So I have a tendency toward setting time specific goals for myself. As in I want to lose 7 lbs per month which means I should be at my goal by the end of March. I get pretty attached to that idea too. However, this month my losing has leveled off and I know I'm not going to make this months goal, which means all my following months goals will be off as well.

I was just wondering how you all set your goals, and how you adjust if you don't meet them?

And also, I know that the closer you get to your goal the slower the weight comes off. Do any of you know how close you have to be before this happens? Cause I've been staying OP and exercising pretty well the past 3 weeks and it seems like the scale is barely moving. Maybe I'm getting close, or maybe I just need to change things up.

Well you can stick with trying to lose 7 lbs a month, that is a great goal, but if you do not lose that amount don't beat yourself up, just know that its very hard to lose the same amount of every month, every once in awhile you'll have that 3 lb loss,,, or no lbs. Be happy that you did not gain, that is a great goal in itself. I wouldn't change my goal until after 2 months, if by the 2nd month I didn't make up the couple lbs I didn't lose the month before then I'd adjust my goal a few lbs.

You're doing great by the way!

Well, I usually don't do "by that time I want to be that weight"-challenges. And when I do them I set the goal very very low... so low that I should easily be able to do it. I don't really care how long it takes to lose weight. I care a lot more about the weight staying off!

i actually read recently that statistically, women who set higher goals in weight loss, (size 4) rather than a moderate goal (size 8), lost more weight overall regardless if they met the goal. so maybe striving for a high goal, though maybe unreachable, might motivate you to lose more than you think you can.

Um, isn't that like saying, women who lost more weight ... lost more weight?

NOTE: I think I wasn't fully awake, I didn't see the regardless.

But it still makes me wonder how the study was structured. I mean, maybe the women with a size 4 instead of size 8 goal were women with smaller frames. Or maybe they were more driven to be skinny instead of healthy. I don't know. I just can't bring myself to tell anyone to set their sights on size 4.

Shouldn't that be... "regardless of whether they met the goal or not." ?