I suspect I’m not alone in one of my New Years resolutions: to eat better, exercise more and lose weight. (Ack! Did I just write that out loud?) Like other women in their mid-forties, I have found my metabolism screeching to a halt and my weight creeping up and up. So last night, I launched my most recent — and hopefully last — attempt at getting into better habits.
But I’m not fooling myself. This is a long process with a lot of little steps, some forwards and a few backwards. My issue is staying motivated. I do well for a while, and then I slip up — and eventually give up. So, I’ve got a good plan that should allow me to make incremental changes and leave lots of room for mistakes. And to accomplish this, I’ve got both measurable and soft goals.
Sure, I want to eat better (I can count each serving of veggies I eat or glass of water I drink.) And I want to exercise more. (I can count my hours at the gym or steps I take from my car to the grocery store.) But for me, those are big changes that will include a lot of frustrating missteps. In order to stay focused, the real measurement will be my weight.
My goal is to lose 25 pounds. And I’ll track this by weighing myself once a week.
So how long will it take me to lose the weight? This is where the math comes in. Here’s what I know:
- I want to lose a total of 25 pounds.
- I will probably lose between 0.5 and 2 pounds each week.
Does this mean I’ll be sitting on a beach in a string bikini in August? (That’s a joke. I’ve never worn a bikini in my life.) Let’s look at the math.
A half pound and two pounds is a pretty wide spread, so based on past experience and my inclination to be more conservative, I’m going to estimate that can lose about a pound each week. So I can reasonably expect to lose all of the weight in 25 weeks.
Whatever you expect to lose in a week, the math is simple:
total weight lost goal ÷ loss per week = number of weeks
25 pounds ÷ 1 pounds per week = 25 weeks
So if you think you can lose 2 pounds per week, it’ll take you 12.5 weeks to lose 25 pounds:
25 pounds ÷ 2 pounds per week = 12.5 weeks
But there’s one more step I need to take. I don’t think in terms of weeks. My brain focuses on months. How many months will it take me to lose the weight?
Again, I’m going to estimate. While there are approximately four weeks in each month, that’s not an exact figure (except in February during a non-leap year). But since I’m not measuring out medication or figuring out how much to send into the mortgage company or solving problems for my eighth grade math teacher, I don’t have to be exact. So I’m going to go with four weeks in a month.
I already figured out that I can probably reach my goal in 25 weeks. To find out how many months that is, I can just divide by 4 (the number of full weeks in a month):
25 weeks ÷ 4 weeks per month = 6.25 months
Ta da! I can reasonably expect to lose this weight in six months. That means if all goes well, I should be at my goal by June.
Like me, are you hoping to lose weight in 2012? Do the math to see when you’re likely to reach your goal. And if you want to share, feel free in the comments section. (It’s scary, but you can do it!)Save
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