What’s my Goal Weight? How to Calculate Your Ideal Body Weight
When it comes to goal setting a lot of you will be familiar with the acronym SMART. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic & Time-bound. Essentially what this means is that in considering your goals, you should be precise
with what you want to achieve, make sure goals are measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed. So instead of saying “I want to lose some weight”, try “I want to lose 6 lbs of fat in 3 months”.
While many coaches and leaders recommend the SMART approach for goal setting, I’m a big fan of starting with stretch goals. Charles Duhigg is a proponent and key influencer of this method in his book Smarter Faster Better. A study showed that after Motorola implemented stretch goals into its management training, their engineers were able to develop new products in a tenth of the time previously taken! Stretch goals encourage people to work towards their biggest ambition. Aiming for lofty goals can push a person beyond a self-imposed ceiling and achieve impressive results.
When it comes to choosing your goal weight Jason and I believe you should strive for that weight that you consider ambitious. Don’t believe it’s possible to get your pre-baby body back? Are you one of those people who’s always been a little heavy? Well there’s plenty of people in our Tribe who felt the same way and have gone on to defy their own beliefs. Check out mom of two, Bethany’s testimonial on our site. If that goal weight feels too overwhelming, this is where you make use of the SMART strategies and break down your overall objective into smaller more manageable steps. For example, make a list of all the different habits you will need to follow in order to arrive at your desired goal weight. Choose one to focus your attention on, like hitting your protein goal every day no matter what! Once you’ve perfected that habit like a master of macros, you can add an additional habit and so on and so on. Trust the process and I promise you one day you’ll catch yourself walking past a mirror and suddenly realize there’s a nutritional ninja with abs staring back at you!
Here’s Jason voicing his opinion on how to go about choosing your goal weight.
The key takeaway is this; incorporating both stretch and SMART strategies when shaping your goals is key to ensuring your overall success. For a further discussion on the topic of goal setting specific to your goal weight have a listen to Episode 9 of the Own Your Eating podcast. Make sure you also check out our Beginner Macro video package for further insights on implementing SMART strategies with our Jump Start to flexible eating.