Happy Friday, Everyone! A perspective on Goals

Hope everyone is doing well!  

I've decided that setting goals has to be something I'm in control of.  Its one thing to have a long term goal of a weight to get to.  I think that keeps us focused.  But really, does it just set us up for frustration if the scale doesn't cooperate?  I've decided that my daily goals are to eat healthy and move more than I did yesterday.  If I do those two things, I'll get to where I want to go.  I'm not going to defy the law of physics and not lose weight if I do those things.  That gives me patience, and that patience really gets me to a peaceful place.  And being at peace with myself is a wonderful place to be.  

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend!  

Sounds like someone has been doing some soul searching.  You've come such a long way in such a short time to get your head back in the game.  It takes some of us years to be at peace with ourselves, but I think since you've already been there, done that, it's just more like a refresher course for you.

I like the way you are setting up your goals, cuz that pesky scale NEVER cooperates!  There was a girl on the Atkins board who figured out some sort of formula that if she ate this and that for such and such a time, she would lose twenty pounds by a certain date.      I just shook ma head cuz there are a ton of reasons that that wasn't going to happen.  I know cuz they've all happened to me!  Better to be realistic and just go with the flow.

Mary 

Soul searching and butt kicking!  I think you're right.  Its pretty easy for me to fall back into good habits.  Maybe I did do something right by keeping the weight off for so long, even if I've gained it back now!

Those plateaus are killers!  Our bodies don't work like spreadsheets.  Oh, if only it was that easy!

I've been struggling with this too - here is a link to a post I made where I got many great responses.

http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/non_postops/3944556/weight -loss-goals-a-great-dichotomy/#31863288

I'm particularly thrilled to read Wendy's webpage and see that she has a page where she recorded her weight loss. I think I'm going to do that - it's not so much setting goals but rather keeping a history so I can look back and remember where I've come from.

Skylar

 I often will set a goal for myself like I want to be in a certain pair of pants by the end of the month or I am going to wear this dress by the 4th of July, I get far to stressed out when the scale does not cooperate. and if i am on a roll of losing 11 lb's a month for 2 or three months in a row I assume it will be the same every month, WRONG! their are these little things called plateau's that have come my way! so Setting goals is good, I'd even say a must, but there are other things that can be great even more effective goals than numbers on the scale! Good job on the goal setting! 

Hate my scale, and it hates me.. lol  

During my most recent successful weight loss in January, I refused to use it.  I wrote an arbitrary number in my journal as to what I weighed.. lol.  I didn't want to know how much I weighed, and I didn't want the daily self imposed drama of weighing in.  So I just took a guess at my weight, at the high end, figured I didn't weigh more than my all time high.  Then I figured out how many pounds I would have to lose to get to my goal weight in three years.  Then I just subtracted that daily amount from my imaginary weight.  What a psycho I am, huh?  But it worked.  When my son (who was eating healthier too) convinced me to just check, I was 40 pounds lighter than my imaginary weight and, in actuality, had lost about 25-30 pounds!  Such is the power of the mind.. lol.

 how funny, well what ever works ya know, we have to play these mind games on ourselves so we dont go Loco! 

Oh, the mind games are amazing! And I might just be a little bit crazy!

That's why it seems to take longer to lose weight than to gain weight, when in actuality, it takes alot longer to gain weight in the first place!