How to Set Your Weight Loss Goals for Ultimate Success

Have you ever struggled with something in your life and wondered just how you can achieve that goal more efficiently? Whether it is weight loss, conquering a challenge within the workplace, or working out a family issue; developing specific actions for your goals is extremely important.

Your brain works on specifics so if you say, "I want to lose weight," that will mean nothing and you will probably not be that effective at achieving that goal.

However, if you said "I want to lose 10 pounds over the next three months so that means I will lose 3-4 pounds each month to reach my goal," you are much further along in the process.

Going back to what I just mentioned about your brain working on specifics; here is what I mean. Your brain is bombarded with 10,000 bits of information each second but is only really aware of 10 of those information pieces.

How does it decide which to become aware of and which to ignore or not even process?



The brain is aware of your most dominant thoughts, so those are generally the 10 pieces that you end up processing and dealing with. How do you make this work for you?

You must adjust your brain's "filter" to serve you in a positive way. This means that your most dominant thoughts must be positive, specific and able to help you better achieve your goals. As I mentioned, this can work with anything, but let's stick to weight loss for the sake of the article.

If your goal is to lose 10 pounds over the next three months and you have decided that you will lose 3-4 pounds each month, that's a great goal. It's very specific and sets you up for success right away.

The next step is to find out just how you can achieve this specific goal. It takes your brain 21 days to form a habit. When you override your brain's "filter" to create these positive thoughts, you must do it every day for it to become literally a natural occurrence.

If you are ready to begin this process now and don't want to take another 21 days to get into the mindset of success, you can condense this process. Take 2 minutes each day, 3 times a day for 7 days and visualize your success.

It can be anywhere; when you are brushing your teeth, driving to work, relaxing before sleep, anything that you want. Simply take those two minutes and visualize, with passion and intensity, what it would feel like to be 10 pounds lighter.

How would you look? How would your clothes fit? What would others think and say about you? Would you have more energy? Would you be more productive at work? Visualize everything.

If you do this for 2 minutes, 3 times per day for 7 days, you will have successfully altered your brain's filter and you are ready to tackle your goal.



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How to Set Realistic Weight Loss Goals

Losing weight can be one of the most difficult challenges you will face in life. Fighting cravings to eat unhealthy foods. Resisting the temptation to be lazy and watch TV rather than getting some exercise by taking the dog for a walk or going for a jog. It is hard to change your eating habits, you like the food you eat or you wouldn't eat it. A weight loss program requires a lot of willpower and you need to be mentally prepared for that in order to win the battle, lose weight and reach your goals. As you can see, motivation and mindset for weight loss are crucial. While exercise and healthy eating are just as crucial, without mental preparedness you will never achieve your weight loss goals. The person who understands this will ultimately be victorious. So be like a good little boy scout and 'be prepared'.

One of the most helpful weight loss tools for motivation during a weight loss program is a weight loss goal setting worksheet. This simple little worksheet will help you prepare yourself mentally for the challenges ahead. The purpose of this worksheet is to get you to write down your weight loss goals. It's great to write these goals down and place them in a prominent location as this makes your goals seem more real and provides a reminder for you whenever you see them. A great place to display your worksheet is on the fridge. That way, whenever you are tempted to indulge in a snack you will see it where it can encourage you to either skip the snack altogether or at least choose a healthy snack rather than one that is high in sugar, fat and calories.

A weight loss goal setting worksheet should contain several components including; Start date, start weight, goal weight, goal size, goal period, reason/motivation, future goals and milestones.

Here is a more detailed description of each of these components.

