On a journey to change my life by 40... Dedicated and supportive friends needed!

Sinisterbarbie1 wrote: »

Congratulations on your amazing spirit, motivation, and great attitude, as well as knowing what motivates you so that you can figure out ways of celebrating your victories along the way. That will all be great!
You have set a pretty ambitious goal for anyone - losing 80-100 lbs in one year. I have no idea what your height and current weight is or what MFP recommendations are for your calories and exercise as a result, but I am just finished with losing somewhat over 50 lbs in a little more than 14 months, (I am 5’8” and 137.6 at the moment) and if you are open to a couple of suggestions I would make one overall suggestion in terms of how you approach the process which I think helps with sustaining motivation over the long term.

You’ve identified a plan which is very ambitious and combines a bunch of different things you say you want to avoid and rules you want to set for your eating. And then combines that with a work out plan. But are any of these things tied to any concrete recommendations that your primary care physician has made for you based on your health needs? If not, there is no particular need to adopt rules that eliminate things from your diet or institute fasting periods etc. unless they personally help you to eat within a given caloric limit or avoid trigger foods that would lead you to overeat. It won’t make a difference in your weight loss one way or the other and often people who do lose weight according to some diet plan they have adopted go back to their old eating habits once they are “done” with the diet, and they regain all the weight they lost. I’d suggest reading some of the posts here and just following a reasonable calorie reduction plan and you will be fine unless your doctor has suggested otherwise.

While setting up a big plan or a “diet” and a serious work out regimen to follow rigorously often gives one the kick in the butt they need to start doing something - anything- to get serious about their health (so it can be a good thing in a way), you can also burn out quickly if it is not well planned out or if the goals are all too long term and you don’t have any short term victories to look forward to achieving and celebrating and then figuring out what the new plan should be in setting the next goal.

I am definitely not a person who goes in for business coaching type advice, but I was in an academic seminar the other day where they were telling us how to set up our personal and professional goals for the summer and they told us to do both the same way, applying what is apparently a well known business management technique: setting. “SMART” goals. Those are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable and Time-Bound. As we went through the process I realized that the key was the achievable, reasonable and time-bound part …. Sure, I could say I want to lose 100 lbs in a year, and that is specific, but it isn’t actually even terribly measurable, because I don’t have a good way of judging if I am on track or not given the non-linear nature of weight loss. For the same reasons it is unclear whether it is achievable or reasonable. I might begin losing weight and working out and find that my muscles make me look way better even though the scale number is different than I expected. Or something crazy may happen in my life causing me to have to change my time scale for losing the 100 lbs. I would rather achieve 5 smaller goals and keep making progress than hit a roadblock and feel like a failure and stop entirely. So better to say I will lose 10lbs in x weeks at the rate of x lbs per week beginning on Monday and weighing in daily, recording my weights weekly, weighing and recording everything I eat on MFP until x date x weeks away. Then I will reassess and set the next goal. (There are multiple threads on here that are 3 mos and 15 lbs or similar type accountability groups that might help keep you on track if that is of interest). This gives me a way to track what is going on and assess what is reasonable at any given point in time and adjust etc. It also gives me something to celebrate when I reach each goal.

Since you are motivated by fashion etc. you could even build that into the plan. I will buy myself a new work out outfit at the beginning of each new goal so that I feel awesome going to the gym. When I achieve my goal I will celebrate by getting a mani/pedi. Etc. (I am sure you have cooler and more motivating ideas in mind since you may already do this stuff anyway).

Anyway, 40 was fun, so look forward to it whatever weight you ultimately are. You have already made the commitment to your self to meet it healthier so that is a success right there. Here is wishing you many smaller successes along the way to your ultimate goal.