Creating Goals to Stay on Track

katday680
katday680 Posts: 9
in Motivation and Support
Last night my husband and I booked our honeymoon to Thailand! I couldn't be more excited! Luckily I have six months to get fit to enjoy our lovely trip.

What I have a hard time with is how do I create goals to keep me on track? I don't feel that saying "I want to lose 5 pounds a month" is very substantial, motivating or accountable. Any ideas?

How do all of you create goals?

Thanks in advance!

Replies

  • coaoalo
    coaoalo Posts: 104 Member
    So far I've found that setting deadlines for weight loss really demotivates me if I don't meet them. Some goals that are working for me are:

    I will stay within my calorie goal today
    I will eat clean for one week
    I will exercise 3 times this week.
    I will finish the warm up of my exercise without taking a break

    To me, it's about setting goals that are not only non weight related, but also positive. They're all "I will" do this great thing. It's "I will eat clean" not "I won't eat junk". It's "I'll stay within my goal", not "I'll not binge". If I fail to meet a 'positive' goal then better luck tomorrow. If I fail to meet a negative/ weight related goal then I'm a failure.
  • jsandie76
    jsandie76 Posts: 201 Member
    Take a look at the "Daily Check In - Summer 2014" Thread. It helps with keeping with the daily goals. Soon they will be switching over to the Fall 2014 thread.
  • onefortyone
    onefortyone Posts: 531 Member
    I create goals by looking at what I really want to get out of this whole weight loss business - weight loss for its own sake worked for me before & I lost 20lbs, but I just stopped one day and gained it back. For me it's not necessarily sustainable if you don't feel like you're accomplishing much.

    So I have fitness goals - I want to be able to run for 2 miles without stopping - that I am slowly working towards (up to 1.7 atm!). My primary 'goal' is to burn 200-250 calories in a gym session at a minimum, even if I don't want to be there. But once I start working I usually wanna keep going way past that :)

    I also have food goals - no more 'emotional' eating, so each time I feel overwhelmed with negative emotions but avoid overeating to soothe myself, I do a little victory dance lol. My food goals also include making nutritious meals with more veggies, so looking up recipes & stuff helps me avoid overeating on other foods.

    I also did a mini-weight loss goal thing - 15lbs by Christmas, There's a cool FB group for it and we share motivation and pitfalls (and a spreadsheet!). I don't wanna have to post lame excuses to justify not losing weight on there, so that helps me a little too lol. And having lost 15lbs will be an AMAZING Christmas present to myself :)
  • katday680
    katday680 Posts: 9
    These are all very helpful! I need to create some fitness goals and turn the other ones I had into more positive goals. Before I used shame as a motivator (not good).

    Thank you!!

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