1. What is Your WHY?
You’ve decided you want to lose weight for good and live healthy. Yeah congrats to you! Really sit down with a pen and your journal and write out your why’s. Your why is bigger than just losing the weight. Do you want more energy? Are you tired of feeling embarrassed when you go out? Do you want to look good naked? You want to try new things and not feel embarrassed or feel like you couldn’t do it? You want the confidence to wear new sexy clothing. You are excited to go to the beach. Write down all your why’s you have for losing weight.
2. Set a Realistic Goal
Having goals can help keep you motivated and accountable. As exciting as it is to start a new goal, it’s important to keep them realistic. It’s great to be ambitious but if your goal is to lose 25 pounds in a month – I’m sorry to burst your bubble but that is not a realistic goal to have. I get that you want the weight gone like yesterday but having an unrealistic goal can put a lot of pressure on you and you may just self sabotage your efforts.
Keep your goals realistic
Losing 1-2 pounds a week is very realistic and healthy. You could lose more or less in a week sometimes but this takes the pressure off and you have a much better chance of keeping the weight off. Remember, you didn’t gain all the weight in a month so it’s unrealistic to expect to lose it in a month. Give your body the time it needs to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way.
3. Attach Feelings and Emotions to Your Goals
Think back to a happy memory for a moment. How does it make you feel? What emotions and feelings come up for you? Does it bring a smile to your face or make you feel warm and fuzzy? Emotions and feelings play such a huge part in our everyday lives. Setting goals without putting any emotions or feelings behind them is like a cake without icing on it! (Gluten & dairy free of course!). It just makes it that much better. When you attach a happy emotion or feeling to your goal, it’s going to hold more value. This is where your subconscious mind comes into play and interprets that this goal is important to you. If your goal is to fit into your jeans again, close your eyes and imagine how wearing them will make you feel? What feelings come up when you imagine them sliding on effortlessly? Happy? Confident? Sexy? Attach these positive feelings and emotions to your goals and your subconscious mind will do everything in it’s power to help you achieve them.
4. Set Smaller Goals In-between
Setting a goal 6 months from now is great but it can seem really far away. This is where setting smaller goals comes into play. For example, if your goal is to lose 20 pounds in six months, a) that is very realistic and b) set smaller goals in between. You can set monthly goals, weekly goals and even daily goals. Monthly goals could be losing 2-4 pounds, feeling stronger, having more energy, doing more reps in your workouts, doing squats with 15 pounds instead of 10 pounds. Weekly goals could include getting more sleep, drinking more water, eating more veggies, adding an extra 10 minutes to your walk. A daily goal could include 5 minutes of journaling. Keep it simple because you don’t want to overwhelm yourself either! Pick 3-4 monthly, 2-4 weekly goals and 1-2 daily goals. You can always add as you go. The key is to start simple so your goals can be achievable and sustainable. It’s all the small goals you achieve in between that will help lead you to achieving your main goal.
5. Celebrate Small Wins
Who doesn’t love a celebration right! It’s important to celebrate the small wins because you need to be your own cheerleader. You got an hour of more sleep, celebrate! You drank 2 extra glasses of water today, celebrate! You lost 1 pound, celebrate! Your jeans are feeling looser after a month, celebrate! All these small wins are the stepping stones to reaching your goals so don’t overlook them. Celebrating small wins also gives you that extra confidence and positivity to keep you motivated so you can keep going. Keep a celebration journal and write down all the small wins you have. You can even write how the small wins made you feel. Physically writing your wins in a journal is tapping into your subconscious mind and letting it know how important these are to you. This will help keep you on track for more small wins and reaching your main goals.
6. Don’t Get Stuck On The Final Date
Yes it’s important to have a date set that you’d like to achieve your goal – but use it as a guideline. Let’s say your goal was to lose 25 pounds in 6 months. Six months rolls around but you’ve lost 17 pounds. You could feel disappointed and let down that you didn’t lose all the weight you wanted to. This could be so disappointing that you might throw in the towel and forget all the hard work you put in to lose that 17 pounds. This is why I recommend using your goal date as a guideline. It might take you less time or a little more time to achieve your goal but just know you’ll get there with consistency. The key to remember here is that even though you have a goal to lose weight, living healthy is ongoing and there is no end date. Focus more on your journey than the final destination.
7. Be Prepared
Ok great you’re just about to start a new weight loss goal, now what? Be prepared and have an idea of what you’ll need to succeed. Here are a few examples of what being prepared could look like:
– doing a cupboard cleanse to remove processed, junk or sugary foods
– going shopping to have what you need for your new meal plan
– have healthy snacks ready to go if you’re travelling
– having your workout clothes ready to go in the morning
– buying a new water bottle, running shoes or workout gear
– having a food journal/workout journal ready
– investing in a food scale
– having a group of friends who will help keep you motivated/accountable
These are just a few ways you can prepare yourself before starting a new weight loss goal. Being prepared is so important, especially in your first week. It might feel uncomfortable and scary when you first start so the more prepared you are the better!
8. Check in With Yourself Weekly
Do a weekly check-in with yourself or with a friend and see how you’re doing. Are you having any issues? Do you feel stuck? Are you finding anything difficult? How are you feeling so far? Write down anything that comes up for you and make any necessary changes. New feelings and issues may come up so checking in with yourself can help address them before moving forward. For example, say you still find it hard not to have a sugary treat after dinner. Look to see what kind of healthier option you can find with less sugar if you really need that after dinner treat still. Checking in with yourself is a great way to help keep you accountable and address any issues on a week to week basis.
Starting a new weight loss goal can feel exciting and scary at the same time! Having the right plan and goal setting tips on your side can help keep you on track and motivated. I know you got this!
Your friend and strategist,
