Need Advice Please, Reasonable Goal?

I need some advise.  I am wanting to lose 70-75lbs.  I am setting a goal date of December 31st, 2010.  Am I being resonable with my goal? 

Just as some background I am 37 (F), and my start weight was 235.  I am currently down to 230.5 (water weight loss over the last couple of days) and I have started going to the gym 5-6 times a week.  I am pretty new with the gym thing so I am taking it kind of slow right now and focusing on cardio but I intend to add some weight training 3 times a week as well (light to begin with).  Currently all I can muster is 30 minutes on the treadmill (3mph, incline varies between 3 & 10), and I am also doing the stationary bike for about 20 minutes (13mph, varying resistance).  While doing cardio I plan on doing treadmill everyday but switching out eliptical and stationary bike every other visit.

As I said I am new to the gym thing so any advise it REALLY appreciated.  Thank you in advance :)

I think with a bit over a year to do it, 70 - 75 lbs is definitely a reasonable goal.  What are your eating habits like at the moment?  How many calories are you trying to consume, and do you get a balanced diet or have a lot of empty calories?  While you technically should be able to lose weight with a calorie deficit no matter what you eat, i've seen that people that make healthy changes seem to lose weight more easily and also find it much easier to keep it off. 

Another bit of advice is trying setting some mini goals for youself with rewards.  I started with a little over 50 lbs to lose and set goals every ten pounds which helped make things less overwhelming and motivated me more.  I chose rewards like new clothing to up my motivation even more.  Another thing that helped was getting a few items of clothing that were much to small and working towards fitting in them.  The day when you can actually wear something that was once a few sizes to small, or the day when it becomes to lose on you are some of the best inspiration i've found.

Anyway, i hope this helps and good luck on your weight loss journey.  You can do it!

I think it's a mostly reasonable goal.  To lose ~70 lbs in 60 weeks, that's ~1.17 lbs/wk.  That's a nice, steady, healthy amount. 

It could be that some of those weeks you don't necessarily stick to 'the plan' and end up maintaining or gaining.  On the other hand, you could lose 2+ lbs some weeks with no changes in what you're doing.  Our bodies are strange things.

Considering that Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner (and they'll be here again next year...), I might set the goal slightly farther out, say January 2011. 

But then when it comes to dieting/lifestyle stuff, I like to set myself easyish goals and be thrilled when I beat them. 

jenningermany,

An example of my eating habits are:

Breakfast: Kashi cereal with a cut up apple and maybe a handful of nuts and 1c NF milk OR Weight control oatmeal with a cut up apple or pear and cinnamon

Snack: Apple or pear or 100 cal mini bag of popcorn

Lunch: Salad (low fat dressing )or a sandwich on a 100 cal deli thin with low fat meat and dijonaise (and cheese)

Dinner:Pan seared Ahi Tuna steak with Bulgar and zuchinni cooked with tomatos.  Dinner varies a lot from 300 calories to 500 calories depends on what I want.. lol

Desert: (occasionally) 1/2 C of 100 cal low fat banana split ice cream or Skinny cow ice cream sandwich.

My calorie intake ranges between 1,300 and 1,700 calories.  but averages about 1,500 pretty regularly.

Also, the clothing idea is a great one.  I actually have clothes that are 2 sizes too small that my aunt gave me that I can't wait til I can get in to them :)

Instead of focusing on the end date, I would focus on making yourself sustainable eating and exercise goals.  Your eating and exercise are within your control; the rate that the weight comes off isn't, really.  Sometimes, even if you do the same thing every week, you'll stall for a couple weeks then lose a couple pounds all at once, for example.

Here's a graph of someone's actual vs. goal weight loss (I think about 200lbs over a couple years).  You'll see that she lost weight faster than expected at first, but eventually it slowed waaaaay down - that's pretty typical as you get closer to a healthy weight for your body (which may or may not be in the healthy weight range! The linked blogger ended up just slightly above the supposed "healthy" range, but able to run half-marathons, if I remember correctly).

If you are really dedicated. If you limit your caloric intake to 1500 and workout regularly, I feel that you should be able to lose 1.5-2 pounds a week. At 70 lbs and 1.5 per week that is just 46 weeks or Sept 15th. So you should definitely be able to hit your goal by December 31st. If you don't start to see a weight loss, I would limit your calories to 1300 (which is what I do.)

The best thing to do at the gym is to not let your muscles get bored. Switch up your workouts. Do something different every other time. One day do some cardio, another day do yoga....  It really helps make it not feel like work.

Best of luck!

Update - I have worked out for 6 days out of the last 7 and worked on my diet and have lost 6lbs in the last week.  I know this is mostly water weight I am sure, but 6lbs woo hoo anyway :)

Original Post by cbrudd:

Update - I have worked out for 6 days out of the last 7 and worked on my diet and have lost 6lbs in the last week.  I know this is mostly water weight I am sure, but 6lbs woo hoo anyway :)

Congrats! You are well on your way!

It sounds doable, definitely.  Very similar to my true goal (I started in late June with the goal of 80 lbs gone by January 2011, but I'm actually working to make it happen by October 2010).

Stick to it, try to make it happen, but don't get upset if it doesn't.  Remember that there will be bumps along the way, and they may end up pushing your goal back a bit.