Goals

I was talking to my boyfriend about goals the other night - not the football kind, thankfully. Looking back at Day One, I stated my goal as "is to live a life with less pain, less illness, more health, more energy, more happiness."  This is still my overall aim, but it is quite amorphous. How much weight do I have to lose to get to this place? How will I know when I get there? 

This has been brought into focus this week as I somehow managed to pull a muscle in my calf. While the injury is not weight-related (I think), I'm sure my recovery has been slowed by my weight, and the hobbling around has aggravated another previous injury in my hip. It has been extremely frustrating.

My boyfriend asked me if I have a goal weight. Not an unreasonable question. My immediate answer was - "no". There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I find that setting a goal like that makes the journey seem impossible. If I really wanted to set a goal to be in my "ideal weight range" according the the doctors, it involves losing such a huge amount that I can't get my head around it. The second reason is that I honestly don't know what my goal would be, in terms of pounds and ounces. I can't remember being a "normal" weight, I don't know what it feels like.

I might lose a certain amount and feel fantastic and decide to stop there, even though still officially overweight. Or I might keep fasting indefinitely because its the fasting itself that makes me feel good - it is possible to fast without losing weight and many people do this just for the health benefits. Yesterday, by the way, I felt fantastic, very relaxed and content. What is important to me is that my weight doesn't adversely effect my health and mobility, and that is harder to measure.

Still, on reflection, I think it would be helpful to me to have a way of measuring my progress, so that a loss of a certain number of pounds translates into something meaningful to me. I came up with the following:

1. BMI under 40
At the 40 level, a person's obesity is labelled "morbid" i.e. significantly raising the risk of serious illnesses, in particular Type II diabetes. For me to get below 40, my weight need to drop below 105kg (16 stone 8 pounds) - a drop of 3kg (6 pounds) from my starting weight. I'm very optimistic that I can manage this!

2. Lose 10%
This is a common goal for people losing weight. It is a significant amount and has measurable health benefits, but it is small enough to be easily visualised and achieved. I'm particularly looking forward to no.7 on this list.
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/wellness_articles.asp?id=528
For me this equates to a loss of 11kg (24 pounds) from my starting weight, to get to 97kg (15 stone 4 pounds). This would give me a BMI of around 37. This seems like a massive amount to me, but I think it's a good one to aim for. If I can get to this I will be pretty damn proud of myself.

3. Reduce waist measurement to 31.5 inches (80cm)
Risk of some health problems is affected by where body fat is stored, as well as by weight/BMI. Carrying too much fat around your middle (waist) can increase your risk of developing conditions such as, guess what, heart disease, Type II diabetes and cancer. The tipping point is thought to be around 80cm for women (94cm for men). This is a huge reduction for me to even think about, with my starting measurement of 47" (119cm). However every inch that goes will take me closer, so its a good number to have in mind. In management speak this would be labelled a "stretch" goal. Perhaps a "shrink" goal would be more appropriate?

There may be other goals or markers along the way, possibly in terms of dress size, or physical activity completed - I will keep the list updated as I go along.