What is the First Step to Successful Weight Loss?

Posted on Jan 10, 2017 Topic : Men's Christian Living, Women's Christian Living

With any journey, you should probably know where you’re heading before you start out. That turns out to be true when we embark on a weight-loss plan. What’s our goal? Do we have one? Do we even need one?

More than 60 percent of Americans are trying to lose weight. But most of us in this group aren’t doing the things necessary to be successful—proper diet, exercise, and other lifestyle changes. And most don’t have a realistic goal for their weight loss even though experts tell us that having such a target is critical if we’re going to be successful.

This should be easy, right? Let’s say I want to lose 20 or 25 pounds. I’ll simply write my target weight on a piece of paper and tape it to the refrigerator door. That should be a motivator, right?

Wrong.

The key component in setting a weight-loss goal is that it needs to be realistic. If not, we’re almost certainly doomed to failure. But what is realistic? Why is it not reasonable to set an aggressive target and get started?

LEARN FROM THE EXPERTS

Physicians who are experienced in dealing with weight loss—especially with successful weight loss—tell us that most people don’t have a realistic goal when asked about a desired target. When pressed for a number, a 20 to 30 percent reduction from their current weight is the usual response. Let’s think about that for a moment.

If you’re a 150-pound woman, a 20 percent reduction target would be 30 pounds. Not realistic, is it? And the vast majority of us will never achieve that degree of weight loss. We fail, become discouraged, and quickly regain whatever weight we might have lost.

WHAT'S A REALISTIC NUMBER?

How are we to determine a reasonable goal for our weight loss? For most of us, a 5 to 7 percent reduction is a sensible and practical goal. If we add carefully considered drug and behavioral interventions, that target could become 10 to 15 percent. So let’s pick a number of 8 to 10 percent. That should be achievable for most of us. For a 150-pound woman—a 10- to 12-pound weight loss would be a realistic goal.

Doesn’t sound too difficult, does it? Not like that 30-pound number. With those goals in mind, what’s our time frame? What’s a reasonable period to have in mind for this loss? After all, that’s part of our goal setting too. Once again, we have to be realistic. Weight loss of 8 to 10 percent can happen over six to eight weeks. A loss of one or two pounds a week is reasonable and achievable. That’s the important point here. If we set realistic goals for ourselves—something meaningful that will improve our health and the way we feel about ourselves—we can get there.

So set your goal, write it down somewhere, and put your plan into action!