To ensure that you stay focused on even the toughest days, it helps to have weight loss motivation tips on hand that remind you why you’re doing all this great work to get your body healthy, fit and fabulous.

Here are 3 powerful weight loss motivation tips to guide you:

1) Make the time you spend concentrating on losing weight as fun and interesting as possible. Whether you’re a single mom with little outside help with your children or you’re a married mom simply juggling the busy schedules of multiple kids, losing weight tends to be pretty low on the priority list of things to accomplish every day, which is why it’s likely been a problem in the past. However, my favorite weight loss motivation tips involve fun because if you can find ways to ensure that you’re enjoying yourself, you’ll find ways to want to press on even on tougher days.

Combine food prep with kid time. Recruit little ones to “help” you in the kitchen by chopping fruit or veggies with a dull knife while you’re making a healthy dish. Use small kids’ body weight in your workouts instead of barbells, or let the kids be your spotter during your routine if you are using small, safe weights. Or simply turn on some music and dance away with your kids or on your own. The best part is that being active helps you feel better, manage stress and increases your energy level, so find ways to be active that you love, even if it’s not a normal gym workout.

The simplest weight loss motivation tips are often the very best ones, and this one alone can be all it takes to get you focused.

2) Set a goal to simplify your focus. Do not simply say, “I want to lose weight”. Be specific so that the goal is attainable and personalized to your needs. You will also need to set a time frame. Saying ambiguous things like “by my birthday” or “by the winter” will not help you achieve your goal. The less specific you are, the more weight loss motivation tips you’ll need because you’re not telling your mind which direction to go – which is the equivalent of saying “I’d like to go to the grocery store” and then driving around aimlessly trying this road and then that one without necessarily getting even one mile closer to your goal.

I don’t typically recommend goals like losing a particular number of pounds in a week simply because we cannot control the rate at which our bodies lose weight healthfully, but at the same time, we can absolutely set and achieve goals like taking care of our bodies with healthy, weight-loss-promoting foods for 6 weeks. Aim to achieve things you can control rather than things that are out of your hands, and you’ll feel more steady throughout the process.

This is one of the most powerful weight loss motivation tips of all because if you can get focused on a specific goal, it’s much easier to achieve success.

3) Partner with a friend who’s also looking to slim down and you’ll find that your motivation stays much stronger due to the accountability factor alone, much less having someone to keep you company. You may even be able to ask your husbands to take turns watching the kids while you and your buddy work out, prep food or brainstorm how to handle tough situations. You can also share recipes and weight loss motivation tips, as well as information on local resources that support your weight loss.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you want your healthy new habits to become part of The Flow – which is what I call it when you hit your stride, and suddenly it seems much easier to stay on track without needing a lot of outside weight loss motivation tips.

Following these weight loss motivation tips should help you reach The Flow even sooner. Give each idea an honest try even if it initially seems too simple to make a difference, and you’ll be getting results in no time!

Seriously. Fear of actually becoming the better version of yourself, not just because you’re getting thin and healthy, but because it can seem scary to step into your own greatness. (Yes, greatness. I believe we each have greatness within us.)

When we decide we want to lose weight (or be successful in business, get a better job, run a marathon, you name it), it seems exciting to many of us. When I finally decided to bite the bullet and get my own excess weight off for good, one of my key motivators was simple: I wanted to feel a certain comfort in small sized clothing, and I’d visualize it (before I even knew what visualizing was) every time I’d find myself wanting to stray. How did those size 6 jeans feel on? In my mind’s eye, I felt like a rock star. :) (Turns out I’m naturally a 2/4, but those 6s in my daydreams felt awesome at the time.)

In fact, in my own life, nothing could have kept me from feeling great at a lower weight.

But you might fall into the opposite camp, even if you’re not aware of it.

Who are you when you’re thin? Are you afraid of becoming someone else? Are you scared of having to embrace a life in which you get more attention/different attention/better attention from others? (It’s not that being thin does this on its own, necessarily, but gaining confidence does tend to attract situations where you’re in the spotlight more.)

And when you’re getting more attention, that means you feel like there’s even more risk involved in just being you.

This I get as well. And I mention it because I’ve been dealing with something similar lately, just not about weight loss. As you likely know as a reader of this blog, I’m in the process of launching a huge national event (see details on ThriveMom! Telesummit here and register now). Tons of people involved. Huge numbers of signups. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever tried to pull off on my own. And I’m loving it but … it can be scary at times. Especially when you’re putting yourself out there, doing new things, getting more attention. You don’t know if everything will go to plan.

