layout: post title: Goal-setting for weight loss tags: [food, desi, family, wedding, weight loss] — [wedding]: http://ktdd.org/

Well losing about 20-25 pounds (of mostly fat) in the year before [my wedding][wedding] definitely had the intended effect of receiving positive comments from friends and family. I secretly had the intent of not just being able to lose weight, but wanting to help others lose weight too. There’s no reason to suffer through anything if you can’t use it to better yourself or others later.

Since I’ve met my current goal (160 by wedding), I think I’m going to have a new goal, and I’ll use this opportunity to walk people through the way I lost weight — sort of. I took a lot of liberties with my daily diet, and I don’t recommend that others do the same. I do recommend that people write down any drastic changes that they might be contemplating and their desired goals and discuss them with their doctor or other qualified professional. Everything that I mention in this blog is purely anecdotal and should not be construed as best dietary practices.

Determining your motivation

Before you determine what a new goal is, you need to find a reason to even lose weight. If you don’t have a good enough reason, losing weight is tough. Reasons only need to be good enough for you. Here was my reasons for losing weight by my wedding:

Any of those reasons is sufficient. For example, who wouldn’t want to look their best for at [their wedding][wedding]. I had the benefit of receiving a lot of attention from friends and families. We had an Indian wedding, and Indian aunties really notice the weight changes — which in a way can be pretty nice when you are intending to lose weight.

In the week following my wedding, I’ve seen my weight rise out of that “recommended weight” zone. I want to be firmly entrenched in that “recommended weight” zone, and then I’d like to start gaining muscle mass. Once I’m at my new target weight, I’ll be firmly entrenched in that weight and if I can continue decent eating habits and do strength-training, I could reach somewhere in the 150s and have strength to show for. It goes back to the “making it easier to do physical activities” goal. I like being able to lift boxes, people, etc, without exerting too much effort.

Determining a weight

Having a reason to lose weight should be easy enough. Determining how much weight to lose is another proposition all together. This is an excellent time to get the opinion of a professional. However, if you are fairly certain that you are overweight, you can usually play it safe by saying a 10% weight loss. If you or anybody close to you has the slightest worry that this might be an unhealthy weight, check with a doctor.

I had been floating between 175-185 pounds for a number of years, I decided on 160 for a goal. At the time it seemed ambitious. I had tried losing weight before, but not to that extent. The idea of being in the BMI range for a healthy weight seemed like a fantasy.

It’s a fairly good idea to pick a goal that is significant. I could have set my sights low and said, I’d like to be 170 pounds, but that’s not much of a change. Physically it’s very little change, as I remember. The idea of hitting 160 pounds, however… I couldn’t even remember when I was last 160.

I decided that each time I hit a goal, I’d re-assess where I am, and see if it made sense to lose or gain more weight. At this time I feel like I could lose more, so I’m going to shoot for 15 more pounds. Putting me at 145 pounds. Beyond my occasional 14 miles I bike to and from work when I’m called in, I am planning on adding in at least some abdominal exercises.

Determining a date

Your goal date is probably more important than your determined weight (as long as the weight you pick is healthy). When I started, going from 185 to 160, seemed crazy and way faster than I expected, but over a year’s time, that’s only half a pound a week — which is quite reasonable.

An arbitrary date to reach a goal might not mean much to you. For me, I picked my wedding day — and it had the intended effect of getting a lot of attention. Luckily for me, I can determine if I kept the same weight-loss pace as I have, I’d be around 145 pounds by Christmas. The nice thing about this being my second goal, is I can determine whether or not I liked that pace. If the pace seemed too relaxed I could just adjust the date or weight to suit me.

I’m picking New Years Day, 2007 as my new goal date. I’ll be 145 pounds by then. It’ll be a good time, because this is when many people decide they should start losing weight. At that point I can serve as an example.

Determine what you are willing to do to achieve the goal

Setting a date and a measurement for a goal is a huge step. In fact, you could probably achieve your goals with just that information alone. The other necessary steps will just come into play. However, it is helpful to know what you’ll do and won’t do to get to where you want to be.

Let’s be clear, dieting is simply burning more calories than you consume. What will you do to achieve that? You can either burn more or consume less or both. The bulk of my weight loss was from consuming less. Burning more, for me, did help, but not as much as people would like to believe1.

Do both if you can, but don’t get hung up that you can’t bike to work (even though you can) or that you have no time to use that treadmill. With some dietary adjustments it should be easy to lower your calorie intake to the point where your body starts wearing down on its reserves.

Personally I also picked a few specific things I was willing to give up. I was willing to give up sugar (not everyday, but regularly), fried foods if I had to, and even dairy products. Omitting foods didn’t make me lose weight, but it did prevent me from snacking. Snacking for me made having a calorie deficit nearly impossible.

I also had to accept that I couldn’t stuff myself at mealtime. Late night pizzas, all-you-can-eat buffets — none of that. My fianceé-at-the-time (now my lovely wife) was very good at convincing me that I only needed to eat until I was no longer hungry. That alone, helped quite a bit.

There will be bouts of hunger. You are starving your body. You are telling it, hey, I’m not eating enough to maintain this weight, so please chew on my reserves. The danger of course, is that your reserves are fat and muscle. Some dietary, and exercise changes can make that loss appear to be mostly fat. This time around, I’m willing to stick to the same course. It worked before, it should work again.

Determine what you won’t do to achieve this goal

Equally as important to what you’ll try to do is what you won’t try to do. It might be important to establish that you will not exceed a certain calorie deficiency/day. It might also be important to you to not jump on fad diets. Whatever it is, you should find out what you don’t want to do, make sure you are justified in feeling that way, and then stick to your guns, unless you’ve been scientifically proven wrong. It’s far too easy to get caught up in a numbers game and start sacrificing your health just to meet the right number on the scale.

Conclusion

If you know what you want, when you want it and are willing to take steps to achieve it, you’ll be fine. Goal setting is important in just about every facet of life, not just weight loss. Realistic goals can get you where you need to be. Make sure you’re setting up some realistic goals.

So to recap my own goals: New Years Day 2007 I will be 145 pounds. I’d like to hear if other people have some weight related goals in the comments and their strategies.

  1. Last summer I biked about 70 miles a week, but the bulk of my weight was in the winter when I started working more and more from home. ↩