Good morning! I wanted to talk to with today about setting up realistic goals for yourself as you begin (or continue) to meet your weight loss goals. As you’ll see when you get a chance to read my book (coming soon!), Lose Weight, Find Yourself: Six Steps to Having a Healthy Relationship with Food…Bite by Bite and Pound by Pound, I started losing weight without a set goal in mind. Knowing what I know now, this isn’t what I suggest to you, but ignorance can be blissful. This naïve method actually did help me and I’m going to tell you why. Furthermore I’ll share with you how you can take away the positives from what I’ve learned and be smart about setting goals that will keep you moving forward for another day and another pound.
I have realized that all the times I attempted to lose weight in the past, which ultimately failed, it was partly due to what I call the “crash effect.” The “crash effect” occurs when you “crash” your fat life head on into your oncoming fit life. You cannot realistically go from one end of the scale to the other. Disappointment and discouragement will occur; not to mention it just sounds horribly overwhelming, right? You got the spark to lose the weight, but you want it NOW. It’s ok, that’s the world we live in, it’s what we’ve come to expect. Your body and your behavior is not something that can be changed with the click of a button or the change of just one meal, or one day of exercise. I remember as a kid doing a hundred sit ups in the living room of my mom’s apartment, and then getting on the scale to see if I lost weight. (Obviously as adults we know that’s not possible, but as a kid I thought that would do it!) For long-term success, this is going to take some time, no gimmicks, and no crazy promises. Remember you cannot lose one hundred pounds without losing just one. (If you know something I don’t, shoot me an email so I can get in on this!) So here at LWFY, we do just that, lose one (or two or three if you’re lucky) pounds at a time.
Stepwise processes give you more chance for success with small goals won each and every week. When you begin, take the first two weeks and focus on just that. Give yourself two weeks of dedication and clean eating, and you will lose weight. You won’t see a drastic change in the mirror, not during week one or two. It takes six weeks for the body to adjust to any physiological change. Getting started is the hardest part! One meal, one day, one step (literally) leads to one pound lost at a time. Throw your expectations out the window, and just go for the ride. Your past weight loss plans may not have worked, and lots of mine didn’t either, not until it came from the right place. You can’t be the kid who stomps their foot and has a tantrum. You have to be the adult who puts in the work and earns the payoff. The next two weeks (and years) of your life are going to pass whether you’re fat or not. If you want it, go and get it! I did it and so can you! Check back for my next LWFY posting where we’ll discuss jump-starting your weight loss with simple steps to cutting calories.
“I can be the queen that’s inside of me…” –Lady Gaga