I won’t lie and say that this whole process has been painless because it hasn’t. I’ve felt overwhelmed a few times. I’ve wondered if I tackled more than I could handle. I’ve been exhausted and had to take a break. And I had to sit myself down and give myself pep talks like the one I’m about to give you. :) Yes, I’m aware that I probably look crazy when I talk to myself. But it works!

And here’s what I want to share with you: The problem with living large, with losing the weight and becoming a more excellent version of yourself is that it’s scary because it’s unknown. (And no, I’m not saying you can’t be excellent if you’re overweight. But if you’re not feeling your best, if you don’t like how you look with excess pounds on your frame, the weight is holding you back from being the full-on, most awesome you that you can be.)

But the problem with staying small is worse because staying small is an absolute soul killer. The moment we decide NOT to step into the bigger challenges, the moment we choose NOT to do the things we dream of, we lose energy, lose momentum, lose a certain lift in our step and sense of happiness about the world at large. We begin to feel limited and helpless.

If our kids want to go out and do amazing things, which I know most of us moms want for our children, they have to take risks, make mistakes and keep plugging. And to inspire them, we have to get out there and do things we think are amazing too. And amazing very, very often = a little bit scary. But the scary stuff is worth it because it allows us to learn and grow as people. And if losing weight is frightening to you, let me ask you this: How scary is it to you to go on living the way you currently are, unhappy with how you look and feel, low energy, less healthy than you otherwise could be?

For me, the answer was simple (not easy to make, just simple) after not committing fully for many years. If you could choose how you look and feel 1 year from today (or 6 months from today), how would it be? And are you ready to do what it takes to get there?

If fear has been holding you back, I strongly urge you to consider expanding your horizons. Think big. Live large. Go outside your comfort zone and embrace the fact that you can BE thin and healthy and you’ll find a way to grow into (no pun intended) the stronger, more powerful you that you uncover as you lose weight. It may be scary at times. You might feel shaky now and then. But that’s how you get to do ALL that you dream of. And I know you can do it. Because neither I nor my amazing clients are any more special than you. We just decided to plunge into scary territory, and the rest is history. So why don’t you go make some history of your own?

I’ve been known myself to react to miscellaneous pollens out there blooming this time of year. In fact, when I lived abroad, what I was most allergic to bloomed from March to September, so at one point I literally swapped continents in hope of getting relief from a different growing season. At least if the stuff didn’t grow for half the year, I wouldn’t be miserable for as long, right?

But I didn’t know some basic things about allergies that actually have everything to do with healthy weight loss, and if you’re a mom dealing with hay fever of your own or your kids suffer this time of year, you’ll want to listen up because what I’m going to share is killer:

The same strategy that helps you lose excess weight also helps you with your allergic symptoms.

Yes, you read that right. If you follow my recommended weight loss approach, which is ALL about getting you healthy, it will help your immune system stop freaking out so much at all the springtime pollen, and you will very likely find yourself dealing with greatly reduced hay fever symptoms.

Here’s why:

(Perhaps before I go any further, I need to note that I am not a medical professional and am not providing medical information here! But what I am sharing has helped my entire family, as well as many clients and friends, so I feel it’s important to share what I know.)

A healthy immune system mostly works the way you read about. You get exposed to a virus or other pathogen, and it kicks in to ensure that your body gets well. Repeat cycle until illness is over.

A compromised immune system, on the other hand, will freak out at will, flailing around and “shooting bullets” at anything it finds to be the enemy (often incorrectly, as is the case with pollen and other environmental allergies), using up tons of your body’s energy reserves and working much harder than your body actually needs to.

So what causes this?

Our immune systems don’t tend to freak out much when our bodies are nourished with the right foods. And when I say the right foods, I mean foods that are full of phytonutrients (plant nutrients) such as greens, beans, seeds, fruits and veggies, which are truly health-promoting. (For a resource that explains how this works in much greater detail, head here. Full disclosure: I receive a small commission if you order from the link, but I wouldn’t recommend this book if I didn’t stand behind it 100%. My livelihood is based on your trust, and I won’t do anything to endanger that!)

