Realistic goals

Yesterday I was emailing a friend with a mini challenge for myself.  She and I are planning on hooking up for a girls weekend. (she is a friend who's blog I have followed for years.....about 3-4 years ago we met in person and have met up about 1-2 times a year since then, usually with our husbands in tow.....this year we are adding a girls weekend).  We are looking at the end of August for our get together.  I have thrown down the challenge of 10 pounds lost by then.  So I was writing about different scenarios and accidentally typed in 135.    She immediately caught onto that and laughed about that weight.   It made me think though.  I know that for me 135 is totally unrealistic.  I'm 5'8" ...that would be at the utter bottom of the BMI index for me......I know from past experience that just getting TO the BMI index weight range for me has everyone screaming about how sick and gaunt I look....and my doctor actually told me that it was pretty much an impossible goal for me (unless I was a professional athlete that was exercising 6-7 hours a day).  So 135 is a goal that will never be in my vocabulary and I know it.  yet, I hear time and time again about people bashing their heads against a wall trying to get to a certain 'weight', even though they are a size 8 and look great!  (and it works the other way, I've seen and read about people screaming because they want to be a size 6.....but they just can't get past the 8....even though they are toned, muscular, look great and weigh a nice respectable weight.  Unrealistic goals derail us.

But I wonder how many times I set goals that are totally unrealistic for me, my life, my body type and my personality.

I know I've set goals for myself to be 100% on plan.  That is unrealistic.  I'm a human being. I have a job, a husband and family nearby.  I have time constraints and yes, with some injuries some health constraints.  It is not possible to be 100% on plan.   But is it more realistic to say "I can be on plan 95% of the time, or 90% of the time?"  Yes, that is.  I'm a human and things will happen.  If I set a goal that I can actually achieve, I won't be tempted to say "well, I messed up my 100% perfection...so I may as well have that chocolate cake (notice I didn't say a PIECE of chocolate cake...I said THE chocolate cake!).

My mini goal of 10 pounds is in 6.5 weeks.  I feel that that is actually a realistic goal.

As for eating, I KNOW that there will be days where the pressures of life get to me.  But you know what.....I'm not aiming to be perfect.  I aim to keep those less than perfect days at a minimum....but I accept that they will happen.  After all, I'm not perfect (shhhh don't tell my husband!)

Personal wise....I've had a story in my head that needs to be written.  It is heavily centered around weight issues.  But I want to show that weight isn't the end all be all to everything that it's what's inside that really counts!   This story has been knocking around in my head for quite some time.  I started it and while I'm only a bit into it, I paused in the writing...I need to restart it.  Because I think it NEEDS to be written!