The first time I remember I stepped in a gym was when a friend wanted to motivate me to lift weights. I was 18 years of age.
My friend’s objective was not achieved. I had no desire to go lift weights. I think he could not motivate me because I did not see the benefit of exercising. As well, I never see something wrong with my body.
Not long ago, I assessed one of our members. Let’s call him John. He has been with us just over a month. His results were not the best. He did increase 2 pounds of muscle but also increase a pound of fat.
and of course, he was eating unhealthy. Since we designed an eating plan on his preview assessment, the plan was not the issue. So in this case what I do is ask our members what happened. John said that he knows he was eating out when working, not preparing his foods, eating packaged foods and not eating vegetables.
My next reaction was to ask him why he was eating that way...
His answer was very relaxed and he said that he does not know. So then we started talking about it and we concluded that it is not important for him. He does not really see the benefit of eating healthy. He feels healthy. It is not really interfering with his life. It is convenient and he has been doing it for a year. John is in his mid forties.
There is nothing that I can do to convince John to eat healthy. However, I did take my time to tell him some research about how important it is to eat healthy. Like I said, I knew nothing I would say would change his mind. But that does not mean that I was giving up. By the end of our conversation, I ask John to give himself time to think about why he was exercising with us and what was the goal and if it was important to him.
John is very good when he is training and he pushes to become better. The real goal of John is to improve his body, but the desire is not strong enough to change his eating habits.
A year after my friend tried to motivate me to exercise...
I started working with a bodybuilder who I did not pay attention to in the beginning. However, one day as we were working, I noticed that he stood apart for the rest of the guys. That is when I noticed that he was more attractive than the rest. Then I got motivated to exercise and change my physic to also attract the opposite sex.
Something I learned from studying psychology is that there is no one who can motivate you to make a change in your life. Your motivation is internal. You must know why you are changing your behavior. No matter what my friend tried to motivate me to exercise, he would never succeed (unless he would stand apart and see the results I saw with my friend Dave- the bodybuilder). It was not until I noticed that exercise can change my physics.
I don’t think John is going to see the benefit of eating healthy until something touches him emotionally. I wish I could get into his head and change the way he thinks, but for now I hope for better results.
I believe this is one of the reasons why it is so hard for many people to lose weight...
Their desire to change is not strong enough. They don’t really know why they want to change and they don’t see how changing their lives will improve compared to the benefits of the bad behavior.
You want to transform your body...?
You must see the benefit of your new behavior. Of course, for me was to attract the opposite sex. I was a teenager and being wanted by women was enough motivation for me to start lifting weights. Now my motivation is different, but thanks to my old motivation I developed the habits to stay young, strong and healthy.
Why are you exercising? Why are you eating healthy? Why are you reading this? Why do you wake up every day? Do you want to transform your body? Remember that for you to change your desire to change or why needs to be stronger than the old behavior.
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