Updated: Sep 16
Weight loss motivation tends to show up in bursts; a wave of energy after a new season starts, a birthday passes, or a Monday morning hits… and then fades just as fast. There's a real psychological reason for that, and it's called the fresh start effect.
The fresh start effect is a well-documented psychological pattern where people feel a surge of motivation around "temporal landmarks"; moments like the start of a new season, a birthday, or a holiday week that feels like a break from ordinary time. Researchers Hengchen Dai, Katy Milkman, and Jason Riis coined the term after finding that goal-directed behaviour reliably spikes right after these moments.
I love September for exactly this reason. Something about it feels like a fresh start. Part of it is the back-to-school feeling (even though I've been out of school for years now!). Part of it is summer winding down and my favourite season creeping in (fall and pumpkin everything!). And part of it is that with only four months left in the year, I want to make the most of it and get moving on my goals. Turns out, I'm likely not alone in this feeling.
Why Do New Beginnings Feel So Motivating?
Temporal landmarks can be shared with everyone around us (New Year's Day, the start of a new month, a public holiday) or entirely personal, like a birthday or anniversary. Either way, they seem to work the same way: they give us psychological distance from our past selves. The version of you who skipped workouts in July or let takeout become a five-nights-a-week habit gets filed away as "old me." The version of you starting fresh gets a clean page.
Here's the interesting part: your actual circumstances haven't changed at all. You don't wake up on September 1st with a different set of stressors, or fewer obstacles than you had the day before. What changes is the impression of a clean slate — and in her book How to Change, behavioural scientist Katy Milkman writes about how powerful that impression can be.² A fresh start doesn't just lift your motivation; it can help loosen the grip of a routine you've been running on autopilot, and it can quiet one of the biggest mindset blockers: the belief that because it hasn't worked or stuck before, it won't work this time either. A fresh start gives you a reason to set that story down.
Dai, Milkman, and Riis looked at Google search data and found spikes in goal-directed behaviour after specific temporal landmarks. For example, Google searches for "diet" jumped over 80% at the start of a new year.¹
So no, it's not a silly feeling. It's a real, measurable psychological lift — and it's one worth actually tapping into.
Why Doesn't Weight Loss Motivation Last on Its Own?
Here's the catch: the motivation the fresh start feeling creates is real, but it's temporary. It's a boost, not a strategy. If all you do is feel motivated today and wait for that feeling to carry you for months, you'll likely end up back where a lot of "new year, new me" resolutions end up… running out of steam a few weeks in.
Weight and nutrition goals also come with a wrinkle that some other goals don't. Milkman points out that a true blank slate (a fresh start with genuinely no old habits working against it) is rare when it comes to health behaviour, and eating might be the clearest example of why. You eat every day, several times a day, which means the old patterns get just as many chances to show back up.
The people who use a fresh start well tend to do one thing differently: they pair the motivation with something concrete before the feeling fades. Not a total overhaul, not fifteen new habits at once, just one or two changes specific enough to survive an ordinary week day.
How Do You Make Weight Loss Motivation Actually Stick?
We can't rely on motivation alone… it's impossible to make top-tier motivation last in perpetuity. It's going to ebb and flow, and if a plan only works when motivation is high, it's not really a plan. The better move is to use the feeling while it's here to put something sturdier in place before it fades. A few principles I'd point your energy toward:
Pick one thing, not everything. The momentum from a fresh start is real, but it's not infinite. Pick one small habit you can actually sustain, this beats five hard habits you'll likely abandon within a month.
Make it something you can still do on a bad day. The goal isn't a perfect week, it's something that survives a day where you feel low on energy, stressed or busy.
Not sure what "one thing" could look like? A few small, realistic starting points:
Add a protein source to breakfast instead of overhauling the whole meal
Take a 10-minute walk after dinner a few nights a week
Prep two lunches ahead of time instead of all five
Keep a consistent wake-up time 4 days a week
Swap one afternoon snack for something more filling
Drink a glass of water before your morning coffee
None of these are dramatic. That's the point… small and sustainable beats big and short-lived.
The Bottom Line
Whether what you're picturing is a daily walk, a more consistent sleep schedule, or packing more lunches, the same principle applies: pick one thing, make it realistic, and start before the feeling fades.
If weight loss happens to be on your mind, you don't have to figure it out alone or overhaul everything at once. The Sustainable Weight Loss Toolkit, is a good place to start.
You've got this!
¹ Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior. Management Science, 60(10), 2563–2582. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1901
² Milkman, K. L. (2021). How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. Portfolio/Penguin.
About the Author
Taylor Polecrone, RD MHSc, is a virtual weight loss Registered Dietitian in Ontario. Her weight loss support is evidence-based, built around sustainable habits, not quick fixes.
