Face Reality and Set Small Goals

I will preface by saying that my goals & accomplishments may not seem big to others but they have been huge for me.
I have a genetic heart condition that is worsening as I get older & will need surgery eventually, I am morbidly obese, I suffer from Sarcoidosis, & I was diagnosed with Diabetes in December 2013 .

I was coasting with my weight loss, no real goals, just eating a little better, cooking at home more & seeing what happened & I was loosing weight, so I thought this is good enough.

I got my Diabetes Diagnosis & realized I had to change. I still had no real goals per say but I immediately stopped drinking sweet tea & cola (which I had been clearly addicted to) & dropped my carbs to about 45 grams per meal & no more than 160 grams total for the day & started drinking only water. I rode the weight loss that came with those changes for a few months with no real goals in mind.

And then BAM-Crash no loss for over a month, my body had finally adjusted & I was pissed. I stayed pissed for a bit & then took action

I joined the gym at my work & started seeing a fitness counselor there (I was terrified). She put me on a tread mill at 1.5 mph & said walk for 30 minutes, do this 3 days a week, do nothing else just come 3 days a week for a month. & I DID !

After that we set a real goal, loose 15 lbs in 3 months & she added a little strength training to my workout & bumped my treadmill to 1.7 mph with a 1% incline. And she said keep coming 3 times a week & do these things for a month, & I DID !

I also started seeing a nutritionist who gave me a calories goal & introduced my to MFP & had me track my sugar 3 times a day to see how we could best lower my sugar.

At the gym I continued to meet with the fitness counselor each month, increasing my treadmill & adding to my strength training & even adding on some elliptical time. & being told to go 3 times a week for a month & I DID!

I met my first actual verbalized goal of that 15lbs in 3 months & set a new goal of 10 more in 10 weeks !

During this time I still saw the nutritionist & I still met with the fitness counselor each month but something AWESOME happened, I started setting my OWN GOALS ! Little goals like I am gonna go 1 mile on this elliptical in 15 minutes & I am going to get my tread mill speed up to 2.5 by a certain date, I started adjusting my own training when I felt like I could do more. I started challenging myself !

I still see the nutritionist monthly, I still meet with the fitness counselor monthly but now It's to check in & tell them what I am doing instead of waiting for them to tell me what to do.

I am now doing 45 minutes of cardio 15 on that elliptical & hitting that 1 mile in just under 15 minutes & 30 on the treadmill at 3.1 mph with a 4% incline & doing 45 minutes of strength training with free weights & machines 3 times a week. And I am 1 lb from that second goal of 10 lbs in 10 weeks (& if I loose it by 09/15, I will have met that goal!)

When that 1 lb is gone the next goal is to loose 15 more by the end of the year & to be strong enough at the beginning of next year to start using barbells (like the boys at the gym do).

All the small goals along the way have really added up for me, they have shown me that I can be committed to something, that I can enjoy excercise, that I can succeed, & not to fear the limitations of my body but to revel in it's accomplishments.

I am down 74 lbs from June 2013 & immeasurably stronger in body, mind, & soul.

I couldn't agree more!!

It's better to have small goals and accomplish them successfully than have bigs ones and miss all of the time

Then you just work on making them new goals bigger and better.

I'm not fit by any sense of the word, I have a FitBit Flex and I don't have it set at the standard 10,000 steps, I first set it at 5000 steps a day, if at the end of the day I hadn't hit I'd go and walk around the garden till I had. I then started upping my goal by 500 a day before I knew it I'd had odd days where I'd completed over 10k without even trying.

All of my goals are small ones as I find the biggest one of all too overwhelming. My last one was to get under 80lbs to go, chuffed as anything when I hit 79, next one is to get under 200lbs which is about 2.5lb away.

All of my journey has been like this!!