The Value of a Goal

I know I say it every week but – Wow!  What a week!  The cravings have come back with vengence.  Since I’m an emotional eater, I immediately thought about a possible trigger.  What’s been bringing on these cravings?  Why do I want to eat and I don’t mean just a Little Debbie cake, I want to eat the whole box!  (And I’m not exaggerating.)  The only thing I could think of was the lack of sleep over Easter weekend.  I had an excessive amount of work to do and really got overwhelmed in addition to the fact that we were up very early all weekend.  So, now I know.  I eat when I’m emotional and when I’m dead tired.  Do you want to know the really cool thing???  3 months ago, before I started this journey, I would not have given it a second thought.  I would’ve eaten that entire box of Swiss Roll Cakes (my absolute worst weakness) and not wondered about triggers or anything else.  I would’ve stuffed my face until I was miserable.

I’m making progress.  I’ve been at this for 14 weeks and have lost a total of 25.4 pounds.  This past week, I only lost .2.  I was disappointed at first but then I thought about this journey as a whole.  It’s not a race, it’s a marathon and as long as I’m still moving ahead, I’m winning.  It’s when I sit down and give up that I’ve lost.  Sure, I’ve lost some momentum and gotten a little frustrated, but I’m still here.  I’m still going.

Last week, in my call with Brian, my life coach, I mentioned some things I needed to work on… one being wanting to spend more time with my children.  Then I proceeded to give him every reason under the sun that I was “too busy.”  His exact words:  “Blah!  Blah!  End of discussion.  Just do it!”  Don’t you just love him?  Geesh!  I feel very blessed that I have found somebody who knows me well enough he feels he can kick my rear end into gear.  This week, I told him I was fighting those cravings and I felt I was losing some momentum.  “The one thing that always works is focusing on all your reasons.  Your reasons will always outweigh those temptations.”  (Brian Osher)  He’s a pretty smart guy, isn’t he?  So I’m compiling all my reasons for losing weight into a list this week so it’s convenient to review when I’m losing some momentum.  More words of encouragement from Brian:

“Get tough.  Step up.  God made us to do hard things.”

“Think about what got you committed in the first place.  Plan for the obstacles.”

“Get back to the basics, get fired up and make it happen.”

I write all this stuff down in a journal every week to review and keep me going.  Journaling has helped tremendously.  So has www.myfitnesspal.com where I journal my food and exercise daily.  I joined a challenge on that website 2 weeks ago to burn 3500 calories through exercise in 1 week.  Since I typically burn 1800 calories in workouts, I wasn’t sure I would be able to reach 3500 but I set that goal and worked towards it.  At the end of the week, I did not reach the goal.  I burned 3000 calories and I discovered the value of a goal.  Sure, I didn’t reach it BUT if I had not joined the challenge and set that goal, I would’ve still been burning 1800 calories. 

So with the help of my life coach, I set another goal this week.  I weighed in this week at 178.8.  My goal this week is to lose 1.8 pounds.  I typically don’t set a weekly weight loss goal but this week, it seemed necessary to help me gain some momentum.  When I lose 1.8 pounds, I will be EXACTLY at the 1/2 way point…. that’s a good reward.  Ahhhhh, the value of a goal…. 🙂

If you want to keep up with my posts on here, click “Yep, I’m in!  Sign me up!” to the upper right hand side of this blog.  Be aware, you’ll also get some posts about money saving strategies…  See you soon!