Setting Weight Loss Goals: Starting With the End in Mind | Week 2 Weigh-In (2016)
There's a lot of controversy out there on the best approach to setting weight loss goals.
Some will say that the scale is irrelevant. Just focus on how your clothes fit - don't sweat the numbers.
Others point to recent studies which have shown that daily weigh-ins are key to weight loss success.
I personally fall into the latter camp, but then that could just be because I'm a fairly data-oriented person. Others who aren't quite so anal retentive might be just fine with going by the fit of their pants. I, on the other hand, need to see a trend line go down to truly believe I'm making progress.
This time around, in addition to daily tracking, I've also taken a page out of Stephen Covey's book and have decided to start with the end in mind — I've set stretch goal for myself of losing 200 pounds.
That's a great first step, and certainly an improvement over just saying "I want to lose weight." But I really wanted to hold myself accountable this time and decided to put a time limit on it.
Initially, I set the time limit at 2 years. That seemed like a reasonable amount of time. Not as crazy as The Biggest Loser, but not indefinite.
I decided to see how much I'd have to lose on a day to day basis to hit that goal. Then I dialed it in even further to account for faster weight loss in the beginning and slower loss towards the end when I have less weight to lose.
When all was said and done, I discovered that I should be able to hit my goal by January 9, 2018.
This level of clarity has been a game changer for me. Before I go to sleep every night, I'm able to assess whether I did everything possible to lose the weight needed to hit the goal for the next day. And because I can project where I should be in the future, I can visualize how I'll look this summer, next Christmas, or even during Valentine's day next year.
This approach to goal setting has been a huge factor in helping me start this reboot strong. This week, I posted a total loss of 5.6 pounds — my highest ever in Project Reboot history! That brings me down to 378 pounds.
For those of you who are keeping score, that's a total of 9.6 pounds lost in 2.5 weeks, which is actually places me about a week ahead of plan. It's super motivating to know that harder work now could translate to achieving my goal faster — and specifically it's helpful to have an estimate of how much faster.
That day can't come soon enough.