What should be my weight loss goal?
This is a common question we get from our clients on our first session. Before setting a final number in the scale, we like to do a visualization exercise of that big picture of ourselves, of what will make our lives different, and the underneath reasons on why this is so important for us.
Visualization simply means envisioning a mental picture of a future event. This stimulates the creative subconscious which helps to generate new ideas to better achieve ambitions. It activates the law of attraction and encourages internal motivation, pushing us to take the necessary steps toward achieving goals.
At the end of the exercise most people realize that their big picture goes beyond just losing weight but also health and emotional goals are included like getting more energy, feeling confident, etc.; and how all these together will help them to enjoy more their lives and spend more time with friends and family members.
We highly recommend to do this exercise and print a board or buy chalkboard sticker paper in order to edit/modify later, and do your own visualization at home. You can include pictures that inspire you to achieve these goals. Your bedroom is a great place to have it , so when you wake up you can read it and remind yourself the reasons you have to achieve your goals; that every day you are getting closer to achieve them. It is also supportive for those days where we feel discouragement when things are not progressing exactly as expected.
Once the Big Picture is created, we need to land our expectations into SMART goals . SMART goal setting brings structure and trackability with clear milestones in a defined period of time. This is a tool that many companies and institutions currently use for planning and tracking their progress, contributing to their success.
In our health coach program, this is key and foundation for everything else in order to have a plan based on smaller attainable goals, define the structure for the next sessions and have an easy way to measure our progress from where we were to where we want to be.
SMART stands for:
The answer for Specific and Measurable goals can be tricky when talking about weight loss specifically. There are more than one metric to measure weight loss progress. The most common used are BMI, corporal weight measured normally in lbs or kg., %body fat vs % muscle, or body measurements.
- BMI: Stands for Body Mass Index and is calculated as a person's weight in kg divided by the square of height in meters. If you go to the doctor's office, the nurse always puts you on the weight scale; and having your height, they calculate your BMI. If it is out of the normal range, he may provide his feedback and next steps. If it is within normal range, he will not even mention to you.
But what happens like it was my case several years ago when I had my first daughter and I just wanted to wear my pre-pregnancy clothes comfortably without suffocating my legs and my hips? I asked my doctor I wanted to lose the final extra pounds and he told me that I was OK; that my BMI was within normal range.
I was not fully satisfied with my doctor’s answer, so I remembered to read that the ideal BMI was 22. So with that number in my mind, I enrolled in a very well known fitness center chain and hired a personal trainer with some perk points they gave me when enrolling. I was decided to lose the final extra pounds left from pregnancy.
The personal trainer asked me what were my goals and I mentioned to have a BMI of 22. He stared at me and explained that BMI was not really a good measurement to use because you can have a BMI of 20 and have little muscle and lot of fat; or you can have a BMI of 24 and have a lot of muscle and little fat. This will bring completely different body compositions.
He made me step barefoot on this expensive scale where I needed to grab some metallic arms and stay still for less than a minute. The scale revealed that even when I had only a couple pounds to lose, I had a good percentage of fat to lose and another good percentage of muscle to gain, almost like a trade-off…
BMI by itself does not tell the whole story and is not that reliable, so I do not recommend to use it exclusively as the main measurement to track weight loss progress as it does not distinguish between body fat and muscle mass.
- Weight - Measured in lbs or kg. This is the most used way of tracking weight loss progress. The problem with tracking weight is that it can be very frustrating as there are several things contributing to variations like time you weigh in, amount of salt consumed, water retention, hormonal changes, time you dine, bowel movements, activity level, carb consumption, etc. Fluctuations can be as incredible as 2-5 lbs in one single day. That is why it is recommended to weigh daily at the same time, preferably without clothes to get used to these fluctuations.
- Body Fat Percentage and Muscle Mass: Some weight scales can measure weight, Body Fat and Muscle Mass in lbs/kg and percentages. This is probably the metric that we really are looking for tracking our progress, because at the end it is not really about body weight loss but body fat and muscle.
It is important to have body fat under control as sometimes the excess of it can get stored as visceral fat which surrounds vital organs like liver, stomach, intestines, increasing the risk of serious health problems.
