I am still plugging away at my plan to lose weight. I have been walking outdoors whenever I can, trying to eat smaller portions, bringing my lunch most days to work, and I am now down to 171 pounds. Yeah! I had been hoping to be further down my list of action items by now, but I was a bit ill last week and it threw my plan into the fire. I want to see what time works for workouts, but that will have to wait for another post. Now I'd like to talk about setting small goals for yourself.
I heard somewhere recently that it's very helpful to create little wins for yourself when you are trying to lose weight. I thought creating smaller sets of goals along my way to losing 20 pounds was a great idea. If I focus on week to week or month by month goals, then I won't be so stressed about knowing it could take four or more months to get to where I want to be. You can work on losing a certain amount per week, eating only a set amount of calories, or racking up a certain amount of time being active. Really, your imagination is the limit, provided you are keeping things safe, of course. So far, I have been focusing on losing one pound per week for about three weeks.
Losing one pound seemed attainable to me after seeing how and why I have lost weight in the past. So far, I have met my goal each week except for when I was a bit bloated (you ladies understand why). If everything goes well, I will be able to meet my goal around January 2012. Of course, Christmas and other holidays, like Thanksgiving, could really trip me up as well as a few vacations I have planned. I am hoping to set goals for those occasions as well. If I try to eat only a plateful of food at Thanksgiving and only one dessert, I know I can achieve that. If I vow to walk a lot and stay active on vacation, I won't mind so much if I eat a big dinner or drink a few glasses of wine.
Two things make me think that this way of handling weight loss is potentially super successful. If I screw up for just one week, I don't feel so bad because it's just a few days of missed opportunities rather than a month or more. I also think this will help me be more present and worry less about the looming goal in my future. I can think about just this week when I weigh in on Saturdays or this big challenge. I don't have to obsess or freak out. What do you guys think about setting small goals?
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