The Cardinal Rules of Weight Loss: Be Reasonable!

I see it happen all the time: people setting their final goal weight to whatever it was when they were at their skinniest in high school or college. Heck, I'm guilty of it! For my first couple months on Sparks, I thought I wanted to return to the higher end of my weight range in high school (I ranged from 120-125). Well, there's a lot of problems with that. For one, obviously my body has changed since high school/gaining 72+ pounds. Another thing is that I never strength trained in high school and did cardio at the gym very inconsistently. I probably had a very low percentage of muscle in comparison to what I do now.

I don't know about you, but I know I also had some very unattainable weight loss goals in my life before finding SparkPeople. For example, when I was in college and wanted to be 112 pounds (I was right around 135 at the time). This would have been close to impossible for my medium frame (without starving myself or working out all day every day). Once again, I have a large chest and thick legs...no matter how skinny I get. 112 pounds is just an extremely unrealistic weight for me (my new goal for my 5' 3'' medium frame is 130-135). Set a REASONABLE goal for yourself, not something based off a past weight. 

Like I have said before, I have broken up my weight loss goals by percentages of 10% and getting into healthier ranges (obese to overweight and then overweight to normal). My next goal is 140.9 (normal for my height) and then I'm going to analyze where I want to be from now (I suspect 130-135, but this isn't a for sure number for me). Personally, I would prefer if your goals were small with maybe a REALISTIC ballpark figure of where you where you want to be.

Along with this, your means of getting to your goal weight should be REASONABLE as well. If you know you aren't going to burn 800 calories a day because you are usually exhausted after work and have to take care of the kids, DO NOT set your goal to do so. Same with your calorie levels, you are not going to be able to eat 500 calories without going into starvation mode, so don't even think about it!

Try to share your goals with someone else who is somewhat educated on healthy living (not someone who thinks Victoria Beckham is the perfect ideal weight). Do they think your goals are REASONABLE?