2Bthinagain - I remembered when I first joined and I set monthly goals because I find it fun! I still do, I was walking home today, thinking about by when can I realistically hope to lose 10 more pounds. I think the most important thing that I try to remember though, is what Sheila said: You'll eventually get to your goal weight no matter how long it takes if you're persistent enough. That, and to live a healthy lifestyle regardless of my weight. When I first started, I wanted to have some weight loss "behind me" for motivation and I couldn't weight until I was 5 months into it and could look back with "WOW, I did this!". And now, 4 months later I am in that position. And I am still setting goals and playing with how fun it will be to weight 220, and then get closer to 200, and then the 100s!! Super fun, I totally agree! Just make sure you also take action with those dreams, work hard and play hard, and you will see that weight come off. Something else that some people find helpful is to set goals aside from weight... like amount of exercise, or simply sticking to plan, or eating new vegetables, taking more risks in life, being more positive, standing in front of that mirror every day and saying "hey there beautiful " hehe - whatever takes the pressure off of the scale
Sorry if I diverged a little bit from your point.. I just wanted to share with you. Good luck! hope to see you around!
How long did it take you to reach your half way point, or at least your first mile marker? I know the road ahead is long, I just sit and stare at the calendar and wonder, Hmm, by the end of January, I should be down 30 pounds?? I don't know, dreaming? Hopefully not. On the myfit site, for me to reach an ultimate goal of 135-140 it says I need to lose 2.8 pounds a week. That should be do-able, right?
This is where you're going to get yourself all messed up. There's nothing wrong with setting small goals. But keeping an eye on the calendar and choosing what your weight will be by a certain date and struggling to lose a certain amount per week in order to MEET those goals is going to drive you crazy.
Stick to your plan (whatever it is you're doing) and just relax. Stop focusing on NUMBERS. Because that's all they are - numbers. I learned my lesson long ago not to focus so much on the numbers themselves but rather the scale moving down when it was supposed to, regardless of what the numbers were. Especially when you get the normal fluctuations and one day you're 145 and the next day you're 149.
Another bad thing about focusing on numbers and dates is if you DON'T make a goal weight by a certain date, you're going to beat yourself up and feel like a failure and possibly even throw in the towel because you're going to say, "I just can't do this! It's not working! I quit!"
I'm not saying that WILL happen to you, but it does happen to many.
30 pounds by the end of January? That's only two months away. Which means you'd need to lose 15 pounds per month. That's a little much. Slow down a little bit. You'll get to where you're going, you just have to have much patience to get there.
As for how long it took me - 2 years and 5 months and I'm still going.
During my last (and hopefully final weight loss attempt) I only allowed myself to weigh weekly (same time, same situation every week). This really helped me see some consistency in my weight loss (although there were some weeks where I did not lose weight).
That's what I do. I also measure myself once a week, also same time, etc. And I measure everything! Neck, upper arm, forearm, wrist, bust, ribcage, waist, lovehandle area, hips, thighs, and calfs. I keep track of it in a little Excel sheet, along with my weight and BMI.
I do all of this for 2 reasons:
1) It sets me up for more victories. For example, I didn't lose any weight this past week, but I did shrink a little bit in a few places.
2) I am super anal retentive, so it's fun to track things. It's like a little scientific experiment. I make graphs and and all that dorky stuff.
I didn't set any halfway goals and NO time goals. I just focused on what a normal healthy weight would be for me and decided to revise that if I got close and saw it needed revising. Then just did it. I didn't time it or have any plans to lose X amount each week or anything like that. Just that I ultimately wanted the weight gone. I figured I had enough stress in life without stressing about whether I was meeting goals.
The danger of dreaming too much is you set yourself up for disappointment - an anticlimax, if you will.
Once upon a time, I was 160+lbs. I drastically changed my diet and lifestyle, and ended up at 112lbs....within...mmm...not many months at all...I lost about 3lbs a week.
And when I got there, to the point at which I wasn't medically allowed to lose any more, I still hated myself, still felt fat. It all felt as though it was in vain...my advice would be to fucous on how good you feel RIGHT NOW, how good your body feels after EVERY workout, how EACH mouthful of healthy food helps you nourish yourself...this'll give you a healthy view.
Thanks again everyone. All of you have great advice. I don't think I can handle the frequent weigh ins...If I were dedicated and did it all by the book and gained then definately I'd think "why bother?", which as been known to happen in the past. I would like to go maybe every 2 weeks?? But since we just had Turkey day I feel like I must weigh in on Tuesday...about one week from my "start day". I like the ideas of rewarding for non-weight things, like the new recipe to try and that sort of thing.
Thanks so much everyone! I'm very impressed with all of your stories and even though this is hard to do, knowing that I have this place to come to and check in really truly does make it easier. Everyone here understands. And I love that. Thanks so much.
Just make sure you also take action with those dreams, work hard and play hard, and you will see that weight come off. Something else that some people find helpful is to set goals aside from weight... like amount of exercise, or simply sticking to plan, or eating new vegetables, taking more risks in life, being more positive, standing in front of that mirror every day and saying "hey there beautiful 
" hehe - whatever takes the pressure off of the scale 
