75 Days

Day 1/75

There is something I like about making these short term goals for myself. Now granted, the only time I have ever actually succeeded in one of these "challenges" was when I posted 55 days before our 2018 Disney trip. 

Today's lunch/midday snack

Well....that's actually not true. I also wrote this post when I was 50 days away from the end of the Living Lean challenge last year. 

When I was 55 days away from Disney in 2018 I wanted to lose 12.8 pounds. I set short term goals to hit during those 55 days so that I could hopefully reach the number on the scale that I wanted to hit. If you recall, I hit that number and more actually! I ended up losing 12.4 pounds in 30/55 days and then lost another 3 pounds in the next 25 days. Perhaps the lesson there is that I actually set the bar too low. I didn't feel the need to continue to be as strict as I was being during those first 30 days because I had basically hit my goal. But, it felt amazing to actually reach a weight loss goal that I had set for myself.

Then, last year, I had 50 days remaining in the challenge and I wanted to lose another 10.8 pounds to reach my personal goal. Again, I set goals for myself to hit in those 50 days. They were very basic goals and came down to tracking my food (while staying in a pretty decent calorie deficit), maintaining my consistent workout schedule and get my water in. My attitude was that if I did those things and didn't hit the number on the scale at least I would know I did everything in my power to reach that goal. And again, by about day 49 I had dropped 11 pounds to reach my personal goal.

Dinner

During my 55 day Disney challenge I did not set the goal to track every day. I set that goal for the first 28 days, but then I gave myself a week of not tracking. During the 50 day challenge I set the goal to track every day and try to maintain an average daily calorie deficit of 700 calories. So basically to track and "stay within my calories". But, because some days I would have a huge calorie deficit I didn't even hold myself to staying within my calories every day because all I was looking at was the average deficit. What this meant though, was that I tracked my food every day for 50 days. As a result, I hit my number goal.

So, my first goal of 2020 is a 75 day challenge with myself. We leave for Disney in 75 days and I have a number goal I would like to hit by that trip. Of course I'm second guessing what number to actually pick because I'd really like to be successful again; BUT, I don't want to sell myself short (again). That's why I like my A goal and B goal mentality. I know for some people it gives them an "out", but for me it helps me to feel successful even when I don't reach the goal I really wanted to hit. It helps to remind me that even if I don't lose ALL the weight I wanted to lose, I am still better than where I was if I hit my B goal.

After dinner snack

If I use last Friday's weight as my starting weight, I will have 11 weigh in's before we leave for Disney. Based on that starting weight, I have 21.8 pounds I would like to lose before the Disney trip. That is no joke in 11 weeks, but I think it's doable. I have averaged over a 2lb/week loss before, but not for 11 weeks in a row! But, I think a lot of the time I end up averaging less because I'm content with the rate of weight loss (which is totally fine). So, perhaps if I set my goal that high it'll help keep me focused for the entire 11 weeks. And perhaps it won't and that's OK too. Ultimately I would like my B goal to be no less than 16.8 pounds because that will bring me back to where I was in May when the challenge ended and I had hit my goal. So yes, I gained back quite a bit of what I had lost last year, but I've moved on from that and I'm totally over it. I'm over it, but I want to re-lose it for sure!

Regardless of which goal I hit, I will absolutely weigh less for this Disney trip than I did for our last one so that will be something to be proud of no matter what happens in the next 75 days.

OK. So the goals for these next 75 days are:
1) TRACK my food every day
2) NO wine
3) Workout 6 days per week
4) 96-128 oz of water every day

I will be double tracking again with MFP (My Fitness Pal) and WW (Weight Watchers). My specific tracking goal will be to stay within my WW points the entire 75 days. To me that means ALL points allowed (daily, weekly AND fit points). Not all people use ALL their points, but I consider myself to be "on" program as long as I'm within all those points since that's why they're there. Now, if I use ALL my points every week the chances that I'll lose 21.8 pounds in 11 weeks is probably pretty slim. The number on the scale is the end goal that I'm hoping for; but the 4 goals listed above are the things that I can control. If I hit those 4 goals every day for 75 days I will have completed this challenge successfully regardless of what that scale says on March 20th.

Day 1 is done and I can check off each goal. I tracked my food today and ended the day at 20/23 points and 1222 calories. I had no wine. I worked out (LL and 10,000+ steps) and drank 128 oz of water.