My long term goal has been feeling very far away and I have been trying to think of a good mini goal to set up for myself.

At first I thought it would be great to weigh as much as I did on my wedding day by our anniversary, but then I realized that I can't lose 40 lbs in 7 weeks, so now I am trying to think of something else.

What are your mini goals and how did you pick them?

Thanks !

:clap2:

Right now, my mini-goal is not to kill anyone while I am on this pre-op diet. :angry :dead

Seriously, I usually set my short-term goals in terms of 10 pound increments, or dress sizes, or even inches lost. If you set small, achievable goals, you will have more of them to look forward to and you may stay more encouraged.

Right now, my mini-goal is not to kill anyone while I am on this pre-op diet. :angry :dead

LOL!! I am so right there with you on that one. Poor DH. Before I started the pre-op diet, I told him that I'd likely be insane and to not take anything I say personally. haha

As for mini-goals. Well, I'm going by BMI some of the time or a number or a size. Depending on what I feel is reasonable. I'm not setting dates yet because I'm not technically in the losing phase yet. But for instance, my first goal was to get from "severely obese" to just "obese." I'm there. It was only 10 lbs. My next goal will be to get to Onederland. I'm hoping by the end of the year since I hear the first month is usually the easiest to lose the weight and I haven't weighed myself in several days. After I get to Onederland, my next goal will be to go from "obese" to "overweight," which will be 191. Don't know what date I'll put on that. We'll see what my rate of loss is. Depending on how my loss goes, I may start to set a goal size instead of weight. We'll see as it goes along. If it were me, I'd set conservative goals because you'll be more likely to reach them and then if you over-reach them by your "due date," you can feel that much better about yourself. You just have to go by what your body is able to do.

One way to set goals is to tie it to a reward rather than a date. That is, as soon as you lose x pounds or exercise x times or whatever it is, then you treat yourself to something (mostly like, non-food!) You can't always control how quickly something happens but you can control what you do about it when you succeed!

Good luck!

sigh, mini goals are not in my personality.

I'm an all or nothing type of girl. Which means I'm either spectacularly successful or I fail dismally and then justify that failure by convincing myself i never wanted the prize in the first place.

Anything hard that seems too far away I usually just dont try for, lol. If I decide that I am going to try, I bloody well do it. No middle ground, no small goals, I'm going to get to the finish line in a blaze of glory.

It makes life hard sometimes, I think mini goals are a very sensible idea, I just cant really help you with setting any, lol.

I set my mini goals by weight milestones, which were usually about 20-30 lbs apart. It really helped me, given that I had so much to lose. For example, getting under 300 was a HUGE deal, so 299 was a mini-goal. Getting under 260 was a huge deal because I was at 260 for like 10 years. Then getting under 250 (i.e. weighing closer to Onederland than Tricities). This list goes on and on.

My point is, for me, picking weights that meant something to me at some point in my life and getting below those weights was a rewarding way to lose a lot of weight.

Firstly I wouldn't set any dates for your mini goal.

2nd, all of my mini goals have some kind of meaning. The first one was to go from 280 to 250, just because 250 was kind of a round number. Then 230, which would be 50 lbs lost. Then 210, because that's halfway to goal, then of course 195 for onederland. After that is 180, which will be 100 lbs lost, then 160, because that's the weight I was back when my dad had me on slimfast and was weighing me every day. My final goal is 140, but I'll likely evaluate at 160 and see what I think.

Thanks for the advice ! I'm still trying to come up with 1 that will work for me:scared:

I use the fit of clothes as my mini-goals rather than what the scales say as I have cupboards full of clothes in various sizes. My first goal was to be able to breathe in a pair of jeans that I have! I am pretty sure that I will never run out of mini-goal possibilities this way and once a lot of my clothes start being too big for me I will start rewarding myself by buying new ones.

Kindof depended on what was going on that month. If I was going out of town in a few weeks I opted to try to get, say, from 197 to BELOW 195 by the time I left. I had been at a plateau for a long time at 179 and set my goal 1 month before my California trip to be at 175 by the trip. My birthday goal was 50 pounds total loss (which I set about 1 week before my birthday...I had 2 pounds to lose then). My goal for Thanksgiving day was 165....set it two weeks before and had 3 pounds to lose. I am at 164 now and I want to be 160 by Christmas day. Just keep them small, short and ATTAINABLE.

I set my mini goals for things just barely out of reach.. lose 3 lbs, not 20, do 25 more crunchs, not 100, jog down the driveway and back, not around the block..if I set them so I can attain them, though not too easily, then i get more motivated then if i set them too high and fail. So this week my mini goal is to do 500 crunchs every other day...I usually do 200 or so everyday, and Im trying to push myself, plus Im getting to that point where Im going to have to fight it..When I first started, it was do 100 crunches every other day..usually 50 a day, then 100 etc...

I set very small goals, compared to most people, because I lose weight SO slowly. I work out all the time, so I alternate between exercise goals and scale goals. I have really moved past the idea that a scale is going to be my measure of everything...I spent a lifetime doing that already! SO, while I LOVE to see the numbers move down, I set a goal like...If I weigh 248, I want to hit 245. No time limit, no date...just hitting that goal. I've been into exercise goals, too. I had a rotator cuff repaired and couldn't run for several months, so my goal was to get back to where I could run 2 miles w/o walking. I HIT THAT GOAL TODAY and it was WAY easier than when I did it the first time! HAHA. SO, branch out your goals for a change and to get your head off the scale!!! Good luck!

R