How to set a realistic short term goal?

dwarfer22

So my weight has hovered around 224 for the last 6mo or so. I have had major back issues over the last 10 months with no relief. Physical therapy, injections etc. The last few weeks I had been toying with the idea.that my only real non surgical option was getting this weight off to alleviate the pain in my back. Saturday I formulated a plan, Sunday I started with a real weigh in. I was already at 217. Monday 214, today 211. Last time I went on a seriously motivated diet I lost 10 lbs in 2 days. I know it won't stay this high for.more than a week but how do I set my initial goals? First goal is 205, which was my all time low, then 200 obviously, 180, 160, possibly 150. I might hit 205 in a cpl of days or it might take til new year. Any thoughts?

LaurenAOK

You're losing weight ridiculously fast right now, which I hope is due to water weight and not eating too little. Try to start accepting now that the rate will slow down - probably a lot - and that's okay. Healthy weight loss is a slow, steady process.

At your current weight a healthy goal would be two pounds a week. So set MFP up for a 2lb/wk loss, and eat the calories it tells you too. As long as you are counting accurately, you should lose weight somewhere around the rate MFP predicts. If you want to be able to eat more you could set an easier goal like 1.5 or 1 pound a week.

Focus on a small goal right now, maybe 200 since that would be a new low for you. Once you get there, set a new goal... and so on and so forth. At each goal, re-evaluate your rate of loss. Are you losing faster than expected? Slower? Would you like to be able to eat more? Think about these things and determine if you want to continue with your current rate or adjust your goal to lose faster/slower.

Evaluating at each mini goal can also give you an idea of how accurately you are counting. For example, if you're set to lose 2 pounds a week, and you count everything but are consistently losing only 1 pound a week, you are probably eating more than you think. So that would be an indication that you need to log your foods more carefully, or just accept the slower rate of loss.

Congrats on losing so far!

pollypocket1021

When you start losing weight, your body burns through glycogen stores and water weight very quickly. That's why you were able to lose 10lbs in two days. That wasn't fat, that was water.

It's fine to lose a relatively large number in the beginning. But after a few days to a week, the glycogen stores are used up and you will start actually losing fat if you continue to eat at a deficit. This weight loss will be much slower. Don't get discouraged when that happens.

As far as goals, take it day by day. You may find when you hit one milestone, you have more insight into what your next should be.

lorrpb

You can set weight goals, and you can set time frames as long as you don't get stuck on them. You have to be flexible because we cannot predict what our bodies are going to do. I started off faster than I ever imagined, but I've had to readjust my timeframes many many times. Don't let let that thwart your efforts. One of the advantages of working out & strength training since day 1 is that my fitness progress is consistent and I can ALWAYS see improvements in endurance and strength, even if the scale isn't doing what I would like.
SW 301
CW 181
GW 150
18 months.

dwarfer22

TY for answers.

Machka9

I approached it a little bit differently when I started.

My decision was to stick with it for 2 weeks. If I didn't lose any weight at all in that time, I would quit and chalk it up to getting old or something.

I started losing weight 10 days in, and lost about 1 kg ... so there went that plan!

"Right", I thought, "I'll stick with it for 1 month in total, and we'll just see where I am then".

1 month in, I had lost just over 4 kg ... and I started to feel a little bit motivated. If I could stick with it for 1 month, and have reasonable success ... what would happen if I stuck with it for 2 months?

By the end of 2 months I had lost about 9 kg ... I was losing about 1 kg/week. And by then, I could see my normal BMI just a little way off in the distance!!

So then I decided to stick with it for a total of 4 months. That would take me to my holiday to Canada, and if all went well I'd be within my normal BMI. I would quit then and enjoy my holiday in Canada.

The day before we flew to Canada, I reached 15 kg lost, and I was just comfortably within my normal BMI. But that little message when I close my food diary for the day was hinting that I could be a weight I hadn't seen since about 2008. So when I returned from Canada, I kept going .......


In a nutshell ... I didn't have a weight goal. Even now, I'm not sure where exactly I'm going to stop. But instead I figured I'd stick with it for manageable periods of time and see what happened. After all, even if I had just lost 1 kg in that first month, it would be an improvement over where I had been.

And I'm kind of amazed that I've been doing this for almost a year now! But I'm not sure I would have started and stuck with it if I had gone into it thinking I'd be doing this for a year.