“IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING, YOU’LL END UP SOMEPLACE ELSE.” –YOGI BERRA
In East Brunswick, medical weight loss will help you reach your health goals—but first you need to decide what they are. Setting healthy goals is the first step of a successful weight loss program. If you don’t take the time to set clear, realistic goals, then it will become difficult for you to determine what you are working towards at any given point in your weight loss program.
A goal can take you in one of two directions. A realistic weight loss goal will motivate you and give you something positive to work towards, while a lofty and aggressive goal can discourage you and undermine your efforts to lose weight.
It is great to reach for the stars, but in order for those goals to be fruitful it is better that you have a realistic expectation of where you might end up when all is said and done.
When you are setting your medical weight loss goals, remember to be SMART:
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reasonable and Time-bound
Specific: Your goals should be simple enough to easy convey to a friend or to share with your medical weight loss doctor. Complicated, convoluted goals become messy, and you might find in time that you have a hard time remembering them yourself.
Measurable: Vague, undefined goals are hard to work towards because you’ll never know how close you are, or even if you reach it at all. Instead of saying you want to lose “some” weight, put a number on it and work towards it.
Attainable: Your goals shouldn’t be too high (or too low!). If you set a goal that is theoretically impossible to reach, then you are more likely to grow discouraged before actually reaching your goal. Attainable, achievable goals will help you stay positive as you lose weight.
Reasonable: Set goals that you really see yourself working towards. If you’ve never gone running a day in your life, then making a goal to run in a marathon isn’t very reasonable. Do yourself a favor when setting your goals by making them realistic and worth striving towards.
Time-bound: Open ended goals don’t have any solid guidelines. To push yourself to lose weight give yourself a deadline. What is going to be more motivating? Losing weight at some point in your life or losing weight before New Year’s?
Once you create your goals the next step is sharing them for accountability. Have you created SMART goals for your medical weight loss program? Gain some friendly accountability as you lose weight by sharing your goals in a comment below.
