My New Target!

Eagle-eyed readers will notice the new countdown ticker on the right side of this page. 

When this blog started, the target for achieving my goal weight was sometime in October. I knew it was an ambitious target (it meant I had to lose 3.1 lbs a week if I were to make it on time), but I decided that I'd rather set a difficult target and fall short, than make my weekly goal easier to achieve, and risk sitting back once I'd made my loss, and not really pushing myself.

The original target date came and went, but I wasn't sure what new target I should aim for, especially since my rate of loss had slowed significantly. I toyed with making it the New Year, but the weekly loss I would need to reach my goal by then was still crazy high. As I've said, I'm all for ambitious targets, but there comes a point where it is SO hard to match, you will constantly feel like you're failing.

So I looked forward in the calendar, and suddenly it seemed so obvious. I started my weight loss on February 21st, 2011...why not aim to have hit your goal weight on the first anniversary of your new life - FEBRUARY 21st 2012!

So there it is. My new ticker is counting down the days until the 21st of February. To hit my goal weight by then, I have to lose just under 1.8 lbs a week. That is a very nice target to my mind. It is nowhere near as daunting as the 3.1 lbs a week I used to aim for (and achieved for months!), and is under the recommended maximum weekly loss of 2lbs, which I'm very pleased about.

Of course, there is the fact that I haven't achieved anywhere near that kind of weekly loss for months - what makes me think I can start doing it now?

Well, as I'm sure regular followers will now, I well and truly had the wind knocked out of my sails over the summer, when I gained back some weight, stopped running, and even stopped blogging regularly for a while. I've struggled to get back into the weight loss since then...I've still been eating healthily enough, but exercise still eluded me, I wasn't watching my calories, and days went by when I didn't weigh at all. 

But, I really feel that I've got my mojo back. I went running on Monday, and even though I hurt like hell for days afterwards, the run itself was fantastic. I went again over the weekend, and my recovery has been a lot more swift. I'm hungry for running now, and am planning to go for at least 3 of them next week. Having a target again is a huge boost too - before, I was quite happy to just see the scales dropping by a fraction of a pound each week, when I wasn't aiming for any particular loss...but now I know how much I want to drop each week, I have something to aim for, my sights are set, and I can't wait to have a crack at it!

I don't expect Monday's weigh-in to be great, even though I've run this week. I had a couple of days over-eating during the week (not by much, but it all adds up). Also, in preparation for my runs next week, I ate mostly carbs today, to try and give my muscles some fuel for the exercise I'm (all of a sudden) making them do again! When I eat carbs my weight tends to shoot up, but I'm sure its largely just water weight, so I don't mind seeing just a small loss (or who knows, maybe even a small gain) on Monday...and then, if I can eat right and do the exercising I'm planning to do, I should hopefully see a MUCH more satisfying loss on the following Monday! Here's hoping!