Certain other foods can be OK in small amounts, but provoke inflammation in the body or don’t create an environment for the body to heal, such as refined sugar, animal products such as meat and dairy, and processed foods of all kinds. So these not-so-healthful foods actually detract from our health on a day-to-day basis. I advise skipping the refined and processed stuff completely and limiting the animal products to a small amount per week.

Furthermore, if you continue to eat foods that your body is sensitive to, which can be anything from the very commonly seen wheat, soy and dairy sensitivities to any number of other things, you’re making your body work harder than it needs to. Your body is reacting each and every day to that food, which again adds more fuel to your compromised immune system’s madness. This leads to a stronger allergic reaction to environmental sources. I help clients figure this out all the time, and I was shocked myself several years ago to find out that I was extremely reactive to wheat after 30 years of severe health issues, including asthma. (Eliminating wheat literally cured my asthma entirely along with a whole host of other smaller issues. And yes, I’d had every allergy test in the book and showed no allergy to any foods in them. But 1 3-day elimination diet and I was suddenly symptom-free after years of suffering and constant medication. Not everyone will have such dramatic results, of course, but it is often remarkable what we don’t know about symptoms we’re having because we’ve just always had them.)

What I mean here is that if you’re not fueling your body with the healthiest healing foods and you’re giving it a steady diet of unhealthy foods that it may in fact be sensitive to — even if you don’t know you’re sensitive to the foods — you are very likely having a stronger allergic reaction right now than you would if you were in better health. And though it probably doesn’t need to be said, if you’ve struggled with your weight, you’re not in perfect health yet, but it’s possible to get back to a much healthier state making some simple changes in your lifestyle. Meaning if you eat and live more healthfully, you’ll be thinner and very likely stop having as many allergy problems too!

I don’t know about you, but it is an incredible motivator to me to feel good year-round instead of feeling compromised for a large chunk of the year healthwise. (And on the weight loss front, it sure is great to look the way I want, too.)

Now, again, I’m not a medical expert, and I’m not suggesting that every human on the planet will get immediate relief from allergies if they change how they eat and how often they’re physically active, but most do.

I did. I used to refer to myself as “the girl in the bubble” because I literally spent every second indoors during that 6-month pollen season abroad. Always in air conditioning. Always running an air filter. Always tanked up on meds to help me stop itching and be able to breathe. And yet here I am now, having switched to a healthy lifestyle several life-changing years ago, and I haven’t need any meds since. I’ve sneezed a few times each day for the past 4 days, and that’s not likely to stop for a little while, though every year it’s been easier than the last since I changed my lifestyle. My eyes were itchy the other morning, but it passed. I’ve taken (and needed) zero meds. And otherwise, despite missing quite a bit of sleep this past few weeks, I feel great. Couldn’t be better.

And if you could have even a fraction of my success, it would be worth it to try, wouldn’t it?

Besides, you know you’ve wanted to get the weight off for some time now, so why not use this added incentive to motivate you? It could lead to great things. I dare you. :)

What’s your secret to weight loss?

The implication right away is that there must be something magical that I know that only a select few do about weight loss. And while it’s true not everyone knows the steps in the process to getting your bod back in pre-kid shape (or maybe in better shape than you’ve ever been in), there’s no magic involved. It’s completely possible for anyone — and certainly any mom because we’re the hardest-working folks on the planet … or at least in our culture :) that I know — to lose weight, though it can certainly help if you have a mentor to guide you (like me!).

Certainly I have a process to healthy weight loss that I used myself and that I have since refined and now use in my work with my clients (I’ll be revealing it in more depth in my upcoming 6-week weight loss bootcamp that’s going to start in early June. More details to come!). It’s the LeanGreen BALANCE System, and it’s a powerful 7-step process to shift you from stressed out and overweight to healthy, thin, energetic and empowered. Very cool, simplifies the process and builds in healthy habits in a way that lets them “take” so that you’re not struggling a month or two down the road to maintain an unrealistic set of lifestyle changes. And of course I highly recommend checking out my new program when I announce it very soon.

But while I love talking about healthy weight loss techniques and am fortunate to be able to make my living helping other moms in such an incredible way, truly, there’s no magic pill or single secret to weight loss that if you just knew the key, you’d magically lose the weight and in 3 days, you’d walk around loving your newly thin bod. Sorry, ladies. It just doesn’t work like that.

