The Naked Truth: The Secret to Motivation in Health and Fitness

Most people struggle to stay motivated in any fitness endeavor. When people visit Bodybuilding.com or other sites like it there is always a thing called a motivation gage and people can input what their motivation level is on a scale of 1-10. Mine very rarely drops below 8. It hovers at 9 and hits a regular 10 all the time. I have been asked by some how do I do that.

I wish it could be some psyche-out thing I learned or some mental trick there is I do, but the real truth is I get naked on a regular basis in front of the bathroom mirror. For a while I even thought I was nuts, until I read Jack LaLanne's book called Live Young Forever and guess what he considered to be the number one motivation technique he had ever heard of and knew that it worked? That's right, go to the bathroom, lock the door, take off all your clothes and take a long look in the mirror and then get mad at what you see. Ever time you even feel your motivation slipping, go to the bathroom, lock the door...well you get the idea.

Ultimately the best tool in fitness motivation is not a bathroom scale or body fat calipers, but a mirror. Accountability helps but our human perception has an instinctive understanding when we look at the human body whether it is healthy or not and that includes our own. Ultimately, motivation comes from facing the truth in a mirror and not as James says we do so often:"forgetting what we see". It is facing the truth of what we see that ultimately motivates us to change anything and our bodies are no different.

Now body image is a big concern here as most women and some men still see themselves as fatter than they are and people can a very twisted fun house mirror image of themselves. That aside though, the quest to make your body look good in that mirror motivates like nothing else and that is why it still remains a potent part of any person's focus and motivation in reaching their fitness goals.

That is the naked truth.