Total Weight Loss

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Discussion Topic

I visited with my Primary Care Physician yesterday. It was a follow up exam primarily to aid in weight loss. As I've noted before on this blog, my PCP is very kind and understanding. He has never, ever fussed at me about my weight, not even at 254.4. Whenever I mentioned the desire to lose weight, he was right there willing to offer his encouragement. I have always been able to speak freely with him about whatever was happening. Yesterday was no exception.

I thought going in that I'd lost 3 lbs since my last visit, but I did not go back and look at my many, varied graphs and spreadsheets to verify that fact. I knew that he'd be pleased with a loss no matter how much, and I'd just not tell him that at one point over the summer I'd been down even lower.

He doesn't even weigh me anymore. He just asks what did my scale say that morning. He used to both weigh me and ask, but the difference between the scales must have been consistent enough that all he does is ask. I told him my weight yesterday morning adding that I thought that was three pounds below the previous weight. Imagine my surprise when he told me that I had actually gained 5 lbs since my last visit!!

I confessed that my weight have even been lower than his last recorded weight, and that I'd planned just to keep that my little secret. He responded in his usual way saying that he was the last person to "do this" as he pointed is finger at me and shook it as he laughed. He typed some stuff in his laptop though, so I might have lost my no scale privileges for a while!

Everything physically checked out fine. I assured him that I had not given up in the weight loss department, but that my job had become so demanding and I was working such long hours that I wasn't focusing like I had in the past. I don't really know when this will end, as far as the work situation goes, so I've got to figure a way to schedule things a little better so that I can plan meals and exercise like I was this summer. He offered to schedule a follow up in 90 days if that would help keep me on track, because that is just the kind of guy he is. I declined, because, one I think I can do it without that authority accountability, and two scheduling something else just about gave me a stroke!

So, we set an appointment for the end of April. Then he suggested that I set a goal to lose 10 pounds before that date. It was my turn to laugh, and I told him that I needed a real goal. He gave me the standard, don't set yourself up for failure argument. While I understand that, and I know that most of this battle is mental, I still think that I need a goal that is going to make me work. I think a goal of 10 lbs in 6 months is so easy that I won't even try until sometime in March.

This is my dilemma - goal setting. It has been all along. I  mentioned very early in this blog how I attributed my past failures to poor goal setting as far as a goal weight went. I have a much more reasonable goal weight, which the doctor confirmed yesterday. My problem now, is how long should it take me to get there. When I set my four goals just a few weeks ago, Sharon said she thought they were too much of a stretch. I really, really appreciated her honesty. It turns out, she was right.

So now, I'm turning to you my faithful blog readers. How do you set goals? What do you do if you don't meet them? What is a reasonable amount of time to lose 10 pounds? I have some goal setting to do. I need your help.

4 comments:

  1. Never at a loss for words, I'm sure you knew I'd have something to say. Unfortunately, it isn't words of wisdom - just words from one struggling friend to another! The realization has hit me hard over the last couple of days that I've made basically NO forward progress during the life of this blog. I haven't moved backward, but I certainly haven't moved forward. Having said that, I'm trying to move past the numbers (or lack thereof!!) and focus on the things I've learned. Mostly that's just a distraction to keep me from becoming so discouraged.

    My way of goal setting has also changed. Like you, I am a numbers person and NEED a number to work toward. But the number has to be realistic and based on something that is working. For me, that has become a greater focus on trends. When I first lost my weight in 2006, I was able to lose 5-6 pounds a month. That isn't happening anymore and obviously, is never going to happen again. So I've had to change my focus and be happy with a 3-4 pound loss per month. Any goal setting has to work within those boundaries or I'm only setting myself up for perceived failure.

    So look back at the trends, what worked, what didn't and set your goals based on those trends.

    I believe we will both reach our goals and we will stay there, but it's going to have to happen on our body's time (God's time??), not our number-oriented mind's time!

    Hope that helps in some way!

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  2. for weight losss...I can't. Every time I set a goal number no matter how small the loss I need to get to I fail. So I set the goal that I will no longer see certain numbers I've passed and this time that seems to be working really well!

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  3. Myself, I strive for 1.5 pounds a week. Which means I need to burn about 750 more calories a day than I eat. So on non exercise days I need to be better at eating. On exercise day I need to be sure not to over eat and void out the exercise.

    I arrived at 1.5 as a weekly goal from experience. Too many tomes i failed taking on the challenge of what a program told me to do, what it told me I should lose. Having been through it enough I figured out when I sincerely felt I could lose a week without pushing myself to point I knew the risk of failure was high, or, pushing myself enough and therefore putting myself at risk of long plateaus.

    If i do not meet a goal, I remind myself that set backs happen and reflect back on what I could have done different to have met it. There is always something I could have done different. Our challenge is to not string set backs together into days or weeks on end and keep the distance between set backs as far apart as possible. When they do happen, recognize it, announce it to someone. And realize now, this minute is the time to move onward. Make your very next choice a good one, put the set back behind you and take a step towards a healthier you.

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  4. I do not know what to say to advise you. I am horrible at goal setting. I always am too aggressive and self-sabatoge by making them way too hard to achieve. I try to make myself be reasonable and think, I will meet and surpass it that way. But then I get complacent.

    On the weight loss front for me, I am in week 4 of maintaining after my last round and my birthday indulgence of pecan pie added 5 pounds. This week, I got into the halloween candy and added another 3 pounds to the total so I have gained back 8 of what I had lost. Ugh. Back to the water aerobics for me.

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