I’ve always struggled to maintain a healthy weight due to various issues. I don’t have an eating disorder, but I do have disordered eating habits. (I expect that this sort of setup would work for eating disorders as well, but I’m not a doctor or anything like that.) This past summer I realized I’d gained a bit too much weight and wanted to try Beeminder for a weight-loss goal, but I was hesitant because I didn’t want to add any incentive to continue losing more weight than I needed to. The solution: make two Beeminder goals!
Losing the weight was no problem. In August I set up the goal to lose 5kg by the end of the year, and I’d already reached that goal by the start of November. Weight loss has never been the tricky part for me (both a blessing and a curse), but maintaining a healthy weight and not just continuing to lose weight has always been hard. So I’m very pleased that these two goals combined have kept me in my intended weight range (+/- 1kg away from 65kg) for about three months so far. I did give myself an extra kg of wiggle room for the holidays, and that worked really well also.
I also have a third goal which makes sure I weigh myself at least five days a week so that I stay on track consistently and don’t just quit paying attention entirely. Everything syncs together beautifully through IFTTT and my Withings scale (found for a great price on eBay!), so tracking all this is no trouble at all. I step on the scale once in the morning and technology does the rest. I get a reminder from Beeminder if I’m getting too close to either limit, and otherwise I don’t have to think about it.
Here’s how the two goals work together (one do-more and one do-less goal):
