Part 3 of 6

All too often we will set off with a new diet and exercise routine with no goal or very unrealistic goals that may never be achieved. This can soon leave us directionless and unmotivated. Before setting your goals you have to decide where you ultimately want to be, what is it you really want to achieve from all the hard work you will put in. A common mistake is to pick someone famous’ body and say to yourself “that’s what I want to look like”. Or “I want her legs, but her stomach” If only we could all pick our bodies from the “body parts market” but life is not like that and the one resounding factor to this is the wonderful world of genetics.

Genetics come from our parents and in turn from their parents and so on and so on and they determine among many things the way our body develops and reacts to food and exercise, how tall we are and how we look. So when selecting your goals be realistic, realise what your own body will allow. Then if you need to pick someone to model yourself on pick someone with similar genetics. e.g. If you are shorter than average don’t pick a supermodel to emulate.

Once you have a realistic goal you then need to create smaller goals to guide you there. Picture your final goal at the top of some stairs, each step then becomes a mini goal to aid your progression. It is far more rewarding to succeed at many goals than it is to achieve one goal when the end result is the same. Everyone has their own targets to reach but for our example we are going to use weight loss primarily because it is by far the most popular goal to achieve.

It is very unhealthy to lose too much weight in a short amount of time. You should be looking at losing around 2lbs of ‘fat’ per week. This will vary from week to week so don’t panic if sometimes you don’t lose as much as this. Try to measure your body fat % rather than your weight (you can do this at a lot of gyms or you can buy special scales that will measure body fat% as well as your weight and they are relatively inexpensive). Measuring just your weight can become very depressing when you don’t see change. But remember just because the scales don’t show change doesn’t mean that your body’s not adapting to your new lifestyle.

Time lines for your mini goals are vital. Don’t set yourself mini goals once a week but give your body time to change, it’s more than likely that any change won’t be instant anyway. Set your goals between 1-2 months, I have found is best for the majority of people. So if weight loss is the key then you know you can lose safely 2lbs per week so for a 2 month goal you would set it at 16lbs loss of body fat, which I am sure you will agree is a good amount. With this information you should be able to calculate how long it will take you to reach your main goal. Yes, it can seem daunting and a long way off, so don’t focus on it for too long: just put all your effort into your first mini goal.

read part 4

Tags: Diet, Exercise, fitness, Goal, results, setting, targets

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 21st, 2007 at 5:29 am and is filed under Top Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.