The Importance of Setting Goals - Attainable Goals
When I first heard about Fit Club, I thought "Great, I want - no, NEED - to lose weight. This is perfect. I want to get down to 140 lbs." And then I started really thinking about it. I weighed 215 at the time, that would be a 75 lb. weight loss. Oh, man, 75 lbs? And suddenly it was overwhelming.
So, I thought about it some more. Sure, I'd love to get back to 140 lbs. I'd love to get back to the 120 lbs I was back in 1990, for that matter. But it took me years of bad habits to get where I am today. How in the world did I think I could lose it in a few months. I kept thinking about that little tag line at the bottom of the Nutrisystem commercials "Results not typical". And that's exactly how I needed to look a things.
I needed to set attainable, realistic goals. One that I could reach - not necessarily easily - with some good lifestyle changes. My first goal became breaking the 200 barrier. I remember how depressed I was when I passed it going the other way (and I was pregnant at the time so I had an "excuse"). It was devastating. So, why not set that as my first step going the other way? And that's what I did.
By the time Fit Club started, I had already lost 6 lbs, so I only had 9 to go. It's been a slow crawl, but the scale is moving in the right direction - and it's going to keep moving that way.
Just remember if you are thinking about starting something, make sure you don't set yourself up to fail by setting a goal that is too far out of reach to start.