Shedding Pounds and SMART Goals

There is a philosophy out there that you should never "Loose" weight. Something lost can be found again. Psychologically a person may feel deprived at loosing something. So it helps sometimes to consider that you are not loosing anything, but gaining health benefits, fitness, energy, etc.

It's something to keep in mind when you are craving that bag of chips.

On goals: An accepted strategy for setting any goal is to make it "S.M.A.R.T."

• Simple
• Measureable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timely

Two examples of SMART goals would be "I want to loose 5 pounds this month" or "I want to get 10,000 steps a day for a full week." 

• It can be stated in one sentence.
• It has a measurable goal.
• It is reasonably attainable.
• It accomplishes what you want.
• And it has a time limit in the near future.

A few examples that do not meet these criteria would be the following:

• I want to loose weight.
• Not specific.
• No time boundary.
• I want to be skinny.
• Not specific.
• No real metric for "skinny."
• I want to loose 150 pounds.
• Too big.
• Not timely, even if you give it a deadline.
• I want to fit into my college clothes.
• Seriously, do you even have them anymore?
• Is it actually reasonable to think you could?

I try to keep a couple of goals on the horizon in my strive for a lower weight.

• Short term:
• Can I loose 10% of my initial weight before my wife's birthday? 
• Yes, I have 2.5 weeks before then, and only 10 lbs. It will be a push, but I believe I can do it.
• Mid term:
• Reduce my body fat percentage to 45%.
• This would be a loss of 105 lbs. It isn't likely I will get all the way to this goal in a set time frame. And I will be re-adjusting this goal over time as I reach my short term goals.
• Long term:
• Reduce my body fat percentage to 22%.
• Very long term, but I keep it on the horizon in my charts. At my current rate, it would happen next summer. I am not sure I can manage that and it is a long time away. Between now and then, I have a 2 week cruise and the holidays.

Of these, only the short term goal meets the SMART guidelines. I know this and don't stress over the mid and long term ones, I just look at the projected dates when I enter data into my logs. It is nice to see a projected "Finish line" for this work.