I have given up on the notion that I will EVER weigh 110-115 pounds, which technically, according to “standards” , is the ideal weight for a woman my height. I have decided to set a more realistic and sensible goal for me, which is 135 pounds. Yes, that may still be a little on the “heavy” side, but I think that it works well enough for me, and that is my goal this 2011. Reaching this goal is not going to be easy, I’m sure, but I do plan to break down the process into smaller, more manageable chunks which I think will allow me to see progress as the months go by.

So how do I plan to do this? First off, I’d really like to start with by WRITING DOWN MY GOALS and KEEPING A WEEKLY LOG of my weight loss journey. As such, I would really like to win that rare Starbucks leather planner being given away by a fellow blogger, Brian Ong (hint hint ). I have learned in the past few months that writing down things makes it more tangible and therefore, doable. For example, if it were not for this blog, I would have probably not made as much progress in losing weight, especially since I know I have readers who support my blog and even voted for it in this years emerging influential blog search.

Secondly, I plan to not just set monthly goals for me to meet in the weight loss journey but also keep a food diary because this will allow me to be mindful of what I am eating on a daily basis. It’s easy to forget and just eat mindlessly, let me tell you, so by keeping a record, I can monitor what I put into my body and see what may be obstacles that I need to hurdle.

Lastly, I plan to plan my 2011 with a planner by keeping a weight loss scorecard at the end of every month. That way I can have visible proof of my success.

Like I said, weight loss is a journey…there’s no shortcuts to it or programs to shrink one’s waistline in an instant. On the other hand, long blog URL’s do have a quick and easy shortener tool that will shrink super long URL’s (especially when your blog posts have long titles like I often do!) that make for easier sharing in many social networks that offer limited characters per message, such as in Twitter or Plurk. The xvr.in URL shortener puts your long blog URL’s on a quick “diet” and shrinks it to one that has about 8-20 characters instead of the usual long ones that end up being truncated in some sites when shared. Coolness, right?