Because it can be so devastating when I don’t necessarily make them, I’ve been trying to be a little more realistic lately when it comes to setting goals for weight loss.
It’s really to look at the big picture and get a little spooked, if you ask me – sure, a year down the road I’d like to be at my ideal weight, 60 pounds lighter for all of my efforts, but in reality that can be a lot to choke on, especially when an analytical person like me starts breaking it down into needing to lose X pounds per month, X pounds per week, and feeling “behind” if I fall out of said schedule. I’ve done it this way for a long time and it never seems to get me anywhere except disappointed when I fall behind, so instead I’ve decided to try something different…
Instead I’m trying to look at my weight loss progress in the short term – right around 8 lbs at a time. I picked 8 lbs for a couple of reasons – it’s a fairly reasonable, albeit a little competitive goal for one month (at 2 lbs/week), it’s a goal that I can actually enter into WiiFii (which caps at something like 8-10 lbs, a far cry from 60!), and it’s also right around 1 BMI point (depending on who’s math that you use). Not to mention, psychologically I think it’s an easier goal to process because “only 3 more pounds to go!” sounds a lot more motivating than “only 47 more pounds to go!”
The more I go through all of this, I think that an awful lot of diet and weight lot is extremely psychological – reconditioning your body to eat more veggies and less junk, drinking water, and getting more exercise on a regular basis – so to me it also makes sense that I need to give my brain some more reasonable goals to work towards along the way. Right now I’m about 2 lbs away from hitting a personal threshold, that being the max of how much I’ve ever been able to lose weight in a single effort, and for some reason looking at it in baby steps just makes overcoming it seem a whole lot more attainable.
Besides, how’s that old saying go? “You didn’t put all of the weight on in a few weeks, you can’t expect to lose it that way, either.” That’s definitely the truth for me – I’ve consistently put on about 5 lbs a year since my early 20s if I look back over the years, so it was certainly a slow process adding it on. Granted, I’d like to do a little better at taking it back off, but it still seems like taking it a smaller chunk at a time is a lot more reasonable than jumping right in, trying to bite off more than I can chew, and then ultimately being disappointed in the end.
Just lose the next 8 lbs – I can do that!