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Setting Realistic Goals for Weight Loss
If you want a slim and healthy body through weight loss, you’ll need to set goals. If you don’t set goals for yourself, it will be harder to determine if you’re on the right track, and you won’t achieve your goals. Unrealistic goals can also prevent you from reaching your goals. Below, you’ll find some steps that can help you set realistic and achievable goals when working on your weight. Additionally, you’ll learn about the biggest pitfalls and receive tips and advice to avoid them.
Preparation and Planning
For everything in life, starting with a clear plan is essential. Many people make the mistake of setting a goal like “I’m going to lose weight!” and then have no idea where to start or how to approach it. It’s crucial to find your own intrinsic motivation. So, you must be genuinely ready for it, and you shouldn’t lose weight just because others expect it from you.
Motivation for Weight Loss
Determine for yourself what you want to change and why. Be as specific as possible. If you can justify this well, you’ll have a clear picture for yourself, and you’ll be able to sustain weight loss longer because this image will serve as your motivation. Also, ask yourself the “why” question. What benefits will you gain when you lose 5 kilos? Will you be able to confidently walk on the beach? Will the clothes you bought a year ago fit you again? Or perhaps weight loss will improve your overall health. It’s essential to answer this question as specifically as possible, for example: I want to lose 1 kilo per month because my swimsuit from 2015 fits me again.
Pitfalls in Weight Loss
If you foresee obstacles that could hinder your goal in advance, write them down. Think of a way to deal with them positively so that you can overcome these obstacles. It’s incredibly empowering when you can recognize your own weaknesses and act on them. Identifying these weaknesses and pitfalls and being able to indicate when and where you encounter them (during your vacation, or busy periods at work or study) allows you to prepare and respond so that you don’t fall back into old habits. For example, if you know that during a night out with a lot of alcohol, you lose control over your diet, you could decide to drink less alcohol while going out. Changing behavior proves to be one of the most difficult tasks.
Feasibility
Make your goal realistic. Losing 20 kilos in 1 month is impossible. So set achievable goals with interim goals so that you can measure whether you’re on the right track.
Approach to Weight Loss
The final touch when setting goals. With a concrete goal in mind and your motivation in order, you can now work out the path to achieve it. Divide your goal into: ultimate goal, 12-month goal, 3-month goal, and weekly goal.
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to
Alice: I don’t much care where.
The Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
Setting interim goals can help you track your progress and progress. Make use of the many tools available in addition to the scale. For example, you can measure your body fat percentage or take progress photos of yourself.
Developing Goals
When setting goals for yourself, make them specific. A goal like losing weight or gaining more muscle mass is a good start. However, you’re best kept on course by specific goals. An example of a goal could be: within twelve weeks, I want to reduce my body fat percentage by 3%.
The goals you set for yourself should be measurable. It’s motivating to see in the mirror that you’ve lost weight or that your pants size is smaller, but in the long run, results will be less visible.
The scale is a tool that many of you probably use, but it’s not the best way to measure your progress. It’s better to keep track of the difference in your body fat percentage (body composition). You can learn how to do this in our article: how to measure body fat percentage.
Many people don’t make their goals too ambitious. This is because they already think in advance, I can never develop a six-pack or fit into a size 36. It’s easier to set goals that are easily achievable. But why shouldn’t a goal be ambitious? You then have something to work towards, and remember Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Making realistic deadlines is important because we want to lose weight in a healthy, responsible, and sustainable way. It’s possible to lose five kilos in two weeks, but if you’re not severely obese, you won’t lose five kilos of fat within this time. It will be more likely water and muscle. If you only want to lose a few kilos of fat, stick to the rule that between 0.5 and 1 kilo per week can be achievable. It’s important to mention that your body adapts to your new lifestyle, making it increasingly difficult to reduce your body fat percentage.
