Goals are super important when you think about weight loss as part of reversing type 2 diabetes. 
The problem with goals is they are not SMART goals very often. SMART goals are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
If you want to learn more about what SMART goals are and how to write them, you can check out this site.
SMART goals are important because they give us clear direction.
For example, I can say I want to lose 100 pounds in six months, but is this a SMART goal? Maybe.
Let’s look at it by each standard.
1. Specific. Yep it is specific
2. Measurable. Yep. I can step on a scale and see if I have lost weight.
3. Achievable. Maybe. Losing 100 pounds in six months is a lot and it may not even be healthy to lose that much in that short of a period. I am not an expert, but I would imagine that it is not overly healthy and perhaps not sustainable, either. There are several sites that have posts about the top ways to lose 100 pounds safely in six months. As I said, I am not an expert, but personally, I do not think it is healthy nor sustainable and unless I was sick, I do not think I would try it.
4. Relevant. It certainly can be relevant. We are talking about a killer condition (type 2 diabetes) and one of the ways of fighting back against it is losing weight. Yeah, it is relevant.
5. Time-bound. Again, I am not sure six months is long enough to lose that much weight in a healthy way, but yes, it is time-bound as you have given yourself a deadline.
When I make SMART goals, I almost always create other “mini” goals to go with them. So for the loss of 100 pounds, I might have a breakdown of how many pounds I want to lose each month. This would be followed up by how I would burn calories, what I would eat (how many calories I can eat each day), along any other details I might feel are important.
When I began some work on myself with Entre Institute and Jeff Lerner, one of the things I did was create goals for an awesome life challenge.
In Today’s video, I talk more about the goals I created for the challenge. I hope you enjoy it!
Thank you for visiting my site. I would love to hear your thoughts on this post. Please leave questions or comments below and I will get back to you very soon!
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Disclaimer: I am not a medical expert. The posts that I write are not to offer medical advice, but merely what I am doing on my journey and things that I personally have found helpful. I do a lot of reading and researching from an academic standpoint and will use some content that comes from people in the medical profession. If you have questions or concerns about anything that I write, please contact me at karin@diabeteshealthnuts.com. Thank you! 🙂
About the author
Karin Nauber is a professional journalist who has worked in the newspaper business for the past 25 years. She is also a grandmother who, along with her spouse, is raising one of their granddaughters. Karin has nine grandchildren with whom she enjoys spending as much time as possible. Karin also was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes about 13 years ago and has faced many challenges with the disease. If you would like to contact her, please do so at karin@diabeteshealthnuts.com.
Very understandable example of what a SMART goal is and how we need to frame our lives in a way that benefits our every day life and health. I have been struggling with type 1 diabetes since I was 6 years old (19 years with this condition) and it has been quite a struggle. Thankfully I have been using an insulin pump that has helped me manage my blood sugar, but I have had several health complications (retinopathy, kidney failure, damage to my nerves…) it’s been hard. I really wish people could understand how dangerous this condition is and could be able to find articles like this that gives you a small insight into what it is to struggle with diabetes and how we can better ourselves during the process.
Thank you for visiting our site, Stephanie. I am sorry to hear that you struggle with type 1 diabetes. I am glad the insulin pump works for you in spite of the ongoing health issues. People as a rule do not understand how dangerous diabetes is. When you tell someone you had a blood sugar reading of 520 they don’t know what that means.
Many are also unaware of the ongoing conditions diabetics are faced with. I hope that I am doing a good job of educating the general public. I don’t want to use scare tactics, but this condition is a killer and people need to know!
I wish you good health and I appreciate you sharing about your struggle.
To our health,
Karin 😎
Thank you very much for helping me set up goals to live a healthier life and reverse type 2 diabetes. One of the main points for me is that these goals must be measurable. And that makes sense, because there is nothing more motivating than to see we’re making progress. Thank you very much for this article.
Thank you for visiting our site, Abel.
I am glad you were able to use some of the information about SMART goals. They really do work for any area of our life that we are setting goals for.
To our health,
Karin 😎