The biggest secret that no one seems to want to hear (OK, scratch that — most don’t want to hear, but if you really listen, it’s the answer you need) is that if you combine healthy eating over time with the right mindset and some physical activity, you’ll lose all your excess weight, feel great and be able to keep the weight off if you don’t drastically change your new healthy habits. Period. It’s actually that simple.

Now, that’s not to say that I think “simple” means “easy.”

I know you may have struggled with your weight for many years, and I’m not undermining your pain or struggle for a second. I certainly didn’t have an easy time losing weight. It took me struggling all through my teen years and twenties and getting good and mad when I turned 30 and was still inhabiting a body I just plain hated (a sick, energiless, miserable body that struggling to climb a flight of stairs and didn’t look good in anything I wore) … and then I figured out the steps in the process that it really takes (no magic pills, just following some simple steps over time mostly correctly) and lost all the excess weight in less than a year. 53 lbs. gone in under a year after decades of struggle.

What I’m getting at, though, is that if you’re telling yourself that you need the latest “secret” to weight loss to make it happen, you’re looking for the wrong thing.

It’s far easier to lose weight by watching what you eat, getting your body in motion and being mostly consistent than you might think. Whereas it’s mentally exhausting to chase after the next magic pill all the time, telling yourself that weight loss is this elusive thing that you can’t manage to do without “the secret” — and it sets you up for failure. If you’re always looking for that elusive thing, you can’t find the real answer, which is right there in front of you.

So let me ask you this: Have you (be honest with yourself here) been guilty of looking for the “secret” to weight loss that’s healthy? Has it kept you from being honest with yourself about what it really takes? Has it kept you from taking steps toward your goal of a thinner, healthier body that looks good in whatever you wear?

If your answer is yes, I strongly urge you to consider ending your search for the holy grail of weight loss and give in to the fact that you can start taking small steps in the right direction right now. Make some of the recipes I share on this site. Take the steps instead of the elevator. If you don’t eat as well as you hope at a meal, just do better next time. That’s all it takes to get started, and you WILL see results if you just make mini-moves in the right direction.

And one more quick thing: I noted that you need to be mostly consistent. The reality is that most of us mess up now and then when it comes to lifestyle changes, particularly at first. Don’t let a single mistake mean you give up on yourself and your dreams. If it was your child, you’d advise him/her to shake it off and try again. And that’s my best advice for you too. In fact, that may be the best healthy weight loss secret of them all. Just press on, fellow hardworking mama, and you’ll get there.

I know, I know. You’ve probably heard the whole “drink 8 cups (64 oz.) of water a day” spiel so many times by now that you feel guilty if you reach 7-and-a-half and stop for the day. I get it. And there was a time when I thought so too. And perhaps you are hoping to find that there’s a magical way of losing weight more rapidly by doing something as simple as drinking more water. Trust me — I’ve been there too.

But the reality is that while we do need to drink some water each day, we don’t need to force ourselves to drink excessive amounts of water every day. A study of all the scientific/medical literature was published in 2008 stating precisely this message in the Journal of Nephrology — that there is nothing in the scientific literature whatsoever to show that we should have this much water for any reason. Nor could the scientists figure out where the original recommendation of 8 glasses of 8 oz. of water per day even came from despite its widespread use! (There are apparently a couple illnesses in which a higher amount of water intake is beneficial, and I am not suggesting that you go against doctor’s orders for any reason! But most of us don’t need that much.)

In other words, though, no, you don’t have to drink 64 oz. of water in a day if you aren’t thirsty for it. You may need it if you have certain illnesses, are in training for a long-distance running event or live in a hot, dry climate in the peak of summer, but otherwise, forget about forcing down more water than you need.

More to the point, though, of the initial question is this: There is no scientific connection between water consumption and weight loss that I have (as a discerning layperson and coach who’s highly interested in such matters) been able to find anywhere.

And it just plain doesn’t make sense to me that a zero calorie drink could cause fat loss … with one big exception: If you are currently drinking lots and lots of calories in a day — whether in the form of rich lattes, sodas or even, yes, fruit juice — switching to water will reduce your caloric intake immensely, remove some unnutritious forms of calories at that and improve your diet in the long run by helping you get rid of caffeine, refined sugar or artificial sweeteners, artificial colors and flavorings. In this case, yes, you might lose a little weight by making the transition from high-cal beverages to water.

