What is the best motivation to help you lose weight?

Motivation is what keep us going forward and reaching our goals. The factors and reasons that motivate children, women, men or older people are different. That’s why it is important to find out what your priorities are, before you decide to involve in a sport or enter the gym. To find the right sport for you is a crucial factor reaching your weight loss goals.

A research from Lamar University, Texas takes a look at the motivation and passion for sport in sport officials. It states, that professional sporters get involved in a sport mostly ‘for the love of the game’. However, they continue officiating not only because of their commitment to the sport, but also because of the relationships that they had developed with other officials, athletes and other members of the sporting community.

This means, that the relationships you make with the people in the group play a very important role, choosing a sport. While trying to reach your weight loss goals, it’s important to feel supported so you don’t go back the half way.

Another research from University of Oxford, UK examines research studies of UK children’s and adults’ reasons for participation and non-participation in sport and physical activity. It covers the period from 1990 to 2004.

The conclusion is, that there are different motivation factors, that play role by children, teenagers, adults and older people who decide whether participate in sport or to be physically active or not.

Motivation in Children

For a young child it is important that the sport is enjoyable and that they are not being forced to compete and win. Support from parents plays here a very important role.

Motivation in Teenagers

The concerns about their body shape play important role with teenagers. For girls is important to be slim, and for boys to be fit. The perfect body shape and weight management are their main motivators. Role models as superstars and supermodels are also playing important role here.

Motivation in Adults

Adults take a decision to participate in a sport, so they can maintain their weight and keep their body fit. For them social interactions and enjoying their time while sporting are also very important factors. They exercise for a sense of achievement, skill development and to spend ‘luxury time’ on themselves away from daily responsibilities.

Motivation in Older people

For older people physical activity is important not only for minimizing the effects of aging, but also because of  the support they get in such social networks.

The enjoyment and social networks which sport or a physical activity offer are clearly important motivators for many different groups of people. But before enrolling in one or another sport it is important to ask yourself “Am I competitive? Do I like to compete”?

If so running, swimming, climbing or any other competitive sport might be a perfect fit for you. If you don’t like competition, and socializing and support are more important factors for you, then you might want to start jogging, dancing, basketball or any other sport where your success depends on how the team plays.

The barriers that stop people enrolling in sport are lack of confidence about entering unfamiliar settings – not knowing other people, poor body image or not fitting in with the particular sport culture.

If you are not confident enough, it’s not a problem at all. You are not the only one. This happens to everyone enrolling in sport or seeing the gym from inside for the first time. You are going there to learn and to improve yourself. You might be surprised to find out, that there are many others exactly like you, who want to improve themselves. Your abilities may surprise you, as well. You just have to do it! Try and you’ll see, that there’s nothing to worry about. You’ll meet many people who were or are in your situation, who can give you a great support and help you on the way.

I hear very often men saying “I am not dancing! The real men go boxing, footballing… such kind of sports”. At the same time, they secretly want to be that perfect dancer, after who all women are falling down and looking at with admire. If you ask your man or boyfriend to join you for dancing lessons in most of the cases you’ll see his hair literally going up. It is impossible to convince him to go dancing, and that’s it! But if somehow you succeed, and you sign up for dancing lessons – it may happen, that this is really something for him and he is really good at it, much better than other people in the group.

So, if your way of thinking and concerns are stopping you to make that  first step – remember you don’t know how good or bad at it you are! You have to try, leave yourself to the flow and give 100% of yourself.

Do experiment

Experiment with different kinds of sports, until you find the one, that you enjoy the most. Then everything will fall on place, because it is most important to enjoy yourself on the way! Soon or later, the results will be visible! If you don’t like going to the gym, then just don’t go there! Search another sport that you’ll enjoy and sign up for it.

Finding the right sport (or other physical activity) for you is the best way to stay on track and to reach your weight loss goals. Enjoy your time – only then you’ll have longer the opportunity to enjoy your perfect body shape! Because it is not about getting in perfect shape, it’s about staying there and enjoying it on the way!

http://www.ijsmart.eu/onlinepic/vol10_b%20Charles%20Nix.pdf
http://her.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/6/826.full.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports