Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 106: Goal setting & monitoring progress
Transcript
- Cameron: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations podcast. And in today's episode, I want to talk a little bit about setting goals and monitoring your progress towards those goals. So this kind of popped into my head because I have been attempting to, attempting to be the right word there, learn Spanish, right? So I was on holiday in Spain and I just realized I quite fancied and I have always fancied learning another language. I thought about learning Italian before, because I absolutely bloody love Italy. I also love pizza, but that's unrelated. The point is is that I'd thought about it for absolutely bloody ages and then I was like, do you know what? I'm actually gonna commit to this. I'm just gonna set this as a goal. And the way I went about doing this was trying to get first off an understanding of the work that would be required to get there so I can give myself an understanding of the timelines involved. And I kind of looked into it, did a little bit of research. And of course, this is very broad brush strokes because you could look at the quality of your practice and how you approach it and all the rest of it. But I wanted to get an understanding of how long does it take to get to that point where you feel like moderately capable in a conversation where I can have a conversation with someone like in day-to-day life, probably not gonna discuss politics, not that I particularly want to do that anyway, to be frank, but to be able to discuss like sort of day-to-day things. And they reckon that's anywhere for an English speaker around about 300 to 600 hours of study. And that's usually a bit of a mix, right? It's not just, although I am using something like Duolingo as like a very much a daily habit, which I'm going to talk about in a second, but I'm also doing two structured lessons a week as well with a language teacher. So that's been super, super helpful. But I wanted to get a bit of an understanding of the timeline involved because then I can start to set my expectations and also figure out whether I actually want to pursue this goal because it's really easy to want to pursue something, right? Someone can say, oh, I want to get into really good shape, but they want to get there in two weeks. And it's like, that's not possible, right? Bluntly, it's not gonna happen. You are not going in to get into incredible or impressive shape with two weeks, right? You'd already have to be there or you're not gonna get there, right? You'd already have to be in really, really good shape. And the reality is is that with a lot of goals, people don't necessarily look at the timelines required or the effort and energy required to get there. And I think that can be a really, really useful thing to do. is to start to set and then kind of estimate on the upper end rather than the lower end. So I looked at it and I'm seeing about three to 600 hours. I know from the kind of dual-lingual study I do each day, I do about 25 minutes a day. So I spend 25 minutes a day on the app. And I also do these lessons twice a week as well. And then when I have a spare moment, now and then I'll spend sort of, I've created a few quizzes like through like Claude and things like that on specific things that I've gone over in lessons. So I'm kind of. creating like these mini quizzes that I usually sort of put a timer on that are 15 minute quizzes. So I will do those intermittently. So maybe I get three or four of those extra in a week. So I know I'm probably committing around about six hours a week to my Spanish study, which is actually quite a bit. I realized it was quite a bit to kind of commit to in a sense because it has added busyness to my day, right? I am busier. I am consciously, know, trading off a lot of like in the evenings and stuff, like I'm not watching so much TV because I'm making sure to do a little bit of that or. Sometimes when I'm like sat in the car, if I have like 15 minutes and waiting for something or whatever it is, or I'm just on route somewhere and I'm having a break for a little bit, like I might just do 10, 15 minutes of study. So that's been quite helpful and it's been quite good to do because I now have an understanding of like, okay, well it's gonna take 300 to 600 hours. If I'm averaging, we're just gonna say for simplicity of numbers, like five hours a week. Well, that's 250 hours over a year, right? So even if I was to do five hours a week, every single week without fail, with no stopping, no days off at all, I would still be short of that basic competence in a year's time. That's like the lowest level of conversational competence almost where I could have a simple conversation. To get up to more detailed conversation, I'm literally looking at 600 hours, which is obviously double that and some, so I could be looking at two years, two and a quarter years just to get there. That's a huge commitment, but what's helpful is I now have that expectation, so what I'm not doing is I'm not trying to blitz it because I know I can't rush it, right? Yes, I could learn faster, I could put more time and more energy into it, but I also know if I started to do that, if I, as soon as I started to feel like it was interfering with my training time, where it's starting to interfere with having like any sort of free time in the weekends, like, because I have fairly limited kind of free time, was mostly at the weekend, I don't really want that to interfere and it's certainly not going to interfere with my business, my coaching, right? So I know I have to time limit that and that's fine. I'm okay