Setting Diet and Fitness Goals

How to Achieve Health and Weight Loss Goals

Without aims, our lives are unfocused, undisciplined, out of control. We become slaves to passing whims. There's no freedom without discipline. There's no happiness without control. They enable us to liberate ourselves and become happier.

Diet Fitness Goal Setting: Step 1

Taking Control

As Brian Tracy emphasizes in his series "The Psychology of Achievement," goals are critical for living well because they enable us to control the direction of our lives. Whether we like it or not, our lives are in perpetual flux. The critical question is whether we take charge of the flux or the flux takes charge of us.

Using goals properly is not easy. A balance is necessary for a balanced life. Being out of balance is being unhappy. Balance is required for happiness. Furthermore, our aims must be compatible with each other, and they must be compatible with our values.

Here's the best way to begin to clarify your most important values: ask yourself, if time and money were sufficient, what would I be, do, or have?

In other words, if you didn't have to worry at all about time and money, what would you do with your life? Alternatively, if time and money was no object and you learned that you would suddenly die in six months, what would you spend those six months doing?

Even though a balance of aims is necessary, they must be prioritized (ranked). Some are more important than others are. What do you really want out of life? Of those aims, which are the most important?

The following is a list of some abstract goods that many people consider to be of intrinsic value (in no particular order and we don't suggest it's a complete list): life, compassion, health, fitness, strength, peace, security, freedom, justice, wisdom, knowledge, truth, honor, harmony, happiness, contentment, friendship, spiritual enlightenment, aesthetic experience, satisfaction, creativity, consciousness, activity, pleasure, virtue, and beauty.

Setting goals properly, including goals for diet, fitness, and weight loss, involves three steps. First, write down and prioritize them. Second, plan how to make those abstract goods concrete in your life. Third, test and work your plan.

Diet Fitness Goal Setting: Step 2

Objectives

Separate your serious objectives from your mere wishes. After simply listing them in writing, separate them into categories.

To do that, we suggest examining your life from six standpoints: physical, intellectual and artistic, moral, spiritual, financial, and emotional.

Now separate your objectives into those categories. Ensure that they can work together.

Prioritize the six categories using 'A' for your most important category, 'B' for your second most important category, and so on.

Finally, set a deadline for achieving each goal, write out the resulting list, and post it somewhere where you'll see it daily (for example, on the refrigerator door).

Begin each goal statement with the word "I" and write the sentence in the present tense. In brackets after the sentence, write the deadline for achieving it.

Suppose, for example, that your B-2 goal is to achieve a body fat percentage of 24 by Christmas. You would write: "I have a body fat percentage of 24% [Christmas]."

Then rank the goals within each category. If you achieved it, which of your objectives would have the greatest positive impact on your life? That is your "A-1" goal, and right now achieving it is your most important purpose in life.

If you could achieve only one other one from category A, which would it be? That is "A-2." When you finish ranking those in A, rank those in the other five categories.

Diet Fitness Goal Setting: Step 3

Mindstorming Lists

For each major objective, practice what Earl Nightingale called "mindstorming" to list everything you can imagine doing that might enable you to achieve it.

Find a quiet spot early in the morning when your mind is fresh. Take a blank sheet of paper and write at its top: "What can I do to achieve _________ in the next ________." Fill in the first blank with your A-1 goal and the second with its deadline. Then write down at least twenty answers. Discipline yourself not to get up until you have at least that many.

Do not evaluate, judge, or criticize your answers initially—just write them down. Let yourself go. Be creative. Even consider writing down the opposites of previous answers! If you later think of more answers, add them to the list.

Then organize your possible action steps into a realistic plan of action. Your plan should be based on both priorities and sequence. To set priorities, plan action steps for aims that are more important before planning them for less important aims. Though it is important to have one major aim at a time, you should do a little bit every day to keep working on a balance of goals.

To have a coherent sequence whenever action step Y is not possible until action step X has been taken, then plan to do X before Y.

Many people find it best to work in 90-day (twelve week) periods. Break down your action plan down from there into weekly and daily activities.

The fact is that we thrive on effective routines, and that is what you are planning. When you have finished, write down the resulting plan of action. Then put it in a prominent place where you can see it each day.

Diet Fitness Goal Setting: 4

Take Action Today

To achieve our aims, we need to discipline our thoughts and focus on what we must do for weight loss. Therefore, take action today!

The work that you have planned is worthless until you begin working the plan. Please do not wait to have everything perfectly in order to begin: just start. Do something. Unless you are ill or injured, at a minimum, do something every day to achieve your diet, fitness and weight loss, A-1 objective.

Do not expect too much of you yourself too much too quickly; it is a form of self-sabotage. It is fine if your initial steps are just baby steps: what is critical is doing something daily that moves you in the right direction.

You really can climb a mountain if you keep taking one small step at a time and keep climbing.

Review your diet, fitness, and weight loss plan at the start of every month. As you achieve your objectives and discover what does and does not work best for you, simply revise your plan accordingly.

The steps are all necessary if you want to make your dreams come true. The critical first step is to uncover what you really value.

Do you assume full responsibility for the quality of your life? Do you have any self-limiting beliefs or incompatible values that are blocking your way? Do you have habits that are not serving you well? Do you have all the habits that you need to get what you want from life?

It is only by working in a disciplined way that you will achieve your dreams. In terms of achieving lasting weight loss, it's important to state your objective in terms of body fat percentage.

Forget about your body weight. If you lost twenty pounds of fat and replaced it with twenty pounds of muscle, your body weight wouldn't change but your body composition would significantly improve. You would look better and fel better.

What would be a good target in terms of body fat percentage? There is no universal standard. There are too many variables to take into consideration.

However, if you are overweight or obese, then a good initial goal might be 25% if you are female and 20% if you are male, but check with your physician.

(We mention this in case you want to get started on Step 2 of goal-setting and need somewhere to begin; you can revise the numbers to suit your situation. If you are already in better-than-average condition, 15% if you are female and 10% if you are male might be appropriate.)

Take into account what your present percentage of body fat is and do not plan on a weekly reduction of more than ¼ or ½ percent>.

To determine your present percentage of body fat, we suggest plastic caliphers by Accu-Measure, which are readily available for under $20.

It takes practice to use them well, but soon you'll be able to have a sufficiently accurate weekly measurement of your body fat percentage.

You'll find that number is really helpful in gaining and sustaining your diet, fitness, and weight loss target.

This completes the "Diet Fitness Goals Setting" page. Choose from the main menu, or go to the next page of the psychology section to understand how to use your diet and fitness plans for permanent weight loss.

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