WEIGHT LOSS

setting weight loss goals

If you aim to improve your overall health, losing weight will naturally follow.

There’s a reason you want to lose weight; you just need to identify it. Will it help your self-esteem? Allow you to live longer? Make it easier to play with your grandkids? Take a vacation to a new place?

Weight loss provides many health benefits for PWDs: better blood glucose control, less need for medication, lower risk for cardiovascular disease (PWDs are more likely to have heart issues), and simply feeling better! And you don’t have to lose a ton of weight to reap the health benefits. Studies show all you need to lose is 5 percent of your body weight to improve insulin sensitivity. For a 300-pound person, that’s 15 pounds.

Think about your long-term goal. Then choose a smaller habit to help you reach it. General goals like “become healthier,” “lose weight,” and “eat more fruits and vegetables” are rarely effective. To be successful, you need tangible, trackable objectives. Think of goals as behaviors that lead to weight loss—not the number of pounds you lose. Focus on the process. What healthy habits will you develop for long-term success? For example, instead of “eat more vegetables,” maybe your goal will be “fill half my dinner plate with vegetables.”

Follow our 6-step guide to set yourself up for success.

Identify, Then Overcome

Step 1: Identify Your Roadblock Humans are incredibly good at identifying foods that are packed with calories, a trait that evolved during the Ice Age. This isn’t so helpful now, when grocery stores stock freshly baked goods like donuts every day. Being aware that it’s natural to desire sugary sweets and fatty foods is the first step—this allows you to make a change. So now you need to figure out what vices you’re subject to: Are you eating out too much? Spending hours on the couch every night? Not eating enough low-carb vegetables? For now, pick a roadblock you’d like to tackle and work from there.

Step 2: Find Out Where You Stand Identify what you’ve been eating and how you’ve been exercising. How many nights a week do you snack, and what do you snack on? How often do you go for a walk? Write down your recent habits and then come up with solutions such as replacing potato chips with baby carrots and going for a walk after dinner before watching TV.

Step 3: Keep a Journal Keep track of what you eat, when you eat it, and where you eat. This can be a good motivator when you stay on track or a firm reminder when you stray. Try food and exercise logging apps such as mySugr and Lose It!

Step 4: Bask in the Little Victories Be mindful of the small decisions you make every day, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator and gardening instead of bingeing on a TV show. Reward yourself. Maybe you’ll celebrate exercising five days in a row by buying yourself a bouquet of flowers or enjoying a quiet reading hour.

Step 5: Share Your Journey Getting friends and family involved can help keep you accountable. This can be as simple as posting on Facebook or sharing your achievements over a meal. Support from loved ones can make success that much sweeter. They might decide to join you!

Step 6: Keep Going Once you feel that you’ve successfully integrated a life change, make another small change. If you’ve managed to remove snacking from your nightly routine, maybe it’s time to take a nightly walk. Once you start doing this, each change will become a normal part of life, like brushing your teeth every morning and going grocery shopping each week.

Taking a Mindful Approach

You can plan and plan, but sometimes our emotions and social traditions can get in the way. That’s why it’s important to stay in tune with your body and feelings and to recognize why you may be straying from your plan.

Most of us want to believe we can handle our feelings. We’re grown-ups, right?

Well, yes—but no. The coworker who shifted the blame, the mother you miss whenever you see pink peonies, the combative teen who took the place of that sweet toddler—it can all add up to an urge to bake a batch of Grandma’s cookies.

The truth is once you understand the feelings in that pan of cookies, you can look for healthier ways to soothe yourself.

As a case in point, Diane Robinson, Ph.D., describes a veteran who had a long-standing ritual of slipping toffee candies in his pocket every morning, which was pushing his weight and glucose readings out of range.

They talked about alternatives, and he decided to try sugar-free candies. “But that didn’t really fly,” Robinson says.

Next she asked why he wanted to improve his health. He began to talk about playing with his dog and grandkids and about the yardwork he used to enjoy.

They decided he would place pebbles in his pocket instead. “He still had his ritual. But now it was pebbles representing the dog, the grandkids, and the garden,” Robinson says.

“He started to respond to something much deeper when he would touch the pebbles. And that worked.”

Think of your not-so-healthy traditions. For example, do you make the same breakfast every Sunday morning that your dad did? As delicious as that sausage and egg biscuit is, it could throw your glucose levels into a tizzy.

Being aware of why we do things can help us find ways to convert bad habits into good ones. Robinson suggests making one small change every week. At the end of one year, your health will have improved in 52 ways, and plenty of them will become good choices you don’t even need to worry about any more. You can still have a breakfast sandwich, but start a new tradition and use whole wheat bread with egg, avocado, and tomato.

get smart

Write down goals to increase your likelihood of success. You can home in even sharper on a target with the action-oriented SMART goal method. Here’s how:

SPECIFIC Write your goal clearly and detailed (e.g., I will walk five blocks every weekday morning right after the kids leave for school.).

MEASURABLE Make your goal objective so you can say you’ve met it 100%, 40%, or whatever level.

ACHIEVABLE Are you likely to achieve this goal?

REALISTIC Is it possible to achieve this goal with the resources you have?

TIMELINE Determine when you will perform your action and when you will assess your results.

when to weigh

Periodical reminders are essential on this journey. You might not see results every day, but the more you weigh yourself, the more mindful you will be of your goals. A study at Cornell University found that dieters who didn’t weigh themselves at least once a week started putting on pounds. Tip: Step onto the scale on the same day and time each week for consistency.

outthink your barriers

Life coach Meshell Baker lends her advice for pushing past roadblocks:

REFRAME NEGATIVE THOUGHTS. Instead of thinking, I can’t, ask yourself, How can I make this happen?

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE. “When you see people who have big results you want, ask yourself how you will incorporate a habit into your life to get the result you want.”

TEMPTED? Wait 20 minutes. Feelings often dissipate.

HAVE A TIMEOUT. Put temptation on hold by calling a friend or reaching for a podcast.

TRIED EVERYTHING? No, you haven’t. “You simply haven’t found what works for you.” Keep going. You’ll find your way if you stay with it.