with that. I'm quite happy to be. the person who's learning Spanish for the next two, two and a half years and get to a point where I'm a little bit more comfortable having a conversation. That's cool with me, but I know how long it's going to take and have set that expectation. Now the good news is is that getting in shape doesn't necessarily have to take two, two and a half years, but the same rules apply here. Most people would be better served with having an understanding of, okay, it's probably going to take me training twice a week for... many, many months, not four weeks, not eight weeks, not 12, to get into good shape, right? I'm going to build a good amount of muscle in 12 weeks. Yeah, absolutely. You'll notice the difference. You'll be much stronger, much fitter. You can certainly improve your fitness much quicker than that, but to look very different through your training, that is not a process measured in weeks, but in months, right? That's the reality. You can drop weight much quicker than you can gain muscle. That is the rules of the game, right? That is what it is. So when it comes to getting in shape, depending on what your goal is, whether it's weight loss, whether it's building muscle, whether it, for most people as it should be, it should be a little bit of both because that allows you to get into often the best shape. It makes a lot of sense to have an understanding of what's going into your goals. And it makes me laugh because during my PT qualification, so many years ago now, right? It's like 10 years ago or whatever it was now. One of the things they always talk about is smart goals, bloody smart goals. They always go on about specific, what's the other ones? time-bound, realistic, something like that. But anyway, the point is is that I think I'm pretty sure that two of those things are exactly the same as well. It's like time-bound and obviously measurable, you would think would be kind of the same. But anyway, it doesn't really matter. The point is is that I think sometimes people obviously use these little smark holes and I think any framework can be kinda useful. But the way I like to look at it is where am I wanting to get to? How long is it realistic that it might take? And then to build in a little bit of bandwidth as well of like, okay, well, Let's say I want to do all those Spanish lessons and I'm doing that, but what about the weeks that my teacher's off? So he might be on holiday four weeks of the year. And I might not have the scope to do three lessons a week. That's probably too much for me. I'm too busy for that. So I might say, okay, well that probably slows things down a little bit. So maybe instead of two years and a quarter, I'm looking at two and a half years as an example. Like that's probably more pragmatic. It's that extra two, three month buffer before, and of course. That's imagining that learning Spanish is a very finite goal. It's probably a little bit more complex than that because it's a language. But nonetheless, I think it's not unreasonable to think that in two and a half years, that's roughly where I'm gonna be, that level of competence. The same kind of here applies with fitness. It's like if someone says, right, I think it's gonna take me eight weeks to lose that weight, I would always give myself 10 to 12, but still try and give yourself some sort of timeline. Now, for some people, if they've got a big weight loss goal, it's much better to be like, right, let's focus on the next two and a half kilos, let's focus on the next five kilos, whatever that margin is and whatever's appropriate because obviously everyone's different sizes, weights, et cetera. What's appropriate at one stage might not be at the next as well. So someone's already lost 15 kilos, they're not gonna set another 15 kilo goal, because that would be silly. They might have already lost that or they might not have that to lose anymore. So I think you just want to set smaller goals. For some people, I have clients that literally we are focusing on like, okay, let's maybe get focused on that next two kilo interval because they've not got that much to lose. I have other clients where we're focused on, okay, let's pull off five kilos, that's the next band, let's get under 100, let's get under whatever market it is, that's what we're aiming for. So I think it's really useful to have an understanding of, well, what is my goal in the first place, but then roughly how long should it take, and then to build in some bandwidth, because a lot of people go wrong with this, they'll say, right, I'm gonna lose a kilo a week for eight weeks before my summer holidays, great. Now, What about the weekend away you have planned? What about the fact that you've got some nights out? What about this meal? What about that meal? And you realise that actually that's gonna be very difficult to do because you need to adhere to things 100 % of the time, but your schedule doesn't look like it's going to allow for that. So you're always better to give yourself a bit more time. But I do still think there's merit in kind of being like, right, I'm aiming for this goal in this timeframe. So let's say for me, I'm saying, right, I'd quite like to be down at that 74 kilo mark. by the sort of like, let's say, seventh or eighth of ⁓ August, just roughly. I'm thinking, right, that's probably a good timeline. Based on where I'm at right now, that seems reasonable, that's achievable. I've probably got a little bit of wiggle room, four or five days worth of deficit if I can run the numbers. That's probably about right, cool. So I've given myself a wee bit of leeway. I think that's really, really important. But the bit