How to Crush Your Weight Loss Goals | WARNING - Spreadsheets Are Involved

Losing weight is tricky.

I know, I know. Understatement of the century.

But I think there's something especially tricky about losing weight. And I think that something specifically has to do with the fact that people don't approaching their weight loss goals the same way they do other goals.

I, for example, have accomplished plenty of goals in my life. I consider myself a goal-oriented person and have accomplished quite a few things that I'm proud of that required multiple years of hard work, dedication, and consistency. But shedding the weight has just been something I haven't been able to crack.

Until I had an epiphany.

About once a year, I have a major meltdown and stress about what I'm doing with my life. I'm not sure why, but this time of introspection doesn't coincide with the start of the New Year (like most people). For me, it starts sometime in the spring.

This spring, right on schedule, I started reflecting on how much my life had changed in the past five years. And how much it could change in the next five.

I was alarmed at how quickly half a decade had flown by. Kids and career had worked in concert to accelerate my life to ludicrous speed, and I began to feel as if life was happening to me instead of the other way around.

So, I mapped out my goals in an attempt to take back some control.

I started with family goals, then moved on to career and financial goals. I imagined where we would be living in the next five years, what kind of relationship I would have with my wife and kids, how much money we would have in the bank, and even what kind of car I would be driving.

I started by filling in where I wanted to be by the time I was 35, 40, 45 , and even took a stab at forecasting what life might look like in my 50's. Then I worked my way backwards, getting more granular by setting annual, quarterly, monthly, and even daily goals for some things.

By the time it was over, I was excited. I was pumped because I had a vision, and a direction to march in. I had defined some clear boundaries and could readily assess if I was on the right track or not. Instead of wondering ten years from now if I had wasted my life by wandering aimlessly through it, I would know ten months from now if I was on pace to create the life that I knew I wanted as of today.

Except for one thing.

In my vision of my future, I was still fat.

Looking over my life plan, I realized I had failed to apply the same systematic rigor to my health goals as I have to every other area of my life.

This was my lightbulb moment — maybe the reason that weight loss was the one goal that consistently eluded me is because it's the one goal that I treated differently from all the others.

There's a lot of conflicting information out there about the best way to set weight loss goals. I think there's a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, losing weight (especially if you have a significant amount to lose) is an emotional thing. Some people can't bring themselves to look at the scale on a daily basis because they're afraid of the frustration associated with daily variation.

Believe me, I get it. The weight loss fairies are fickle and sometimes they're not kind even if you do everything right.

But if you set realistic goals and are willing to power through the frustration, setting and tracking goals on a daily basis can be extremely motivating. And remember - you can always re-forecast if things become a little too unmanageable.

There's just something super empowering about being able to say, "By January , 2018 I'll be 200 pounds lighter." That kind of definitive statement makes visualizing success a lot easier.

A couple of tips for those who want to move from "someday I'll lose weight" to "I'll achieve my goal weight by X date":

1. Start with the end in mind: Give yourself a due date. Make sure it's realistic, yet challenging.
2. Start chopping: Take your final goal and chop it down into progressively smaller pieces. If your weight loss will span multiple years, set annual goals, then move to quarterly and monthly goals. I'd recommend getting it down to at least weekly if not daily so you can pat yourself on the back if you're on track or course correct if you're veering slightly.
3. Account for diminishing returns: Anyone who has tried to lose weight knows that weight tends to drop off fairly easily in the beginning and then gets harder to lose later in the journey. Make sure to account for this.
4. Set celebratory milestones: If you've got a lot of weight to lose, you really have to be intentional about celebrating the small victories. In my case, 25 pounds is a drop in the bucket compared to the 200 I have to lose, but it's also cause for celebration since I'm that much closer to my goal. Visualize yourself at these key milestones and take stock in your accomplishments. Just don't celebrate with a slice of cake. Or pizza. Or Pie. Or lasagne. Y'know what — just avoid food that is served in slices unless it's a fruit or vegetable.
5. Visualize future success: If you're forecasting out daily, you'll be able to envision how you'll look at specific dates in the future. For example, I know that for Valentine's Day next year, I'll be over 100 pounds lighter! That's got me super motivated to take my wife out to eat somewhere fancy to celebrate. For the first time in forever, I'll be excited to take a picture on Valentine's Day.
6. Adjust your forecast quarterly: The only thing you know for sure about a forecast is that it will be wrong. Don't be discouraged if this is the case. Expect it! As a best practice, whether you're crushing your goals or they're crushing you, plan to revisit them every quarter and re-forecast so you can set more realistic expectations with what you've learned over the last three months.