The problem is of course that whilst, once in time we may we have been ‘cooking on gas’ it is also feasible that we may have spent the last few years spending more time ‘cooking with gas’, and clearly more significantly, then stuffing down the results.

To be fair, as we get older, whether we like it or not, our metabolism slows down annually, and whilst, obviously, we can’t get away we the things we used to, it also seems to be the case that we find ourselves working harder and harder just trying to prevent the inevitable expansion process, let alone recapturing the dubiously hazy image of our spelt like youth.

Obviously, for some of us, even our youthful figure was far from that hard toned body we dream about, work for each year, but never really, really get any closer to. For this reason, the fat loss industry is a multi-million dollar business, as dreams it appears, in reality, really are worth their weight in gold.

Now, of course, it’s all to easy to criticise this multi-million dollar industry for cashing in on people dreams, but the real question is, how do we really make weight loss happen.

Well, before we start off on this journey together back down the scales we have climbed so easily in recent years, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t look at this multi-million dollar business for inspiration. If we were to be setting up a business together, and we were to have any hopes of success, one would think that as a company we should have a fairly good idea of what we were working towards, and just as importantly, and structured, yet flexible plan of our path to future success.

In business, even underneath all the individual excellence and trail blazing flair that can be found in the odd unconventional success story, there is a recipe for success; there are basic logical rules that need to be followed to make a company work, rules that we know make sense, rules that we even use in our own work life, yet rules that somehow we ignore when coming to our personal wellbeing.

Every business needs direction and goals, long term and short term goals. Now of course we, with our company definitely have direction. We know which direction we want to go in. We want to go away from the fridge and back down the scales, however, up until now; we haven’t had any idea how we are going to get there.

           Goals are the single most significant part of our weight loss journey.

So, before we talk about nutrition, and training, and metabolism, and all that junk, we need to set some goals. As much as we know we want to lose 5kg by the time we go to Ibiza, or in 3 months, or lose 2 dress sizes before our wedding day, it is almost a futile task without a clear pathway to success with clearly signposted stop of points along the way.

When we talk about goals in the fitness, very much like business, we talk about ‘SMART Goals’, which is a widely used anagram with varying meanings, though we’ll go with.

            Specific

            Measurable

            Achievable

            Relevant

            Time Based

It is strongly advisable that as we start our weight loss journey we sit down a carefully work through some long term and short term ‘SMART Goals’, so we have a clear and structured idea of what we need to do to have the best chance of achieving our dream weight.

         Specific – Your chosen goals need to be clear, and you need to stick to them. No fuzziness, if you say you’re going to 3 spins classes, 3 spin classes it is, 2 yoga and 2 LBT don’t count.

         Measurable – Obviously, the main thing we will be measuring our weight, but this can be in relation to anything be it, gym sessions per week, time on treadmill or even in regards to body clock and structure, something along the lines of nights in bed before 10 o’clock for example. Please note that ‘fitting into old jeans’ (unless you have a set of almost Russian doll like decreasing pairs), feeling more perky after a workout (perkiness is also not a measurable amount – yet), and getting more looks on the bus (unless you really are taking count), are not valid within this section.

         Relevant – Obviously we are interested in weight loss, and therefore the goals need to be relevant to that; however I strongly recommend that at least on a short term level we resist the urge to make an individual goal simply weight. Just as we talked in the point before, visits to the gym, completed food diaries, time spent on the treadmill, successful structure of sleeping pattern and in fact anything that is a factor in our journey towards weight loss is a relevant goals, and just as every great journey is made up of short steps it is these short, seemingly irrelevant goals that are indeed the backbone to our overall success.

Now, I know this stuff is obvious, this stuff is easy; in fact it’s so easy, we just don’t do it. These goals are essential to our success and before we even start our journey it is important we have a clearly marked route of how to get there. As we talked about last time, will power will not work. If we want to lose 10kg in 6 months, I guarantee, will power will not last 6 months, however, if we break that down into monthly sub goals and weekly micro goals we might just have a fighting chance.

And that, to be fair, is all we need – a fighting chance. Do not concern yourself with 6 months, now is not the time for dreaming. Set yourself just one goal for this week, not 2, not 3.  Remember we have a lifetime of achieving ahead so let’s not use it all up in the first week, just one, and of course, as our long term goal is weight loss so our short term goal needs to be something relevant but different.

Once the parameters are set our journey can begin, and we have nothing to worry about this week apart from achieving this goal. No excuses, no near misses, not 2 out of 3’s, this is our week set now!

So what's your goal for this week?

The journey has begun people, there is not turning back. I know where I’m going, and I think you know where you’re going too!