Aim Small Weight Loss

There is an old maxim among sharpshooters known as "Aim small miss small". This means that the more you can define and hone in on your target, the less likely you are to miss it. In other words, if you aim for a shirt pocket button and you miss it by a small fraction, you are still going to hit your target. The lack of any such rule is one of the biggest reasons that so many people fail in their efforts to lose weight. Everybody wants to shed those excess pounds on occasion but they way that they go about it makes it almost inevitable that they will ultimately fail with their weight loss goals and objectives.

For instance, if someone has a goal of losing ten pounds a week and they only lose five pounds one week, they may consider that a failure. Many of them will try to "make it up" by losing fifteen pounds the very next week instead of shooting for the ten pounds they already failed to make. This generally sets them up to fail by an even larger margin and grow even more discouraged. That in turn will make them substantially more likely to quit before they have even reached their primary weight loss objective. Forget about keeping it off once they get there, they are never going to finish the journey in the first place.

Now take a look at the person who has smaller goals ... and may even miss them on occasion. Suppose someone had the goal of losing five pounds every two weeks. That is a goal to lose mere ounces of weight each day. Suppose that they still continually miss that goal and continue to aim for the same small goal knowing that they may not reach it. Suppose that they are only able to lose one pound a week ... far short of their goal. Over the course of the year, this person has still managed to lose over fifty pounds and they are going to be much more likely to succeed than if they had tried to "make up" for weight gained back or not lost in the first place.

By setting small goals and not looking at the big picture, they have greatly increased their chances of ultimate success. By maintaining those small goals rather than adding up the excess on top of the original (and often unattainable) goal, they have continued to strive towards one small mark. Even failing to reach that small goal, they have managed to continually lose weight and are not lost in desperation or quitting out of frustration. They know that the goal is attainable and they may or may not know why they are not reaching it but by keeping it small, it is less of a burden and much less imposing.

Do not set out to lose one pound each day and expect to always meet your goals. Work rather on smaller goals and if you miss them, do not add to them later on. Keep your goals small and your misses will be small as well. Set out to lose only a realistic amount of weight in a limited amount of time and you can continually reach all of your weight loss goals without the shame, embarrassment or frustration that so often leads to quitting, failure and a host of people saying "I told you so". When it comes to the battle for weight loss, aim small and miss small and you will still hit your targets and ultimately, win the battle of the bulge.