that comes next is probably more important than all of that. First off, I mean, you do have to be clear on your goal and you have to be clear it's something you actually want to pursue. because people do get caught out by this where they're like, oh yeah, I want to lose weight, I want to do this, I want to do that. And then the first thing they'll say is like, oh, but I don't want to track calories. Right, and they don't have any time to do extra steps. Okay, and I don't really want to go to the gym. Okay, we can train at home, but I don't really like training at home. Right, so we don't want to track calories, we don't want to do any extra movement, we don't want to do that, and you also don't want to give up your weekends with your friends. But what you actually mean by that is you just don't want to give up the overeating that we do on weekends, you just want to be good during the week. Okay, well. that kind of says that we're maybe not quite understanding the goal or do we don't actually want it as much as we think we do. We like the idea of it because it's okay, we can like the idea of having a Lamborghini, it doesn't mean we actually have to have one. Like that's not, it might not be that compelling a goal. Like that does not motivate me. I don't like care about that that much. I'm not saying it'd be an awful thing to have, but I just don't care about it, right? And that's probably true for most people. Like there wouldn't be someone handed in the keys, they probably wouldn't burst into tears about it, but. in terms of sadness, but they're not necessarily going to be driven to fight really hard to get there. And I think that's really, really important is, do we actually want that or are we just saying it? Are we just saying it to ourselves? Like, ⁓ yeah, I'm gonna lose weight. And it's like, okay, but what are you willing to trade off? And if the answer is very little to nothing, then that's okay. But that goal isn't for you and you probably have a different goal. Your goal might just be to get fit and healthy and kind of think, well, what does that look like? Well, that means maybe just walking a bit more. Maybe I could start there or whatever it is. or going and doing some form of exercise. But the more specific our goal is, and I guess the harder it is to achieve, the more we need to be willing to make some sort of trade-offs. So I do think that first part starts with getting clear on the goal, then giving yourself some timelines. But a bit that's really important is monitoring the trajectory we're on right now. Now, that doesn't have to be done necessarily on a week-to-week basis, although it can be useful. If I look at last week, for example, and my goals, did I drop weight? Yes. Did I do my Duolingo every single day? Yes. Did I do my Spanish lessons? Yes. Did I hit my step target? Yes. So I can kind of look, if I have two goals sitting in there, one obviously to do with weight loss and one to do with learning Spanish, then I know that I'm on the right trajectory because I did my Spanish lessons, I did my Duolingo, and I did a little bit of collage just for a few minutes. Okay, cool. So I can see if I carried on in this trajectory for the next six months, I won't be ready to speak conversational Spanish, but I will be a lot closer to that goal. in the same way if I was to carry on for the next two months, my steps and hitting my calories and hitting my protein, well, yes, I'm also going to be much closer to my goal of being in whatever weight I want to be at. So I know I'm on the right trajectory. And I think that can be a really good thing to check in with. Now, sometimes that won't be so applicable because if I've just been on holiday, for example, if you've just been away for a week, you could say, well, no, if I was on that trajectory, I'm not gonna get there. So we need to be pragmatic about it. But if you look over the last month, this can be a really good question to ask yourself is, have I been consistent enough in the behaviors that actually allow me to reach my goal? If in the last 30 days, I can say, which I have done my Duolingo every single day, smug about that, well done me, I'm impressed, because every time I've downloaded it, I've done like three days and packed it in before. But let's say I'm pushing towards that goal. Well, I've done it for the last 30 or 35 days, whatever my streak is. I've also done my lessons over that time as well. Okay, cool, so I know that bit's covered. Same with my tracking, have I tracked for the last 30 days? Yes. Have I been hitting my steps over the last 30 days? Yes. So the trajectory is the right trajectory, that's the one I want to be on. I think this is quite an important thing to do because sometimes what people do is they get caught up in the super short term where they'll be like, ⁓ but Saturday I went over my calories a bit. And it's like, okay, well let's strip that back. Over the last four weeks, have you lost weight? Yes. have you lost a reasonably good amount of weight? Or has it been like 0.1 kilos in four weeks? Because if it's that little, then we probably need to speed things up or, you know, our timeline to get to a goal is gonna be eternity. But you kind of look at it and you're like, yep, I feel like I've lost a reasonable amount in the last four weeks. I've hit my steps pretty bloody consistently. I've hit my calories pretty bloody consistently. Not perfect, but the overall trajectory is clearly in the direction of weight loss. Okay, well that's absolutely fine. Then we can kind of push on. But I think it is well worth monitoring. because a lot of people do get caught out by this is they look super, super short