Do my goals seem realistic?

My1985Freckles

Your goals are awesome, and like you, I need a concrete time frame. But instead of listing ALL of them, maybe pick your first one and a date. That way, if your body doesn't quite agree with your time line, like was mentioned, then you use the next date for your goal and just ERASE the first one. That is what I have had to do.

Great, great idea!!! I guess for now I am just kind of seeing where I CAN be and where, if I continue at 2lbs/week loss.

That's a good idea!

Maybe set the goal at 1 or 1.5 a week. That way you can treat yourself to a heavier meal every now and then, but not completely fall of the wagon. I usually plan light meals around a heavier meal, but if I could NEVER have my fettucinni alfredo, I think I would cry.

DannyMussels

10lbs a month is pretty intense, unless you have a ton of weight to lose. 5 is a pretty reasonable goal.

I do like your 180 by Christmas though. That's a solid timeframe with room for a few slipups.

Like the girl above said, change it to 'lose x lbs, reward with this'. For example, when I got under 200, I got my nipples pierced.



That's how I roll.

tmiqueen

I NEVER use time limits. Things happen in your life that will inevitably screw up that goal....plateaus, vacations, illness/injury, unplanned night out with friends at the bar....you get the idea.

I do, however, like to set reward goals for myself.

For instance, when I hit my first mini goal of losing 10 lbs, I treated myself to some products to do an at-home facial. I didn't say that I had to lose it by any specific time, I just said that I had to lose it in order to receive the reward.

My next goal is losing 10 more lbs. I don't have a set time that it'll be lost by. When I lose it, I will treat myself to a professional pedicure, or buy myself a new item of clothing (I like to keep my options open reward-wise...lol).

My1985Freckles

10lbs a month is pretty intense, unless you have a ton of weight to lose. 5 is a pretty reasonable goal.

I do like your 180 by Christmas though. That's a solid timeframe with room for a few slipups.

Like the girl above said, change it to 'lose x lbs, reward with this'. For example, when I got under 200, I got my nipples pierced.



That's how I roll.

Psst! I don't reward myself with pain.... LOL, that just sounds so painful to me, but I'm a huge chicken LOL

LisaKyle11

i think so... although the one timeframe that seems tight is from Christmas to Feb...(about 20 lbs). otherwise, seem reasonable!

FrenchMob

Anyone that's discouraging dates should educate themselves on real goal setting. The dates are a necessity otherwise you'll simply "keep putting it off". Yes it's going to happen that you might not make a date, but you can't feel bad if you did everything you could. You simply reset your goals and move forward. But not setting dates is a big mistake.

As far as being doable, they seem to be reasonable. You seem to have set yourself for a 7.5 lbs/month schedule. Just remember that the closer you get to your goal weight, the slower that weight loss gets. So I would change your final goal to either a further date or less weight loss. Maybe consider 2-3 lbs a month for the last couple months instead.

Kimberly2212

I think your goals are great!!! And they are realistic!!! Keep your head up and you will do great~!

Whitneylol

10lbs a month is pretty intense, unless you have a ton of weight to lose. 5 is a pretty reasonable goal.

I do like your 180 by Christmas though. That's a solid timeframe with room for a few slipups.

Like the girl above said, change it to 'lose x lbs, reward with this'. For example, when I got under 200, I got my nipples pierced.



That's how I roll.

Baha! Well, I need to lose like 75-80lbs, really. So to me- that's a lot! I normally lose weight pretty fast when I exercise and not eat crap. Also, congrats on the nip piercings! I guess I should focus on some rewards, but all mine are tattoo-related and I'm not getting tattoos in places that have fat until I reach my long-term goal (hopefully next summer?!) because I don't want them to look funky.

Whitneylol

I think your goals are great!!! And they are realistic!!! Keep your head up and you will do great~!

Thanks for the positivity Much appreciated!

My1985Freckles

Anyone that's discouraging dates should educate themselves on real goal setting. .

I have my goal weights pencilled in on the calendar LOL. The first was to be 175 by this Thursday. I was 176.4 last Friday, but 178 this morning (Damn my cousin and her cheesecake! LOL)... But I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Maybe I'll hit it by Monday.

Whitneylol

Anyone that's discouraging dates should educate themselves on real goal setting. The dates are a necessity otherwise you'll simply "keep putting it off". Yes it's going to happen that you might not make a date, but you can't feel bad if you did everything you could. You simply reset your goals and move forward. But not setting dates is a big mistake.

As far as being doable, they seem to be reasonable. You seem to have set yourself for a 7.5 lbs/month schedule. Just remember that the closer you get to your goal weight, the slower that weight loss gets. So I would change your final goal to either a further date or less weight loss. Maybe consider 2-3 lbs a month for the last couple months instead.

This is what I was thinking as well! I think it's much better to set dates (but still know you aren't necessarily FAILING if you don't reach them exactly). I know MYSELF and how I work and in the past, not setting goals has allowed me to get to the weight I am. I go hard, and 100% intensity 100% of the time! Knowing I have a particular goal in place makes me get my *kitten* off the couch and onto the bike

Thank you, I agree with setting the smaller goals near the end!

elliotth77

Sure it's realistic. A healthy weight-loss goal is 1-2 pounds a week as i'm sure you know, however, you need to take into consideration the obstacles. Many people mentioned plateaus, this is a very real issue. Especially the more you lose. Your first couple of weeks might be easy, but then your body adjusts and you have to increase your frequency and intensity of the work-outs. Besides plateaus you have to ask yourself if you're willing to put forth the effort? Are you willing to workout and burn the amount of calories you need to? Is it feasible time wise, meaning do you have the time available to dedicate to working out? And last and this is one of the most important... Are you willing to eat right? This DOES NOT mean simply just coming in under your calorie goal! So many people on here just don't get that. Just because you come in under goal doesn't mean it's ok to eat like crap. I doesn't matter if calorie wise you can afford it. Yes cheating every once in a while is good. But not eating a bag of chips every day because you can and still come in under goal. Watch your sodium, it'll make you retain water.. I could go on. Research balanced diets or ask me questions if you need to.

csg148

I believe that your goals are achievable and its great to give yourself a timeline to achieve them. My wife and I both gave ourselves goal weights with timelines and we have successfully lost all or most of the weight. Without the time lines we found ourselves "cheating" quite a bit, especially on the weekends. Once we decided that we were going to lose so much weight by a certain date we held ourselves more accountable for our eating. Good luck to you!!!!

