Conscious Fitness: Realistic Goals Lead to Successful Results ~ Daily Discovery

Posted by: Rhoda on 10:26 PM in Weight loss

A US Marine Doing Pull-ups. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Great goals need to be more than just positive and specific. They need to be reachable and they need to have a time frame. Back to my illustration of the road trip; planning to drive from Seattle to Washington D.C. in 24 hours is completely unrealistic and you'll never make it. You're setting yourself for failure. Driving there is physically possible but the time frame is illogical. To be a good goal your trip needs to be physically possible with a reasonable time frame. The same is true of any goal we set, including fitness goals. Most goals I see that fail to be reached are just unrealistic with the circumstances a person has.

When you set a goal you want it to be physically possible and emotionally possible. Having a goal that is going to put you under great amounts of stress may cause you to have to stop for one reason or another and getting started again is even tougher the second time around. For example, let's say you have a big project at work coming up that is going to take an extra 5-10 hours a week. At the same time you also start a fitness program and set the goal of devoting 1 hour a day at the gym.

Realistically, you need to add the commute and locker room time into the equation so your 1 hour of gym time is closer to 2 hours. That on top of your normal daily responsibilities and the additional 1-2 hours a day at work leaves you stressed, tired, and physically drained. Which endeavor do you think will fall to the wayside? It will most likely be your gym time because work and family obligations usually have to come first due to necessity.

By being aware of this first, you can set a goal that is more realistic at this time. You could set the goal of working out at home for 30 minutes performing a body weight circuit 3x a week and also focusing on eating 5 times a day to boost your metabolism. The latter scenario will allow you to perform at work while still positively affecting your health and metabolism without causing unnecessary stress on your emotional or physical being. True fitness should positively affect all areas of your life. Having a realistic timeline is also important or your back into dreaming about it. To help setting up a timeline here is a statistic to help you plan: you can safely lose up to 1.5 pounds of fat a week if you are hitting the nail on the head with regards to your exercise performance and nutrition intake. That means that in a month you can safely lose and up to 6 lbs of fat.

If your goal is to change how you look by losing unwanted fat make your goal one that you have to work for but you can realistically meet. Avoid the claims that you can lose 10 lbs for the event you're attending in 3 weeks? You might lose ten pounds of weight, but it isn't going to be fat. Instead the weight you lose will probably be water and precious fat burning lean muscle. The lesson here is to set your goals so that they are reachable, physically and emotionally, because if either one of those fails then you can fall into discouragement. Make them tuff enough that you will need discipline and work but not so high that you are unable to reach them. Or you can set smaller ones that move you towards your ULTIMATE GOAL.

To recap from my last three articles on goal setting: ? Write your goal down ? Keep it positive, pay attention to how it makes you feel when read out loud ? Keep it realistic ? Have a due date If you follow these simple guidelines you can write goals that are positive and reachable every time without fail. By changing our behaviors now, we change our futures tomorrow.