Muscle mass is more important than just looking great or stronger. If muscle mass goes below normal ranges, it may end up in Sarcopenia which is normally age-related loss of muscle mass having as consequences muscle strength decrease, impaired mobility, higher risk of bone issues and ability to cope with illnesses. Actually having a higher muscle mass contributes to have a greater Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), the amount of calories burned at rest, helping with our weight loss purposes.
Many fitness centers do challenges for weight loss and body transformation where to make the challenge fair, the measurements to track are based of % body fat loss and not actual weight as this varies for the already mentioned reasons.
The problem with these two indicators is that there is not really an accurate way to measure these percentages. For example one of the most reputable brands for body composition analyzers using bioelectrical impedance can cost at least $5,000 and they have an accuracy +/-2%; that means 4% range which in terms of percentage of body fat is still a lot of difference. And most people cannot afford these scales, so we end up buying cheaper versions even less accurate. You see a lot of variation in these scales where the reality % body fat should be more consistent in comparison with weight. One of my theories is that also any of these bioelectrical impedance scales may not be able tell the difference between real body fat and fat not yet processed in the digestive system. What I mean with this, is that if you had a fatty heavy meal a couple hours before weighing in, you may get a misleading measurement showing an unusual percentage of fat. I am also curious if the body fat and muscle mass are calculated separately through impedance calculations or as one dependant of the other… I have not tried measuring myself before and after eating a heavy fatty meal; but I have done before and after a workout, and measurements do change. I still do recommend to monitor body composition even if it is not that accurate, because over time you can still see the trend.
You can also have a bod pod testing which works by measuring changes in volume within the body. This is considered one of the most accurate methods but you need to pay at least $45/ appointment to get your report and still has a +/- 1 to 2.7% error.
Another way to measure body fat is by using a skinfold caliper, which practically pinches one side of your body and measures the thickness in millimeters or inches . This is a more visual way to track progress. You can get one from $10 in the Internet, and you will just need to train yourself to pinch your skinfold properly and measure it. The only problem with this method is that it may give you an indirect measurement of body fat but will not tell you anything about lean muscle.
Most of the fitness and weight loss apps only track weight, only very few track body fat%, examples are: Lose It, Progress Body Tracker & Health, some fitness trackers and weight scales apps.
- Body Measurements - These are done with a measuring tape in inches or centimeters. Common places to measure are bust, waist and hips. Some people also measure their neck, arms and legs. This is also a very valuable metric, more visual and tangible than any other. You can still have variations due to water retention, hormonal changes or bloating; but at the end a lot of people are interested in fitting certain clothes; their pre-pregnancy, their pre-wedding, their college clothes, or certain size.
At the very beginning of my practice, I did not measure or put my clients on a weight scale but only use as reference their own clothes as I was trying to avoid for some of them the anxiety related to weighing themselves. With the time, my mindset changed and found important to use more measurable indicators and get my clients used to the weight fluctuations as main metric to measure weight loss progress. There are some apps like Happy Scale that with statistical calculations determine average progress and trends in an easier way to see. I do also like to track body composition, but not everybody has a weight scale that measures body fat and lean muscle percentages, though you can buy an inexpensive one in the Internet like Renpho.
There is also an interesting concept of numberless scale like Shapa, where instead of providing a weight number, it works with a color category to tell you your progress. It works with an app and has an algorithm to track internally weight and body fat percentage while accounting for your personal patterns in weight variance. The first time, you need to weigh consistently for at least two weeks, so the algorithm has enough data to calculate trends; and instead of displaying your weight, you will be graded with one of five color to mark your progress. The scale requires a membership that can go from $9 to $16/month depending on length of subscription.
We can be hours discussing about what should be our ideal weight; is it a normal range BMI? BMI of 22? <30% fat for women? <24% fat for men? Is it different for men than women? Is it different per age groups? Is it different depending on activity level? You can find all types of calculators in the Internet; Robinson, Miller, et al formulae and many other websites that they place ideal weight calculators attached to a prepaid plan to reach that number in certain timeline based on whatever dietary theory they are selling. Please let’s forget for a moment about any theory regarding possible ideal weight as some of these calculators provide much lower and unrealistic goals only causing unnecessary negative feelings and discouragement.
