You may think that there are no wrong reasons to lose weight, since wherever you get your motivation from it will result in the same outcome. Losing weight can improve your health and increase your self-esteem, so surely it doesn’t matter what reasons you have for losing weight. However, there are some reasons to lose weight which are rather ridiculous and that make it unlikely you will ever reach your goal or remain at your ideal weight for long. You have to lose weight for the right reasons – for the sake of your health and so you can feel better about yourself rather than chasing the elusive perfect body.
Deciding to lose weight because you want to be super skinny probably isn’t the best reason to embark on a weight-loss program, as you will never be happy whatever size you are. Focusing on losing weight to fit into a size 0 pair of jeans means that you tend to ignore the health implications of being so slim, as unless you’re naturally skinny you may not be able to slim down that much without jeopardising your health. You might end up going on crash diets and using slimming pills and laxatives just so you can shed a few extra pounds.
Taking these kinds of steps certainly isn’t going to benefit your health and you don’t want to find yourself developing an eating disorder. When you become preoccupied with losing weight to become skinny food and exercise can take over your life, as all you can think about is how many calories you’ve consumed and how many you have to burn rather than considering the bigger picture. You should lose weight to make you feel better about yourself, not be consumed by the urge to lose increasing amounts of weight; an obsession which leaves you feeling depressed.
It is also important that want to lose weight for your own sake rather than for anybody else’s. If you try to lose weight because you think your husband is going to run off and leave you for someone younger and slimmer clearly there is something wrong. You should want to lose weight so you can like yourself a bit more rather than trying to please the people around you. After all, you are the one that needs to find the motivation to stick to a diet plan and exercise regime, which may be hard to come by when you’re not actually ready to do anything about your weight.
Although there are definitely good reasons to lose weight you can sometimes fixate on the not-so-good reasons in the hope that they will inspire you to lose weight when you really have to want it for yourself in the first place.