I started my fat loss journey on 2nd January 2009. For more years than I care to remember, my number one resolution was to lose weight and get fitter. By March this resolution would be stamped into the dust.

This time it wasn’t a New Year resolution that prompted me into action. It had taken several weeks of reflection on why I wanted to get into shape and lose the fat. For you to fully understand this, I need to explain the circumstances going on at this time.

The world was in the grip of a economic recession, major banking institution were failing, good people were losing their jobs. This was a time of great uncertainty. I decided that there was no point trying to control what in reality I couldn’t control. What I could control was what I ate and how much exercise I did. I thought if the worse came to the worse at least I would have my health, fitness and body shape. No company could take that away from you.

Having the right reason to lose weight is important, a ‘want’ is not really enough. Fortunately my need to lose weight wasn’t forced upon me for health reasons. By making my focus my body and health meant that I didn’t worry about what was going on around work. I would go to work and count the hours until my next gym session. The exercise at lunchtimes and eating often (which kept my blood sugar levels even), also had the added benefit of lowering stress, making me more alert and increasing my productivity. The latter not going unnoticed, which is not a bad thing in a recession.

Training SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely)

This is how I applied the SMART methodology to my fat loss goals.

Specific – I broke my goal into smaller steps, being specific of what I was trying to achieve at each stage. I would aim to lose weight or drop a belt hole by a certain date. I also knew what weight and waist size I was aiming for from the beginning.

Measurable – just having one measure isn’t enough. You could lose muscle and therefore weight but still have lots of fat. I had a number of body measurements which I took from the beginning, as well as my weight. I monitored my progress against these. I even recorded the time it took me to run over a certain distance to measure my fitness progress. See my post “Measuring progress” for those measurements.

Achievable – I knew that it was achievable to change your body shape, plenty of people have done it in the past. I needed to make sure that I gave myself enough time and to believe in the process, even if or when results were slow. Reaching my mini-goals reinforced the belief that my end goal was attainable.

Realistic – I had to adjust my training and eating schedules around typical office hours and demands. This meant that I had to train effectively with the time I had. High intensity interval training meant I could get a demanding cardio session in just 30 minutes. I also had the odd ‘cheat’ meal, as I knew that I couldn’t be virtuous 100% of the time. I didn’t feel guilty as I knew it wasn’t something I would do consistently.

Timely – I was realistic on how long changes would take. I aimed for 2lbs weight loss a week and no more. As I did lose the weight, I adjusted my expectation to 1lb a week as a moved towards my ideal weight. At the beginning, it was about every four weeks that I dropped an inch of my waist. Sustainable weight loss and change of body shape takes time. If not every one could do it in weeks, just like in the adverts.

A final thought. When I first started going to the gym, I didn’t really enjoy it that much. However, my cousin had a great philosophy. She felt that the gym was the only time she could be selfish and that everything she did in her gym was solely for her benefit. It was her time for herself; her sanctuary. Over a few weeks I started to understand what she meant, and now I see any exercise as one of those rare times when you can be selfish and do things that benefit just you.