my weight every time it drops a pound or two. I like connecting the dots and watching the line drop down! I also have a chain of paperclips that has one clip for every pound lost. I don't know if they help or not, but I am trying every thing I can to stay on the path.
I can't take credit for it- I think I read it here someplace- the person said thier WW leader did this, gave them paperclips for the pounds they lost.
I made chains of ten each for the weight I need to lose that I have hanging where I can't see them and then as I lose I add to the chain I have of lost pounds and that hangs where I can see it frequently. It makes me feel good to see how long that chain is getting
I'm a visual person as well. Seeing pictures of successful people can motivate me, but sometimes I feel like I should branch out and revert back to my kid side and do something with stickers on a wall or something.
Something colorful like the paperclips idea. I would find that motivating as I could see my accomplishments and possibly celebrate them instead of second guessing them and comparing myself to other people. If that makes sense...
The mini Goal and Goal photos and posts here are awesome for that. Seeing that this is possible and it's possible to keep it off makes the journey not seem as insurmountable. I think the graph is good for your personal journey though. If you've lost x amount of weight/doing your exercise/eating on plan why screw that up with a binge that will just make you feel bad afterwards. But if you did slip for a moment don't let that stop you from keep going foward. Rome wasn't built in a day.
I definately know what you mean. There's a show on Oxygen called the Secret Lives of Women, one of which was about women who lost a huge amount of weight, and I keep it on my DVR for motivation.
I'm not a member of this support group so I hope you ladies don't mind me jumping in here. I am a very visual person and have a couple things I like to motivate me. One I learned in WW - sit in a chair and have someone hand you (or sit in your lap) a 5lb bag of sugar for everyfive lbs you've lost. It really motivates you just sitting there with that many bags of sugar representing how big 5lbs really is.
The other thing I did (my husband really liked this one LOL) I bought the sports illustrated swimsuit edition and a Rollingstones with Shakira in it. I cut out all the photos and taped them all over our refridgerator, so everytime I was about to go in for something bad, I had to look at those girls first. This one really helped me stay out of the ice cream.
I love viewing before/after photos of others. But the best source of a visual motivator for me is looking at old photos of myself. That always does the trick since the majority of my weight gain has been in the past few years.
Sometimes we get a visual when we least expect it. Today I was shopping at Lowe's Hardware and needed to pickup some birdseed for my bird feeder. The best bargain was a 40 pound bag. I tried to pick it up and about passed out. The thing is that when I began my weight loss journey, I had more than 40 pounds to lose. I can only imagine how carrying all of the weight around was affecting my life. For me this was a real visual.
Do visuals work to motivate you?