term, like, oh, today wasn't the best day and get stressed out. Or they're too relaxed and like, yeah, I'm focusing on losing weight at the moment. And it's like, okay, let's look at the last month and they're like, you've tracked 10 days out of 30. There's a gap. We have a problem there because actually you've not been consistent. Or maybe you've even tracked 20 or 21, 22 days, but out of 30, you've still missed eight days. And if eight of those days were really quite high in calories, are we actually on the trajectory to weight loss? or are we on a trajectory of maintenance or incredibly slow weight loss where, like I was saying, you're dropping 0.1, 0.2 kilos a month and yeah, okay, if you were to keep at this for 102 months, maybe you'd get there, but you'll die of boredom before then. So we want to be very pragmatic when we're analyzing our progress. So when you are setting goals, I really think this matters, take the time to understand the goal that you're actually aiming for. That helps. When it comes to weight loss, Well, let's be pragmatic about it. For most people, the number they want to be looking at is between 0.5 to 1 % of their body weight. Now, you might want to lose faster than that, and that's okay, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's doable. And that's like a little bit of a harsh truth, right? Because sometimes people are like, oh, but I want to be eight kilos down in four weeks. Cool. Again, it's great to want it, but that doesn't make it doable. What might be required for that is you eating no calories a day. That just doesn't work, right? It's not feasible. So what we need to figure out is okay, what's actually achievable? So we make that assumption, right, I want to lose 10 kilos, well, I weigh 70, whatever it is, eight, 77 kilos. So that's point, let's say point eight kilos a week is my top end, point four kilos is my bottom end, point six kilos is the middle. How many weeks at point six kilos of weight loss will that take to get me to that 10 kilo goal? Okay, well, it's gonna take me a little while, right? It's gonna take me probably about weeks of dropping at point six kilos a week. Now, some people will kind of think, ⁓ but that's too long. but that's what the mass tells us is realistic. That's how long the goal actually takes to achieve. And I think that can be really helpful. And then the way I reframe that is like, that sounds like a lot, but how quickly do the days pass? Look, I mean, we're already into July now, which means like January, February, March, April, May, and June have flown by. And actually we are already many, many, many, many weeks into the year and you could be much farther on with your goal if you stuck with it. So I think that's a really important thing to do is assess how long your goal is going to take. and then obviously keep checking in on the trajectory of it, but also make sure you actually want to get to the bloody goal, because for some people they just say, ⁓ yeah, I want to lose weight. That's cool, that's fine, but we need to be a little bit more determined than that. It has to be a bit more deliberate, it has to be a bit more planned. And like I say, sometimes when people get it mapped out, it's not necessarily what they first want to hear when we're like, okay, well we can probably lose a bit faster at first, so we can exceed that rate, but then it's gonna slow down a little bit to kind of more normal pace. And if you've got 20, 30, 40 kilos to lose, it's not an overnight job and that's okay. You're gonna feel better every single week. You're going to feel more comfortable in clothes, feel more confident every single week, week on week for many, many, many, many weeks, but it will still take many weeks to reach the goal. But this is something I want to kind of look back on as well as a final point. It's important to remember that the, obviously our goal is to reach the target, reach the goal, whatever it is. That's great. but let's not forget that we feel better every single step along the way, especially with fitness and weight loss goals and things like that. Someone who has 30 kilos to lose feels better from the drop of kilo one, two, three, four. They feel better every single stage, every single week that passes. They're in a little bit better shape. They feel a little bit better in themselves and often is not once you're, know, especially with something like weight loss, eight, 10, 12 weeks in, you start to feel a hell of a lot better even for clients who've kind of felt like actually have a long way to go. Very rarely does someone say like two and a half, three months in, like, ⁓ I don't feel any better. I don't feel any different. They always feel so much better. Even though, and they'll often kind of caveat and be like, I know I've still got a long way to go, but I still, feel much better now. That's a good place to be. That's a positive place to be as well. So there were some thoughts on all things, sort of, I suppose Spanish actually, unintentionally, ⁓ goals in terms of weight loss as well. So. Hopefully that was helpful. I do think it's something that's very, very important. And if you do have a weight loss goal yourself right now and you really want to crack on and you're not just mulling over, but you're really keen to actually make a change, then that is exactly what one-to-one coaching is for. The link to that is going to be in the show notes. You can pop me a little message on WhatsApp and I will get back to you on all things coaching and how one-to-one coaching can help you get into the best shape of your life and have a better relationship with food and exercise. Otherwise, hasta luego and see you later.