A lot of clients at RCF, whether they come to the gym in Houston, TX, or workout online, hate to take the time to make goals or when they do, make them unrealistic. Why should your weight loss goal be realistic? There are a lot of reasons. You not only want to lose weight, but you also want to keep those pounds off permanently. Unrealistic goals may cause you to starve yourself to achieve, so you won’t learn how to eat healthy for permanent weight loss. If you set them too high, it can also be discouraging. Losing weight permanently is all about changing habits and habits take a while to change.
Is your overall goal a healthy one?
If you’re trying to lose weight, but are already to thin, there’s a big problem. If you weigh 135 pounds, that doesn’t mean much, you might be the perfect weight, too thin or too heavy, it all depends on your height. A person who is six foot tall and weighs 135 is classed as underweight on the BMI chart, but they’re five foot tall, they’re overweight. You need to know what your ideal weight is for your gender, age, height and build to see how much you need to lose.
Once you determine your ideal weight, set your goal.
Keep your goal healthy by checking with a BMI chart and give yourself a healthy timeline. Most trainers agree that aiming for losing two pounds each week is a healthy route to take, particularly if you’re using both exercise and a healthy diet. You’ll probably lose more weight in the beginning, since the bigger you are, the more calories you’ll burn. It’s like carrying a heavy weight everywhere you go. Just stick with the two pound loss each week, even if you lose a ton the first week or two, it will slow down.
Divide your goal by two to find how long it will take.
If forty pounds is your ultimate goal, it will take you 20 weeks. Now you have to put it on a timeline. If you’re starting May 1, you’d reach your goal by September 18th. You’re now ready to make your goal, it will be similar to: “I will lose 20 pounds by September 18th by following a healthy diet of 1200 calories daily and working out 45 minutes a day. Track your progress to make sure you stay on track.
As you build muscle tissue, you’ll burn more calories, since muscle tissue requires more than fat tissue does. However, muscle tissue weighs more per cubic inch, so you may not shed a pound, but look thinner.
While a healthy diet is the most important part of weight loss, since you can’t out-exercise a bad diet, you need exercise to tone and shape your body. Stick with realistic workouts.
You don’t have to stick with strictly pounds as your goal, you can use inches or other way to measure your progress. Even tracking your progress with a picture of you in the same outfit each time works, especially if it’s way too tight initially.
Keeping your goals realistic boosts your motivation, especially if you exceed your goals, which can happen, particularly in the beginning. They help you not only form a plan, but let you modify it if you’re not getting the results you want.