Setting Realistic Goals

No matter what you do in life you will always get better results if you set some goals and the same applies with losing weight.

By setting goals you have something to aim for and by giving your weight-loss program purpose you will be more likely to realize your desired weight.

One thing you do have to be careful of however is to set goals that are realistic otherwise you be setting yourself up for disappointment and in doing so you won't maintain your weight loss program.

You can set a long-term goal but you will also need to set more short term goals where you are only looking to lose smaller amounts of weight within a certain time span.

As you achieve these intermediate goals along the way that will drive you more towards your long-term goal and as you see the small amounts of weight coming off and the improvements that it will bring with it you will not only visualize yourself being at an optimum weight but you will also begin to believe that it is something that you can finally achieve.

When we talk about these intermediate goals you need to understand that you shouldn't be weighing yourself every day as there can be fluctuations from one day to the next so a short-term goal should probably be no less than about two weeks as this will give you an opportunity to make changes on a relatively easy basis and give your body time to become adjusted and to actually see some results.

By weighing yourself every day the daily fluctuations could show that your weight hasn't changed from one day to the next or in fact you could even weigh slightly more than the day prior if you weigh yourself at a different time during the day or after you have had a meal.

This can be quite disheartening whereas if you don't weigh yourself for a two-week period and you have been sticking to some form of weight-loss program no matter how small that might be you will generally see some results that will be encouraging.

Keeping a diary helps a lot of people to achieve their goals as it helps to enforce the actions that are required to meet those goals on a daily basis.

In your diary you can record your body weight, the foods you've been eating, any supplements you have been taking and the results that you have been getting from these actions.

This helps you to readjust your goals and make changes to your fitness and nutrition as things change in the course of your weight loss program.

Within your major goal you should also have short-term goals and once again these need to be realistic to keep you motivated.

These short-term goals will change from time to time as during the course of your weight loss program you will probably find that progress accelerates after certain stages of your plan.

Sometimes you will also plateau for a while where your weight loss will tend to slow down and by having a diary you will be able to look at those areas that you might be able to change to get over that plateau and continue to progress.