91 Immutable Laws of Weight Loss

# 5 - Law of Goals

�A goal is a dream with a deadline� � Napoleon Hill

You probably have a weight-loss goal in mind. Mine was to weigh less than 170 pounds. I tried many diets and reached this goal with a few, but eventually gained the weight back.

If you have a lot of weight to lose then set easier to reach goals. Start with five to ten pounds. It will be less overwhelming.

Some goals might be:
� Healthy weight
� 32� waist (man)
� Size 6 dress (woman)
� Lose 10 pounds
� Feel better about yourself
� Look younger

Losing weight isn�t the real goal because losing weight is only the first step. The second and harder step is to keep it off. If you gain the weight back, you wasted time and effort. The goal is to lose weight and keep it off. I use the acronym LWAKIO.

The problem with goals is they�re easy to set and hard to reach. The best method to reach a goal is to identify the daily actions that will get you to your goal and then do them. The daily actions you to take are:
1. Weigh yourself
2. Track your weight
3. Compare your weight to a daily goal or target
4. If behind your daily goal then eat less and exercise more
5. If ahead of your daily goal then eat more and exercise less

So whatever your ultimate goal, start with an easier to reach the goal. When you reach it then change the goal.

After I reached my goal of weighing less than 170, I went on to 165 and 160.

I set a weekly goal of losing one pound per week. I converted this weekly to a daily goal of a 1/7th pound, which is 0.1428 pounds. This is the same weight of about 11 US quarters.

Each day you have a goal to reach. So you�re either ahead of your daily goal or behind your daily goal. Based on where you are making small adjustments to what you eat and the exercise you do.

Once you reach your ultimate goal many diets will fail because you stop doing what got you there. You always need a daily goal to make sure you keep the weight off.

One key strategy while trying to lose a pound a week is to at least gain on the daily goal if you�re behind it. To gain on the goal you have to lose more than a 1/7th of a pound per day. Keep doing this and you�ll catch your daily goal.

Using the Excel Diet Spreadsheet the daily goal is a red line on the chart:

The red line is the daily goal line. The blue line in the weight and the black line is the trend.