REALISTIC GOALS

a. Have you set REALISTIC goals for yourself? I say realistic because I personally would love to weigh 115lbs, but that’s not realistic. I’m not 20 years old anymore and my body is completely changed from when I was 20. I probably should add, I never weighed 115lbs except when I was passing that number on to bigger numbers. When I was on WW in my 20’s, and weighed 160lbs after my third baby was born, my goal was this. Instead of looking at needing to lose 40lbs., I pretended I only needed to lose 10. I worked in ten pound increments. It was so much easier mentally and much easier to get to my true goal of 125 by doing it this way instead of looking at the BIG (literally big) picture. It really worked for me. I did that with clothing sizes as well. I started wearing size 16 clothes after Jeff was born, and worked my way down to size 6. My goal was to go down one dress size at a time, not go from size 16 to size 6 because that thought was overwhelming and very depressing. When I started my goal was to go from 160lbs. to 150lbs., and from dress size 16 to size 14. Once I met the Pretend goal, I would do it all over again, now at 150-140, and dress size from 14-12 and so on. Today at my present age, I am shy of my goal weight only by a pound or two but most importantly I still wear size 6 clothes and sometimes size 4. The other goal I set for myself was once I was out of the BIG sizes, they were out of my closet—for good. I have gained a few pounds here and there over the years, but as a lifetime WW, I can still go and weigh in whenever I choose and don’t have to pay because it’s free to lifetime members as long as you never exceed your goal weight (125) by more than 2 lbs. For me, I have achieved my goal by challenging my mind a different way. My REALISTIC goal today is this—be able to grab anything hanging in my closet and zip it up/button it w/o difficulty. I don’t want to wear anything that is tight or snug, but the way it fit when I purchased it. Secondly, I want to wear a bathing suit this summer and not have to mad dash from the ocean or pool back to my chair to sit and hope no one was watching the lady with all the jiggles. What ways can you challenge your mind to have successful results that are pleasing to you?
b. To reach our goals, we must do the following—eat properly and work out daily. The combination of these two will allow us to achieve our goals. Do you track your points daily? Do you track your activity points daily? Do you use your flex points daily or on special occasions only? For the working woman, it’s a good idea to plan ahead, around 4 a.m. is a good time (just kidding) and decide what you may want to have for dinner before you have to go home at the end of the day. Sometimes if I’ve had a long, stressful day and didn’t plan dinner, it’s so easy to say let’s eat out (which can lead to trouble—which we will discuss later) or settle for something that isn’t quite on the program. A big suggestion---use Flex Points and Activity Points ONLY when you are close to your goal or have a special occasion in which you want to splurge. I have found when I really want to bring the numbers down on the scale, if I eliminate the FP and AP, I can achieve this goal. I use them, happily, when I am at a special occasion and want that piece of cake or chocolate candy.
c. Do you feel you must deprive yourself to achieve your goal? If the answer is yes, it’s wrong. You can always, and at any time, go to your FP and AP to eat that special “treat” and be within the realm of the program. When you feel so deprived that you can’t stand it, you tend to go overboard and over-indulge like never before. Don’t wait for that to happen. Give yourself the treat your body craves, but within reason. Remember, on WW you can always eat whatever you want—so long as you are within your points range.
d. Rest and sleep—are you getting plenty of this? I’m one to talk since sleeping is so hard for me at times, but if you are one of the lucky ones that don’t have a problem with sleeping great. It’s imperative to rest our minds and our bodies regularly.
e. Water—do you drink a minimum of 8 glasses of water or other fluids per day? Our bodies require a minimum of eight glasses of FLUID per day, not necessarily water. That is a myth that water is the only source of fluid we need; although it is the best, it’s not the only means of fluid we can get. HOWEVER, do not drink more than one soda (sugar free) per day under any circumstances. Try to limit your caffeine intake to no more than 3 glasses per day, including your sodas. CK and I drink regularly VitaRain, flavored waters from Costco while we workout. I love them and highly recommend everyone trying these out in the event you don’t like drinking water.
f. Measuring—did you originally measure your body all over? If you didn’t you may have caused a big disservice to your ego. Sometimes the numbers don’t go down on the scale, but the inches do. If you haven’t measured yourself before, do it now and check again in one month. You may be pleasantly surprised that these numbers are the ones that really make the difference. Remember, when you really are serious about staying in shape, get RID of all the clothes you have outgrown. Do NOT be tempted to grow back into them.
g. SALADS—I use to think that eating a salad meant I was eating healthy, not that is always true. Typically the salad ingredients are low in calorie, however, the dressing may be so fattening that it would have been better to eat a chicken sandwich instead. WW taught us this about salad dressings—get what you want ON THE SIDE and make certain that on the side this is a SMALL AMOUNT. Dip your fork in the dressing and sprinkle it over your salad. That reduces the amount of consumption, keeping the salad healthy and low in points as well as calories.
h. EATING OUT—this can be good or bad depending on how well we plan our day. If it’s spontaneous, it may be bad, but if it’s planned it should be a good thing. I consider it a treat of some sort. I am very careful to not choose Italian or Mexican restaurants because they tend to offer more pastas and starchy type foods that I cannot have anyways. I have food allergies and I avoid gluten items as much as possible. It’s hard to eat out because of this but more and more restaurants are aware of this as a problem and are offering good resolutions to allergy prone appetites. This may be a good time to consider using some flex points or activity points to give you that certain “treat” you have worked hard for. As I have already said, it’s good to reward or treat ourselves periodically because we tend to get it out of our systems and stay more dedicated to keeping on track. My own personal experience is once I get a “chocolate” thought in my head I can’t remove it. If I ponder on that thought for a week or so, I tend to “splurge”a lot more than I should have. However, if I use Sunday as a “treat day” (and not every Sunday) I tend to have a treat or two and then come Monday morning, I’m back on track again. I have also found that by participating in cardio tennis, the amount of calories burned, I have had those “splurge days” but I am not gaining any weight. Give CARDIO TENNIS a try!!

Remember, don't panic when you plateau or the weight loss seems to have stalled. You may have to kick up your workouts a notch or change a bit on your diet. Be patient with yourself. Weightloss is a journey and takes times and patience. Be gentle with yourself. YOU CAN SUCCEED!