Nicole’s recent post “Dec. 1. Almost 2020” over at Prosperity and Calamities inspired me to start my weight loss journey sooner than 1/1/20.  Those darn New Year’s resolutions!  They never work so why not just set a goal now and get started.

Kiddo #2 was home when I read the post and we had an interesting discussion about personal goals.  In the work place SMART goals drive me crazy because they always mean I need to do more.  I hadn’t really thought of them for personal use.

As part of our discussion, weight loss came up.  It was so easy to use the SMART goal method for this!  Why didn’t I think of this sooner??

S – Specific – Weight loss didn’t seem specific enough.  I decided on an average of 0.5 pounds per week.  To help with this,  I went online and joined WW (officially not called Weight Watchers any longer).

M – Measurable – I’m pretty sure the scale (which I dread) will help with this.  Something like “pants aren’t tight” didn’t seem as measurable.   By the end of the year, the goal is to lose 26 pounds.

A – Attainable – I think if I stay on track and record my food and exercise, this goal is attainable in 1 year.

R – Relevant – How could losing weight not be relevant to my life and health.  We went to the scale and I realized I was 2x my previous WW goal set 30ish years ago.  Between the 2 kiddos, I was able to reach lifetime member status.  The weight has been gradually creeping up since then.  I only have data for the last 20 years and it has averaged about 4 pounds per year.  It was very eye-opening to realize this.  A little bit per year has done significant damage to my body.  She also had me do a fasting blood sugar test (using John’s blood tester) and it was 110.  Not diabetes but not good.  Losing weight will help with this too.

T – Timely – A year seems like a reasonable time goal.  If I’ve gained 4-10 pounds a year, I can lose that amount (and more likely more) in the same time frame.

Tomorrow marks one week following the WW blue plan.  I’ll occasionally be posting about this journey.