So, yes, you can achieve fat loss by drinking water, but not for any other reason than that water has no calories.

But how much should you really drink? Dr. Joel Fuhrman, family physician, nutritional expert and author of Eat to Live (my most-recommended resource on nutrition, bar none), suggests that if we eat an optimal diet based on his recommendations, most of us only need a cup or two of water each day due to the high water content and low sodium content of all the delicious produce that’s the center of his nutritional recommendations. His recommended amount proved to be about right for me when I wasn’t pregnant or nursing a baby, even on days when I worked out.

When I was pregnant, despite being urged by medical professionals to drink several liters of water a day, I did fine (as did my son) with maybe a liter or so of water a day, and even while nursing my son even during growth spurts, I doubt I ever exceeded that amount of water in a day. I’m not suggesting that my amounts are perfect for every woman reading this, and this post isn’t a medical recommendation, of course, but I hope it gives you some sense of how much water we actually need to be quite healthy and reach our ideal weight. I drank when I was thirsty, didn’t when I wasn’t, and I recommend the same to you.

The simple fact is that if you eat a mostly plant-based, whole foods diet with lots of soups, fruit or veg-based smoothies, fresh fruit and veggies, you are getting LOTS of water just from your food alone, and the bigger goal anyhow is to figure out how much water you need to drink to accommodate your body’s needs and nothing more. If you’ve been drinking 64 oz. of water a day for a long time now, you might feel thirsty for a few days if you cut down on water, but within a short while, you won’t miss the extra water you’ve been needlessly drinking unless there’s been a particular medical condition you’ve been treating this way (as always, keep in mind that I’m not a medical practitioner!).

And if you’re looking to drink water solely to lose weight, don’t force it down. Just drink water when you’re thirsty instead of drinking calories, and you’ll feel better, stop the caffeine and sugar ups and downs and cravings and create a much calmer, happier life for yourself free of some of the most common contributors to Physical Food Drama!

Today’s video is the first in a series called the LeanGreenMama Manifesto for Healthy Weight Loss — and I hope it helps you and motivates you to take action! Comments welcome (and keep in mind that this is my first-ever video, so be gentle!). :)

Healthy Weight Loss Question: Do I have to eat beans and nuts to lose weight? It seems like I wouldn’t lose weight if I ate those items.

My Answer: As you may already know know, I recommend a whole-foods, mostly plant-based diet for health and weight loss purposes based on Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s recommendations for healthy weight loss. And that includes greens, beans, fruit and healthy fats such as raw sunflower seeds and pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and raw nuts like cashews, walnuts and almonds, plus ground flaxseeds. This approach to weight loss is what I used myself and still follow to this day to maintain a healthy weight effortlessly. (In case you’re new to this blog, I want to note that I don’t advise trying to make every dietary change at once if you’ve struggled in the past with sticking to a weight loss program! Easing in really helps. But that’s another post for another time.)

Even though it seems as if eating nuts or seeds would be problematic for healthy weight loss, in reality, most women need to eat fat so that their bodies will actually release body fat instead of hoarding it for hard times. Plus, healthy fats serve several purposes vital to our health — assisting with brain function, digestion and much more. So while you don’t have to eat huge amounts of fat every day — just an ounce of raw nuts or seeds and half an avocado is all you need if you’re overweight — you do need to eat fat daily to lose weight healthfully.

Several years ago when I was in the process of losing weight myself, I hit a plateau or set point within about 10 lbs. of my ideal weight, and I tried multiple things to get past it. At that point, because I’d become more physically active, my body began requiring more healthy fats, and literally within a day of adding in more fat, the scale began moving again. This is really common as you near your ideal weight, though certainly there is very occasionally someone who needs less fat rather than more (but there’s never a reason to eliminate healthy fats from your diet entirely, which can be risky for your health!).

Likewise, we need beans in our diet for our health because they provide a wonderfully healthy protein source and plenty of staying power in our bodies so that our meals last in our systems longer. If you follow the basic eating plan outlined by Dr. Fuhrman in Eat to Live and ensure that you’re not overeating on nuts, seeds, dried fruit or regular fruit for that matter (7-8 pieces of fruit a day for an average woman who works out 3-4 times a week for 45 minutes would certainly be too much in most cases), then it might be time to consider eating 1/2 cup of beans a day rather than the minimum 1 cup that’s part of the regular plan.

