Goal Setting- It’s All About the Math
No matter how much I’d like to believe in the magic food combinations that burn fat and all the other “secret” ways to lose weight- let’s face it. It’s all about math.
A pound is made up of 3500 calories. To lose a pound, you have to expend 3500 more calories than you take in. The formula is easy: BMR-Calories eaten=calories burned.
A BMR calculator (Base Metabolic Rate) I used estimated my typical daily calorie usage at 1500 calories. If I do nothing else but manage to keep my intake at 1000 calories a day, I should lose a pound every 7 days. This contest runs for 59 days, so I should be able to lose about 8.5 pounds.
That sounds pretty pitiful to me, so I”m going to toss in an additional 200 calories worth of effort each day in exercise to bring my total calorie deficit to a pound every 5 days which gives me a realistic goal of 12 pounds. If I reach that, I’ll feel that this was a success.
However, the real challenge is in the stretch goal. If I exercise more I think I can realistically lose 15 pounds during the contest phase- that’s half my total goal to reach my ideal weight. If I can pull it off and reach my ideal weight in 4 months, I will be really pleased with myself. And buying a whole new wardrobe. And maybe a trip to somewhere that requires a swimsuit most of the time. 
Much as I hate to do it, here’s the fat pic, taken by my co-worker a few minutes ago.
Current weight: 172.2. (AAAAGH! I can’t believe I just posted that on the Internet!!)
Current measurements: I took them. I know them. I will not be posting them. That’s just too much info. Too much horrifying info. But I will post the difference at 3-week intervals. Chest, waist, hip, added together. We’ll call that “inches lost”. Hopefully.
