Long-Term/Short-Term Goals

Hungry_Angler

Fitness/weight-loss wise, what are your goals? What are you doing to stick to them?

My approach is to use MFP as the mechanism to track my caloric intake, to list my long-term goals. The way that I plan on managing my short term goal of a pound weight loss per week, I've created a calendar where every Monday for an entire year, I've annotated my Goal Weight. The plan is to weight myself and jot down my actual and compare that to goals.

My reasoning is that I will use that side by side comparison to push myself to either train harder or watch my diet a little closer so that I can stay true to my goals.

Would love to read what you guys are doing to stick to your goals.

SideshowTam

In my profile sidebar (viewable on desktop version of MFP) I have the following goal structure:

Starting Weight: . . . . . . 87.5 kg

G̶o̶a̶l̶ ̶1̶:̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶1̶/̶4̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶
G̶o̶a̶l̶ ̶2̶:̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶B̶M̶I̶ ̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶3̶0̶
G̶o̶a̶l̶ ̶3̶:̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶1̶0̶ ̶k̶g̶ ̶d̶o̶w̶n̶
Goal 4: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 kg to go - 75 kg
Goal 5: . . . . . . . . . . . . . Weight when I met Dean - 73 kg
Goal 6: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 kg down - 72.5 kg
Goal 7: . . . . . . . . . . . . . Halfway to goal - 71.3 kg
Goal 8: . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lowest weight in 5 years - 68kg
Goal 9: . . . . . . . . . . . . . BMI under 25 - 66 kg
Goal 10: . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 kg
Goal 11: . . . . . . . . . . . . Only 5 kg to goal !! - 60 kg
Goal 12. . . . . . . . . . . . . Same weight as Sam - 57 kg

Final Goal Weight: . . . . 55 kg with muscles!

As you can see, every few kilos I have a goal marker based on either a significant number or event that I can celebrate getting closer to my goal weight. I have a similar goal structure saved on another app which I have attached tentative dates to each goal. For example, I know I should more or less weigh around 70kg by the end of January, if I stick to my weekly caloric goal. I cross off each thing as I achieve it, and as they are only a few kgs apart, it means I always have a win 'within arms reach', even though I still have a large amount of weight to lose. Having the visual reminder and being able to manually cross off goals is a great motivator for me.

jennybearlv

I do 5% mini-goals. I'm currently working towards my 3rd 5% of 236 lbs. My long term goal is to get a healthy BMI of under 140 lbs. As far as fitness goals I have a short term goal of lifting three days a week and adding a little more weight as I can. I don't really have a long term for that one, just to keep adding more weight. I had a goal of walking three miles around my neighborhood without getting tired which I accomplished. Now I am doing a Couch 2 5K program with the goal of running a 5K in the spring.

sarko15

This is such a neat idea! It's important to remember though that weight loss is not linear, and might not line up exactly with your goals and it's not because you need to train harder/eat cleaner/etc. There's obviously the general formula of CICO, which is as simple as it gets, but there are things like salt bloat and other things that could affect the number on the scale that day, but isn't a result of not working hard enough. If you're not down a pound that week, it doesn't mean it won't come off and then some the next week.

sarko15

My long term goal is to drop 15-20 pounds, I honestly don't really have a number. I just want to be solidly in "middle healthy" instead of constantly teetering into overweight depending on the season. Also, I'm an hobbyist cake decorator so I need all the extra buffer I can get I don't have short term weight goals because I haven't yet gotten to the point where I'm really losing--still getting adjusted to the calorie deficit and experimenting as to what calorie goal is right for my needs, especially since I'm not aiming to lose a lot. But other short term goals are to get to the gym at least 5 days a week, and to reach my protein goal more days than not.