Remember, healthy weight loss means, among other things, treating your body kindly and giving it the nutrients it needs not only to survive (we can, after all, survive on junk food for a good long while, but that still leads long-term to illness, fatigue and also — yes! — premature aging! and who wants that?!), but to THRIVE!

I still don’t like making mistakes. (Does anyone really like making mistakes?) I would prefer it if I could get everything right the first time, and no one out there ever had to see me at my weakest and most vulnerable. But you know what? Every time I’ve held back on trying new things, which inevitably brings with it ample opportunities to make mistakes, I’ve felt sad and restricted and hopeless. And honestly, how does that help anyone?

If I had chosen not to give healthy eating a shot, I’d never have had the amazing life transformation that made it possible for me to have my beautiful little boy. If I let this fear hold me back from helping other moms with their weight loss, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet and work with so many wonderful women who are now doing great and losing weight painlessly for the first time in their lives.

Both of these are sources of tremendous joy for me, and I did have to risk making mistakes in order to go after them. Still do have to deal with risk every single day in some form or fashion — after all, I’m taking a chance just by sharing my advice with you. Someone out there reading this may absolutely hate what I’m saying, hate my writing style, not want to have anything to do with me. That’s OK. That’s the risk I take because truly, I’m here in hopes of helping as many of you out there reading as possible because I’ve been where you may be right this very minute, struggling to lose weight, wishing it could be easier, wishing that the scale already looked more promising.

If we don’t let ourselves make mistakes along the way, we’re likely not giving our all to anything we’re doing, much less trying to lose weight healthfully — instead we’re just doing “damage control” from the get-go, which means we’re not giving our effort toward our big goal, our big dream for ourselves our all. Who can get things done really well when they’re terrified? Not me!

So let me share with you the quotation that got me thinking about this issue of trying to do things perfectly right from the start:

Whenever you fall, pick something up.

This little gem by Oswald Avery really nails the real reason why making mistakes is so valuable: we can always learn from them. There is, quite literally, ALWAYS something to be gained from falling, from making mistakes, from overeating when you were planning on eating healthful amounts of food, you name it. The lesson to be gained is NEVER that YOU’RE a failure for messing up, though, to be sure! More likely, it’s that you need to plan ahead, anticipate challenges, have ideas for what to do if the urge to overeat strikes, etc.

Do you generally learn from your mistakes? If so, congratulations. And if so, do you then take different action the next time?

If not, it’s time to start. Forget about what other people might think. What do you want? What do you stand to learn from trying something new, even if it doesn’t go 100% perfectly at the beginning?

“When Joel Fuhrman Speaks, the VIPs at Whole Foods Listen”

In case you don’t know Dr. Fuhrman yet, my favorites of his are:

Eat to Live: This is his basic program for healthy weight loss, with over 1,500 studies to back up his nutritional recommendations.

Eat for Health (2-book set): Here he outlines his ANDI and MANDI food scoring scales, which let you see how well you’re really eating and taking care of your health.

Disease-Proof Your Child: This is a really helpful reference for raising healthy children, complete with kid-friendly recipes.

Now, I’m the first to note that there’s more to healthy weight loss than knowing what to eat, but getting the nutritional side of things right certainly is a huge part of it, and Dr. F’s nutritional guidelines changed my life and the life of everyone in my family — and they’re what I recommend to the women I coach too because eating this way impacts your health and weight so powerfully. I’m thrilled that big influencers in the corporate world are finally beginning to see the incredible promise of nutrient-dense eating from Dr. Fuhrman; it’s the best way to care for your body and get thin and fabulous to boot!

If you haven’t written your goals for 2010 down, run — don’t walk! — to write them down on a piece of paper right away. Just the mere act of writing alone helps you give your brain the clear message that you mean business, and it will help you follow through. (Write by hand, not via computer. A pain, I know, and yet handwriting just works much better for this purpose …)

And make sure you choose things that make you feel excited and emotional. Saying “I’m going to work out more in 2010″ isn’t exciting. But “I’m going to have a lean, toned body by June 2010″ focuses on the end result you want that you know you’ll enjoy. Plus, note that I set a deadline as well, which makes it easier to map out your plans to actually reach your goal of a healthy, fit body. It’s not that you won’t also need to work out and lose weight — rather, stating the goal in this way gives your brain something emotional to latch onto to fuel your motivation!