Generally, friends and family are overwhelmingly supportive when someone is trying to lose weight or trying to live a healthier life. Losing weight is far easier when you have people around you telling you how well you are doing, and complimenting you on your new look.

However, not everyone is lucky enough to have a supportive group of people around them, and losing weight becomes more of a challenge when people are uninterested or actively try to discourage weight loss.

Why are People Unsupportive?

Many people within families start to feel threatened when a family member decides to tackle their eating habits and adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Many people who are overweight themselves will feel that a decision to lose weight is a direct criticism of their own weight and will feel offended.

Whenever you are following a weight loss plan, are trying to follow a healthy eating plan motivation is one of the key factors in ensuring that you are successful in losing your weight.

But even though you can be full of good intentions at the beginning these can often start to fade as time goes on and life gets in the way – especially as a busy mum with children to look after!

So what are the best ways to keep your motivation strong and keep your weight loss on track?

Top ten tips to staying motivated

1. Write down your reasons for wanting to lose the weight in the first place. Be as honest as you can be and be brutally honest about the reasons why as it is this deep emotional desire which will keep you on track through the tough times. Keep this in a safe place to refer back to each week.
2. Post a picture of your pre pregnancy goal weight on the fridge to help inspire you when you are feeling demotivated and are tempted to eat everything in site

If you’re reading this then it’s safe to say you either:

• want to know how to lose baby weight;
• are in the middle of losing your baby weight;
• Or, like so many of our readers, you’ve lost your baby weight and just want to maintain.

No matter what stage of your weight loss plans you’re at, you need to take a moment and… celebrate!

You’ve done an amazing job to get here. Even if you haven’t dropped the weight yet, you’ve taken that first important step of WANTING to be healthier. Whether it’s for you or your family (and we hope it’s both) you have reached out into the wide world of the internet and you’ve found us for weight loss help, and we couldn’t be happier to help you towards a healthier life.

You’ve consciously decided that you want to be healthy and that means your mindset is in the right place.

Mindset is the number one reason people lose weight, and it’s also the number one reason why they fail. Positivity makes a massive difference to your weight loss journey. So you should always, as the Dalai Lama says, mind your mind.

The average weight gain over the cooler months is around the 4kg mark which is a little bit depressing to say the least if you are trying to lose weight or following a weight loss plan!

And the reason for the weight gain is the amount of high fat comfort food we seem to be surrounded by in winter plus the lack of motivation to exercise as it is too cold to go outside.

So this winter are there some things you can do to prevent the weight gain and still follow your weight loss plan? The answer is a definitive YES!

As the cooler weather comes around all of our minds (and our taste buds) start thinking about warm and yummy foods that make us go ‘mmm’. The problem is that the search for the ‘mmm’ factor can be a dangerous, slippery slide to flabby thighs and bloated bellies.

The best way to lose weight (or to keep your weight off) is to have a simple list of yummy AND healthy foods that you can make whenever you get the urge. Let’s call it our personal healthy foods swap list.

Every time you start dreaming of a hot pudding or a steaming hot jacket potato you can use your swap list like an impenetrable barrier against winter weight gain.

If you’re unsure what foods to choose here are some ideas to get you started.

Emotional eating is the term used to describe the practice of eating large amounts of food because of an emotion and it is not good when we are trying to lose weight or following a weight loss and healthy eating plan.

Experts estimate that around 75% of overeating is emotional, probably because many of us learn that eating can cause us to feel a little bit better, at least in the short term.

Eating can become a habit when we are sad or when we are happy, just as we may watch a happy film to cheer ourselves up when sad or turn to a loved one for comfort.

Emotional eating is not necessarily caused by sadness. We could overeat when bored, when happy, when sad, when stressed, when fatigued, when anxious or when lonely – any emotion you can think of, you could find yourself eating when you experience that emotion.

We probably turn to food when feeling different emotions simply because eating is something that is intrinsically linked with enjoyment. If we’re happy, we want to continue being happy by eating something yummy. If we’re sad, we want to make ourselves happy by eating something yummy. Eating a chocolate bar may instantly make you feel more cheery. Eating your particular favourite food will also make you feel better, as it is your favourite for a reason – because you enjoy eating it.

Whenever we decide to lose weight or follow a healthy eating plan staying motivated can be a really hard part to being successful.

At Lose Baby Weight, we try and give mums as much support as we possibly can so that you can succeed and reach your health and weight loss goals.

And to give mums that extra support we have now launched our FREE Weight Loss Members Area.  This has taken many months to build and is designed to help you stay focused and on track as well as helping you see how far you have come and tracking your daily and weekly progress.

We have included a weight loss tracking tool and graph, a BMI tracking tool and graph, a measurements tracking tool and graph, a daily steps tracking system, a daily exercise tracking system plus a weight loss diary to write any notes down.All the information is private and you have your own private log in.

You also have the option to share your weekly results on Facebook if you are feeling very proud of your results and want to let your friends know about your success

We hope you love the new system and will let as many friends as possible know about it so they too can use our free website and support system – you can log in and register here

And please give us your feedback as we want to make it as user friendly as possible so would love any suggestions you have

To see our 28 Day Diet & Exercise Plan to help your weight loss further click here

We’ve talked about walking 10,000 steps per day and why it works. We’ve talked about losing weight without trying. We’ve talked about the benefit of taking the stairs. What do all these things have in common? I think you’ve guessed it… that’s right, it’s walking.

Like most women we’re just a little worried about the beginning of the traditional weight gain in Autumn (salads don’t feel quite as satisfying as it gets colder do they?).

With Winter approaching we have to keep extra vigilant from piling on extra kilos when all those hot and yummy foods start wafting under our noses. Never forget that every extra kilo gained is another kilo you’re going to have to work off later.

Stress can be a real hindrance to any weight loss plan or when you are trying to lose stomach fat but stress is very common – especially with mums!

Do you often find yourself reaching for a tub of ice cream after a long, stressful day? Find yourself finishing off the children’s leftovers when cleaning up after their dinner?

Many of us reach for our favourite foods when we are feeling stressed (me included) but why is it always the fatty, high-calorie foods that we reach for? This reliance on fatty foods when we are stressed is caused by cortisol, a hormone that affects your body every single day.

The cortisol hormone is released when your body is put under mental, emotional or physical stress. Although the presence of cortisol in the body is often thought of as being negative, cortisol is actually a completely natural hormone and can be very beneficial in terms of stress-busting.

I think most of us will agree that once you are a mum you are tired a lot of the time – unless you have a perfectly well behaved baby who sleeps all through the night (I definitely don’t!).

Personally I am exhausted most of the time and granted I do run my own business which means that really takes it out of me but the reason I am tired so much is my little bundle of joy wakes up during the night plus I seem to always go to bed late as I am busy working.

My bub used to wake 5-6 times a night but at 20 months it is once or twice a night so every morning I am pretty tired and every day I fantasise about a lie in…..

This of course is not uncommon and when you add in a couple of extra kids into the equation trying to find the energy to exercise can be hard – and half of the daily emails I get (more than 100 a day) are asking for help on how to exercise when you have no energy.