SMART Goals

I need to get back to the basics. I knew this holiday season would make it difficult to stay on track, but I underestimated my lack of willpower. There is candy everywhere I turn these days and it is just unrealistic to expect my housemates to stop enjoying themselves for my sake. Nine months ago when I started this journey a very wise friend of mine told me to establish SMART goals and it worked. For 3 months I kept track of those goals and reported back to her every week. I'm not sure why I stopped tracking things, but I'm going to get back to it and report my success or failure on this blog every Monday. I've posted a link with additional information on setting SMART goals. In a nutshell they need to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time bound. SMART..get it?

Here are my SMART Goals:

1. Log every bite of food I eat every day. 100% Completion for success
2. Limit my caloric intake to 1500 calories a day or 10,500 a week
3. Limit my fat intake to 35g per day (20% of caloric intake)
4. Burn an additionl 500 calories a day at least 4 times a week.
5. Lose 1% of my body weight each week

I think 5 is a good starting point. In the beginning I had goals that helped me get into a routine as well, like wake up by 6:15 M-F, take my vitamins every day and drink 8 glasses of water every day. All three of those are now part of my daily routine. That's a sign of success to me. I'll track these goals for the next 8 weeks and see how much I have succeeded.

My current weight is 196.8 so I need to lose 2 lbs this week. If I succeed each week I will be down to almost 180 lbs. That's 1/2 way to my final goal of 165. Wish me luck.