Want Weight Loss? You’ve Gotta Have a Plan

Every great journey needs a map. It’s the same for you on your weight loss journey. If you are serious about making this happen, you need a game plan. As with all plans, it needs to be SMART:

SPECIFIC – no fluffy stuff – be crystal clear about where you are going. For example, ‘I’m joining a gym today’.

MEASURABLE – get all the cold hard numbers so you can monitor your progress: get on the scales, take your measurements, calculate your BMI, see your doctor and get your blood pressure and cholesterol readings.

ACHIEVABLE – your goal needs to be one that you are capable of reaching given your available time, job and family commitments etc.

REALISTIC – similar to achievable, but a notch higher. For example, ‘I’m going to loose 20 kilos in the next 12 weeks’ is realistic (especially if you are morbidly obese) but ‘I’m going to lose 20 kilos in the next 3 weeks’ is not.

TIME-BASED – once you’ve set your goal weight, then you need to draw up a day by day, week-by-week plan and execute it with precision. For example ‘I will lose 20 kilos in 12 weeks, which is 1.5 kilo per week’.

You’ll notice that the words ‘want’ and ‘try’ don’t get used in the SMART terminology. ‘I want to lose 20 kilos’ means just that – you want to lose 20 kilos. ‘I’m going to lose 20 kilos’ means that you WILL lose 20 kilos.
Now you have a clear understanding of what you are aiming for, it’s time to go get it!

Extract from Michelle Bridges CRUNCH TIME, Lose weight fast and keep it off.