I have approached this entire weight loss with following a very specific plan that I knew would result in a healthier life regardless of the number of the scale. So I rarely weigh in and have had no deadline to reach any particular weight.

It's worked great. For the first time in my life I have lost significant amount of weight at a rate of @6 lbs. per month.

Now I've gotten it into my head that I want to wear a very specific dress on a very specific event in late August. I suspect that 10 more lbs will have that dress fitting nicely, and that's certainly very likely what weight I will be at my August weigh in but it worries me a bit. I can remember every previous weight loss attempt marking out on a calendar what I "should" weigh at points in the future and of course crashing and burning when I got behind on where I wanted/expected to be.

Suddenly the girl who has always chimed in about weighing only once a month wants to hop on the scale every day. So far have resisted that urge but I'm astonished how putting a date on my plan has really thrown my mental game.

Anyone else have a deadline that messed with their head?

This is why I don't do time-based deadlines. They DO mess with my head, to my detriment. So I just can't make them a part of my plan.

When I put timelines on things, it's never firm. I can mentally separate "I will be at this weight" and "Gee, I wonder how close to this weight I can get". I rarely meet a time based weight goal. Very early on I thought averaging 7 pounds a month was very realistic, and made out a calendar with goal-ish weights on it based on a 7 pound/month goal. Didn't happen!! I'm so far behind schedule now that I can just laugh at it.

I have one goal of being at weight by March for a wedding with family I haven't seen in years. If I don't make it, I at least know I'll still be happy where I am, regardless, because I'm pretty happy with where I am now!

I guess my point is that I hate time based goals, but they're ok as long as I go into it with very low expectations.

I'm kind of like Eliana, where I'll have a goal in mind sometimes of where I'd like to be, but ones that are realistic, not impossible. But I've tried a couple of time-based challenges on 3FC and they just made me frustrated with the scale and my progress when it wasn't coinciding with the time frame of the challenge. So I've decided not to participate in those anymore and just work towards my own personal mini-goals. Current goal: ONEDERLAND!

Good luck to you and try not to stress over the scale. It's a fickle friend.

I am going through that now. I wanted to be to Onderland by 4th of July, and I'm 2 pounds away so I am putting a ton of stress on myself and weighing myself every morning. In my head I know that weight will fluctuate from day to day, I just want to see that 199 so bad, I go through disappointment every morning when I weigh in.

I know I'll get there, so I guess the question we both need to be asking ourselves is...does it matter how fast as long as we get there??

Hmmm. Sounds like one of those decision-making moments in life.

Do you feel like changing what you are doing? I mean, weighing yourself more frequently & working at this somewhat differently? Or not?

If you can't fit in that particular dress, and have to wear another, will you be okay? I mean, really okay?

How important is the event, when seen from a longer perspective, and how important is your looking a certain way & wearing a certain dress?

The way I see it, you can 1) pretend you're unaffected by the deadline, keep doing what you're doing & wait & see how things turn out; 2) say you're affected by the deadline, try to keep from becoming anxious or self-sabotaging as a result, but otherwise keep doing what you're doing, etc.; or 3) Change up what you are doing in some way to acknowledge the specific time deadline.

How do you think you want to handle it? What will make you happier, in the long term, not only regarding the event in August?

Thanks all. No trouble so far, haven't been tempted to go overboard on a plan that has worked just fine so far and absolutely have a dress that looks great now to wear if body not where I expect by August.

It just suprised me that as soon as I got it in my head that I wanted to wear this very old, frankly out of date dress that my brain started focusing on the scale weight. Writing it out here helped a bit to let it go and get my thinking back where it's been for the last 14 months. I'll just keep doing what I have been doing and the weight will change in its own time. It's going to be what it is regardless of how much worry I put into it anyway!

I want to say, there's nothing wrong with doing a "I will do my best, change my plan, etc because I want to look the very best I can on X date". I am doing this right now with my 10 year high school reunion, and have committed to doing things a bit differently to push myself toward that date.

The killer, for me, would be saying "I want to be X size/lose X lbs" by the date. I do much better with goals around things I can fully control (# of workouts, # of days on plan) than things I can't (# of lbs on scale).

I don't know... my weight loss has stalled to a total crawl lately, and I'm frustrated that I did not make my "hundred pounds in a year" but fell three pounds short...I've thought about trying to ratchet down even more, but each time I reject that.... this is the only thing I've done that has kept my on a downward trend for over a year. So, I'd say it's okay to "keep" the goal, but maybe don't change a plan that has been working to "make" the goal.

YMMV but I've found myself worrying about worrying that things that derailed me in the past would derail me this time, but each time, I've ended up okay, because even when I start thinking about my old habits, my new ones are entrenched enough that they take over

I haven't set any time deadlines because I'm afraid it would make me crazy and because I am trying to make the losing part of my journey like maintenance in that I focus on the behaviors and not pounds lost or clothes etc. I had a pair of pants in my closet that I had stuck in my head should fit me at a certain weight. Well it was taking f o r e v e r to fit tem and it was making me crazy. The good news is it didn't throw me off plan and I did end up fitting into the pants (and then shrinking out of them). They were also out of date but I just had it in my head about these pants. I don't know what my point is other than it drove me nuts each time I tried them on and they didn't fit but I didn't sabatoge or go off plan because of it.

I have one final pair of old pants that I'm close to fitting into. I'm only trying them on once a month though so I don't get as crazy as the last time. It will be a blessing when I no longer have anything old with an emotional attachment and association to it to trip me up and I have to get stuff at the store. I can try on something at the store and have it not fit and not affect me like the new old clothes do.