In Part 1 of this series, you learned the importance of staying patient, but the next step has to do with daily weight loss challenges.  After all, while you do need patience, it’s also important to be motivated enough to keep going and to make progress.

Daily weight loss challenges and victory celebrations are a great strategy to keep you driven and pushing hard even throughout slow and steady results. After all, the numbers on the scale aren’t the only achievements worth noting in all the lifestyle changes you’ve made.  In fact, basing your successes on your weigh-ins alone can be demoralizing.  All it can take is one plateau or the dreaded gained pound and it can feel like it was all for nothing.

The Importance of Daily Weight Loss Challenges that Aren’t Weigh-ins

You can’t rely on the scale to tell you whether or not your work is worthwhile. Instead, you can use the scale as a measure of overall body mass but focus on other daily weight loss challenges for your victories.

As long as you’re keeping up the right calorie intake, the pounds will eventually come off, even if it’s a slow process.  All you need to do for that is stick with it.  For your motivation, use smaller challenges you can aim for and celebrate within a short amount of time.  These may be daily weight loss challenges, weekly ones, monthly ones or all three. The goal is to do things that will keep you driven and on track without relying on the bathroom scale to tell you if you’re getting there.

This is a straightforward and even fun way to make sure you keep on top of your strategy.  It will help you to overcome the inclination to believe that slower fat loss means you’re doing something wrong or you’re failing.  The closer you are to your goal, the slower the process usually is.  It’s better to keep your focus elsewhere.

Thinking Long-Term

Keeping your weight under control isn’t just a matter of reaching a goal. It’s something you do for your entire life.  Since there are very few people who could keep up the traditional “dieting” format over the many years of their lives, a different attitude is required to drop the pounds and keep them where they should be without continually feel like eating and exercising is a battle you’re always at risk of losing.

There is a common expression that says that the journey is more important than the destination.  This is exactly true when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle.  It isn’t as much about getting to your goal as it is about adopting the healthy habits you need to get there and to keep it up.

It’s easy to imagine yourself devoted to your nutrition and workouts, cooking your meals from scratch most nights of the week and getting up early to head out for a run every morning before work. That said, reaching that point isn’t just a matter of deciding to do it. Yes, you may do it for a while, but keeping it up over the long term – especially when your measure of success is only your bathroom scale – can be extremely difficult.  Motivation is key.

Here’s Where They Make the Difference

That’s where the daily weight loss challenges come into play. You’re not looking at forever when it comes to these tasks. You’re not even looking to do something until you reach your goal weight.  You’re just doing something for today. That can feel much more achievable. When something is within reach, even when it isn’t easy, it’s more likely that you’ll go for it when it’s just for the day instead of being for a long period of time.

If your goal is to start making home cooked meals more often, it can feel overwhelming when you get started. Suddenly, you’re faced with a lot more meal planning, ingredient lists, grocery shopping, prepping, and time in the kitchen than you’ve ever done before.  When you’re used to ready-made meals and take-out, it can be hard to know where to begin let alone how to do it most days of the week for every meal.

Instead, use a daily weight loss challenge to help you by simply focusing on today.  Tomorrow is tomorrow’s challenge.  Today, you decide what you’ll eat, get the ingredients, make it, and enjoy. When you do, you’ll have a feeling of accomplishment that will motivate you to try again with something else the next day.  Perhaps it will be the same thing.  Maybe you’ll try it for two days in a row, or perhaps you’ll go for something different.  Whatever it is, it keeps you on the right track and pushing yourself to do your best.

What Are the Right Daily Weight Loss Challenges for You?

Choosing your daily weight loss challenges shouldn’t be stressful.  If you choose one that wasn’t that great for today, then you’ll have a different one tomorrow. No damage done.  Still, for best results, it does help to take aim at some great ones for you.  Begin by thinking about some areas that are directly linked to your fat reduction journey. Or, think about some of the goals you’d envisioned when you decided to drop the pounds.  These could include categories such as:

• Cooking
• Fitness
• Sleep
• Stress management

Choose a category and think of something you’d like to achieve and that can be done within the next 24 hours.

Examples of Daily Weight Loss Challenges

• Prepare 3 homemade meals
• Cook dinner from scratch 2 nights in a row
• Try one new recipe each week
• Try a new protein or flavor profile
• Have a half hour brisk walk after dinner
• Take a yoga class
• Begin meditating
• Start a journal

These are just some of the fantastic ways to get started.  Don’t forget to watch for the third part of the It’s Not a Race! series for weight loss tools you can use to improve your consistency.  For extra weight management support, check out the diet pills at Intechra Health. Their proprietary formulas contain only clinically researched ingredients which boost energy and support your capacity to overcome your top weight loss strategy challenges.