FrenchMob

I believe that your goals are achievable and its great to give yourself a timeline to achieve them. My wife and I both gave ourselves goal weights with timelines and we have successfully lost all or most of the weight. Without the time lines we found ourselves "cheating" quite a bit, especially on the weekends. Once we decided that we were going to lose so much weight by a certain date we held ourselves more accountable for our eating. Good luck to you!!!!

...and that's how it's done. Congrats!

ninerbuff

Doable. Good thing you have a time limit and are specific. Most people just say "I want to lose weight" and have no plan. Kinda like a ship without a rudder.

crystalinda

Ultimately, I think it depends on you and you're motivation. I too felt like I needed to set goals to stay focused on getting in shape and not lose interest. But its hard to say that a timeline will help keep you as motivated. Looking at your goals you're basically giving yourself 3.5 months to lose 30 lbs, that's a little less than 10 pounds per month. technically its doable but it could also be really difficult depending on your metabolism, diet, workout routine, etc.

Maybe you should try by commitiing yourself by setting non-scale goals that could yield results on the scale. Join a bootcamp and commit to that for 90 days. Try the Visalus 90-day challenge, sign up for a 5k or something like that.

Those are all things I did to keep myself accountable and focused on my goals. I started by joining the bootcamp, it was fun and I started to see some results but then I felt like it had the potential to fall in the cracks like many of my workout routines in the past so I decided to give my work outs purpose by signing up for a 5k. That gave me extra motivation to keep working out. Then opportunities just started to present themselves and I keep finding ways to challenge myself off the scale in hopes that I will see results there later. Now my goals are more about what I can acomplish rather than how much weight I can lose and so far I've stuck to my commitments for almost 5 months and I'm well on my way to being in the best shape of my adult life!

Jennieam

As others have mentioned the goals are agressive but "doable".

You mention that in the past you have failed due to unrealistic goals. If you are concerned that missing a particular goal on a set date will discourage you, then I would either extend the time limit, or reduce the goal weight for that day. i.e. make the goals less agressive.

You are looking at a life change here, it doesn't matter if it takes an extra couple of months to get there.

All the best

Thamantha

I find it comforting to leave wiggle room in my goals. So i aim to lose 1lb per week, but give myself 5 weeks to lose 4 pounds. That way if anything happens to stop regular progress I have a little lee-way. I haven't actually had any problems so far - i am ahead of schedule

I agree that having concrete goals is a great idea. Whenever I am tempted to go over my calories I remind myself that (although it is not the end of the world) it would delay my progress.

Your goals seem attainable, and there is no one-size fits all approach, but I have found that leaving wiggle room has been helpful to me.

PuzzleGirl65

Your goals look pretty aggressive to me. I think the first couple are totally do-able if you really work at it, but after that I don't know. I'm also 5' 6" and I started at 216. I'm in 13 weeks now and have lost 28 pounds, which means if I had your same goals I would have hit the first one and I've made the second one a week early. It's that last one that's bugging me though. 15 weeks to lose 31 pounds? I keep reading that the closer you get to your goal weight the more likely it is that it will start coming off slower. If I wanted to use dates for my goals (which I don't, but I totally get why you do), I think I would set them for a pound a week. Then when I blow right by each goal I would feel fabulous. I'd rather set myself up that way than the other way.

ltlane

i would love to weigh 125-130 by august 2012... 8-10lbs a month is possible in the beginning if there is a lot to lose. right now im telling myself that it wont be as easy the closer i get to my goal weight. right now i burn nearly 700 calories an hour doing 30DS and high impact aerobics... by the time im 150, it probably wont even be half of that.... the weight loss is going to slow down ill be thankful to God to be in one-derland to be honest....

27strange

I think time goals work best in the beginning when the body is more apt to naturally lose faster, but later they can be somewhat discouraging as you get closer and closer to your goal they get more difficult to meet. Time goals work for some, because they need the consistency and the impending date to keep them on track, for others they don't work because they are easy to miss which leads to discouragement. Our bodies don't naturally go off a schedule. Nothing wrong with your time goals, just don't write them in stone and beat yourself up if ya don't hit them. Ballpark time goals are best. Rewards for goals are very cool, keep using them for sure. Best of luck friend! You can achieve your ultimate goal, its doable!!

Whitneylol

I think time goals work best in the beginning when the body is more apt to naturally lose faster, but later they can be somewhat discouraging as you get closer and closer to your goal they get more difficult to meet. Time goals work for some, because they need the consistency and the impending date to keep them on track, for others they don't work because they are easy to miss which leads to discouragement. Our bodies don't naturally go off a schedule. Nothing wrong with your time goals, just don't write them in stone and beat yourself up if ya don't hit them. Ballpark time goals are best. Rewards for goals are very cool, keep using them for sure. Best of luck friend! You can achieve your ultimate goal, its doable!!

I'm just now seeing this, woops!

Thank you, such great advice from a great MFP pal!