1. Start date: The date you started your weight loss plan.
2. Start weight: Your weight when you started.
3. Goal weight: What weight do you want to reach? For example, if you are 200 pounds now and you want to reach 150 pounds then 150 pounds is your goal weight. Ensure that this is an achievable weight that takes your height and body shape into account. Your doctor can advise you of an appropriate goal weight according to your BMI.
4. Goal size: As with your goal weight. If you are currently size XXL and want to be an M (medium) then this is your goal size. Again, this figure should be achievable and healthy.
5. Goal period: The length of time in which you want to reach your goal weight? Needs to be practical. If you want to lose 100 pounds then don't have a goal period of 12 weeks, as that is more than 8lbs per week, an almost impossible figure to achieve. Your goal period should aim for no more than 2lbs weight loss per week.
6. Reason/motivation: Why do you want to lose weight? What is your motivation? Maybe your weight is affecting your health, putting strain on knees that have arthritis, onset (type 2) diabetes etc. Maybe you want to improve your health in order to live longer for the sake of your family and children. Maybe you're getting married and just want to look your best.
7. Future goals: Is there anything you want to be able to do after you lose weight that you can't do now? Play a sport? Run around the park playing with your kids. Getting back into your favorite outfit?
8. Milestones: Sometimes it helps to take notes of milestones like when you reach a significant weight milestone or get back into a pair of jeans that hasn't fitted you for six months. Or when you can climb that flight of stairs without huffing and puffing and having to rest for ten minutes after doing it. Reaching milestones makes you feel good about yourself and motivates you to continue.

As you can see, the worksheet is fairly comprehensive. Writing it and displaying it in a prominent location will help you remain motivated to achieve your weight loss goals.


Julia Bell is a student of nutrition dedicated to helping people overcome obesity. Obesity is the number one health issue of the twenty first century. Learn how to live a healthier life by maintaining healthy weight and exercise habits through her weight loss blog.

Visit http://bestwaytoloseweight4u.com to download a FREE weight loss goal setting worksheet with no sign up required. Just visit the downloads page.

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Reaching Your Weight Loss Goals

What are the essentials you need to successfully lose weight and attain your weight loss goals?

The saying "you are what you eat", does have a grain of truth in it. Your body weight will depend on the types of foods that you eat. For example if you follow a non-vegetarian diet you will weigh more than someone who is a strict vegetarian and eats lots of fresh veg.

To lose weight and take control of your diet, you need to take a long hard look at what you actually eat in a day. Lots of people miss this point, and go chasing off after the next fad diet to hit the market. In reality fad diets can do more harm than good to your body. In most cases fad diets will prohibit certain food types which can mean that you will be starving your body of essential nutrients that it needs to survive. When you body realises this it will start to store fat rather than burning it to produce energy. So the result will be that you may well lose weight initially, but when you stop the fad diet you will in all reality put back on what you have lost and a bit more besides. Some so called fad diets do have a place in a weight loss program, but only ever short term for a quick boost.

There is not an easy way to lose weight, but there are a couple of essential things that you will need in order to be successful with your weight loss.

Firstly, you will need a definite weight loss goal, and you will need self-motivation in order to achieve your weight loss goal.

So define yourself a weight loss goal. For example, how much weight would you like to lose over a certain period of time? Are you looking to lose just 7lbs, or is your weight loss goal to lose 40lbs or 100lbs? For those that need to lose more weight it will of course take a longer time, and be harder than those that have just a few pounds to lose. Setting yourself realistic weight loss goals is important as this will effect your weight loss plan.

If you meet your goals you will be encouraged to continue with the weight loss program, but if you do not meet them then you will become discouraged and maybe even stop trying to lose weight. So don't make your goals unrealistic. If you set your first goal up to be a weight loss of 10lbs in five days, then it is not going to happen (unless you follow a fast weight loss short term diet plan), so you will fail, feel miserable and find your diet program harder to stick to.

Set yourself a realistic weight loss goal. Now think about what is motivating you to lose that weight? Do you want to look better? Feel Better? Fit into an outfit for a certain date? Has your doctor advised you to lose weight?

Whatever your own personal motivation is to lose weight, jot it down and keep looking at it when you feel discouraged. No-one else needs to see this, or know what your motivation is, this is purely to help you to keep yourself motivated to reach your weight loss goals.


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