So we apologize if you have been reading up to this point expecting us to provide that magic number… Instead of focusing too much on ideal weight, let’s talk about your “happy weight”. This happy weight may still be far of what is considered a healthy weight based on your doctor’s BMI calculations; but it will actually make you more successful as it is pretty well known that smaller attainable goals have a greater impact in success than just one big aggressive goal.
In our experience with clients and observations in different forums, we find very valuable that not everybody is pursuing the perfect body; they just want to feel well with themselves, have more energy, more mobility or fit certain clothes. Sometimes they do not talk necessarily a weight number but a timeframe of important events in their lives; they want to be as they were before getting pregnant, when they married, when they were at college; we find this pretty meaningful, relevant.
An important note for those really looking for more aggressive goals… When we talk about having realistic goals, there is a direct relationship with commitment. For example I do believe that anybody can be a bodybuilder. I would like to be a bodybuilder, but am I realistic in terms of my daily agenda as a working mom with 3 kids? Am I able to reach that level of commitment and follow a bodybuilder’s protocol? Is this really the best time for me to be a bodybuilder? Is this really relevant? What advantages will bring me being a bodybuilder? Those are some of the questions that need to be answered during goal setting.
Who would not like to lose all the weight or reach certain goal with just one blink, right? But returning to the letter R, we need to be realistic; if it took us years to gain that weight or have certain health deterioration, it may take also years to heal or fix it. So that is why we need to be patient and focus on baby steps.
You may feel very encouraged to try any of the FAD diets that make you lose weight much faster; and some of them do work but unfortunately you may end up in the yo-yo, losing and gaining it back. The reason most of these diets do not work is because they are restrictive and unrealistic; hard to maintain in the long run; not really teaching you long term good habits. So this time I do have a magic number for you: 1 – 2 lbs/week is the accepted number to lose weight gradually and steadily in a healthy way. That does not mean you cannot lose weight faster or if there is something wrong because you are losing more or less than that number. Some people may lose faster because sometimes we just hit the correct nail causing most of the problems; and sometimes it may be slower because we need to hit other nails at the same time.
Our Final Words...
So our final words about weight loss goal specifically are that we do still use weight itself as main indicator to track progress with our clients; but highly recommend also to track percentages of body fat and lean muscle if possible. Using measuring tape or skinfold caliper are also acceptable and a lot of people use it to measure what they call NSVs – Non-Scale Victories. All these options are good, but it is not really our intention to overwhelm anybody with multiple measurements per day or hit their wallets with special tools or expensive weight scales. Over a period 6 months, a healthy weight loss of 1-2 lbs/week is expected, so you can expect to lose up to 5o lbs in that period of time; but as mentioned before that number is not set in stone and varies from person to person mainly due to bio-individuality and attaching to the recommendations.
But what about those non-weight goals that were mentioned at the beginning? Some of those goals may be very objective and easy to track like blood sugar levels, blood pressure, etc. These have a clear healthy range expected; some may be very sensitive to change according to our new habits and we will see changes reflected in the next check up; but others it really depends on other factors and health conditions, so there is no a clear timeline on when these changes may impact the charts. But as mentioned before, if it took long time to have that condition, it may also take the similar amount of time to heal.
There are also other very measurable goals that are progressive. Normally these are related to workouts and habits. For example certain number of steps, reps of certain exercises, running a marathon, drinking water or sleep hours. You want to start with a lower number with little challenge and increasing periodically until you reach your goal.
Finally, let’s talk about subjective goals. There are certain goals that do not have an easy way to measure like amount of energy, pain or emotions. Not because they are not fully measurable means that the subjective rating is less valuable. Actually some of them are priority and included in the Big Picture exercise from the beginning.
As we can see with the Big Picture exercise, many people really wish more than just weight loss; and the reason is that the extra weight is just the tip of the iceberg. There are more conditions that happen: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, inflammation, etc. It is not that being overweight causes all these issues; it is just the one more notorious; and the other ones may stay hidden underneath the water until they reach certain level and come to the surface; and all of them may have common causes related to habits like excessive consumption of refined sugars, unhealthy fats or lack of activity, etc.
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