An email from a friend got me thinking about goals. Why are long term goals so much harder to meet than short term? I don't pretend to know the whole answer, but part of it is procrastination. If something is in the very distant future, we tell ourselves we have plenty of time to reach that goal. Saving money for college...for retirement? So far off, we will worry about it later.
Losing weight seems to work the same way - for me anyway. If there is an event a month away, I can stay pretty focused on it and force myself to behave - for a month. But if I just set a goal of losing 20 lbs. just because I want to and I need to. Well, that's pretty ambiguous. I have plenty of time to lose it. Then an event happens along, and here I am. Still with the same 20 lbs to lose. Annoyed at myself because if I had known about the event, I could have lost the weight. but we have the ability to go ahead and lose the weight at any time. What is stopping us? Hmmm. That's the part I don't quite understand. It's tied in with the first paragraph. Plenty of time to reach that goal. Worry about it later.
My eating has been up and down lately, as you can see by my numbers. I was complaining the other day that I have only lost 6/10 of a lb since last Christmas. My daughter pointed out to me that I could have gained that much plus a whole lot more. She's right. I need to be happy I am maintaining and not gaining. I have traded some (not all) of my cookies for low fat granola bars, and some (not all) of my Diet Coke for water. I have also traded my 10 min of treadmill time for 30 min of aerobics most (not all) days. So we will see where we go from here.
188.2/187.6/165
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