Weight Loss Program is like a Business Project
When you prepare to start a weight loss program, it is the same as starting and finishing an important business project:
1) Setting your goals;
2) Track your progress and
3) Securing your motivation.
Setting your goals
Make sure the weight loss goals you create make sense. If you weight 200 pounds and you want to weigh 125 pounds, it is unrealistic to say you will accomplish this in 3 months. Ask yourself “why so fast”? Unfortunately, most people think if they hurry and lose weight they can move on to other projects. However, the weight comes back on. Based on many health surveys it is wise to set a realistic goal of losing 3-5 pounds a month for the purpose of keeping the weight off. In consideration of this data, it could take 15 months to reach your goal of losing 75 pounds (as illustrated above). Make no mistake it takes both healthy eating and exercise to get and keep the weight off. In the distance, I can hear all of us crying together – 15 months – that’s too long.
However, when it comes to a business project 15 months is a realistic goal in getting an information products created, written, produced and marketed to success. When I gain weight I immediately set my goals realistically and worked on them everyday.
Track your progress
This does not mean weighing yourself everyday! A few years back I went to a medical center and enrolled in their weight loss program for the purpose of losing weight the healthy way. One of the first things they instructed us to do was to put our bathroom scales in the trunk of your car and leave it there – get it out of our house and our lives.
They instructed us to track our progress by 1) how many minutes we exercised everyday 2) what was the exercise 3) what we eat all during the day 4) how many hours did we sleep and 4) when did our clothes start feeling loose on our bodies. Their responsibility was to weigh us in their office and keep track of our weight/BMI. Choosing to “hide” the bathroom scales and not get dragged down with our weight going up and down a couple of pounds everyday was such a relief in the total weight losing program.
Your motivation
In a business project you know in the end you will see the results and hopefully make money or add a value to your business and that is your motivation.
A successful weight loss program is relatively the same: you will see the results and add a value to your healthy life and that is your motivation. In my coaching program “I Can’t Walk Unless You Hold My Hand” people tell me all the time “I just can’t stay motivated on my own”. If your motivation falls weak, find someone to help motivate you. Do you have a friend, spouse, parents and/or kids that can help and motivate you to reach your goal? Do you need to hire a certified coach to keep your motivated? Find the resource you can confine in and ask them for help.
You can set goals and track your progress without much effort. The most difficult progress is to stay motivated. You will need to spend time evaluating who would fit this role for you and enroll them as your support motivator.
