By Louise Hurley
Does this sound familiar… January rolls around and you feel driven to make this year the year that you finally get fitter, lose weight, tone up, eat better and drink less alcohol.
It starts off well and you feel like a “new you” but by March you’ve found yourself feeling like the “old you” again, back in the same cycle and habits as before Christmas. Let me tell you, you are not alone! So many people start off the year making changes to their lifestyle but find it challenging to make these changes stick.
In this article I’m going to share with you how the way in which you frame your goals can be the difference between achieving them and feeling as though you’re never making any progress.
Over the years I’ve heard from many people that their goal is to become healthier, or eat better, lose weight, tone up, get stronger, etc.
These are all legitimate goals, but I always ask three important questions when people share these goals with me:
- Why? What is your reason for that goal? (and then I continue to ask “why” to dig deeper)
- Do these goals really reflect what you want to achieve?
- How do you know when you’ve reached/achieved that goal?
Know your why
I’m going to let you in on a little secret… I’m a fitness professional and I have to dig really deep to find the motivation to get out of bed early and leave the house to exercise! If it wasn’t for my ‘why’, I would honestly happily stay snuggled up in bed and continue to sleep! I don’t have an abundance of motivation, I just have enough to get me out of bed.
And yet I still get up four times a week and train. But Why!? Well, I’ll tell you:
- In the short term I really love the feeling after I’ve finished my workout (not before or during), it’s beneficial for managing my stress and I also enjoy the company of other people.
- In the long term, I’m training for longevity. If I’m fortunate enough to live until I’m in my eighties, I don’t want to become frail and lose my independence. I want to be able to get up from the ground if I fall, I want to minimise the chance of fracturing a bone, I want to be as independently mobile as possible and I want to be able to unscrew the lids from jars!
You don’t need a lot of willpower to stick to your fitness goals, you don’t need to be dedicated. You need to know why you are doing it, which leads nicely to asking yourself if the goal you’ve come up with really is a goal you want to achieve.
Make sure your goal actually reflects what you want to achieve
I want to start with the example of weight loss. Many people have a goal of losing weight and when asked “why” they say it’s because they want to be healthier and happier. Ready for a truth bomb? Weight loss isn’t actually a good measurement of health (and it certainly doesn’t equate to happiness) because the number on the scales doesn’t say anything about your cardiovascular health, strength, muscle mass, bone density, mobility, digestive health and mental health.
You could lose ten kilograms and still have poor health in all of these areas. In contrast, you could remain the same weight yet show improvements in all of these areas of health. Therefore if we go back to the example I used, losing weight wasn’t really the goal. The goal was actually to improve cardiovascular health, increase strength, muscle mass and bone density, become more mobile, improve digestive health and make positive lifestyle changes that will have mental health benefits.
There’s no right or wrong when it comes to choosing your goals, and you have autonomy over what you do with your body, but I truly believe that aiming to lose weight or lowering your BMI (Body Mass Index; a number that correlates your weight to your height) isn’t a helpful goal for the following reasons:
- There are too many variables, such as your menstrual cycle, how much water you’ve drank, the time of day that you weigh yourself, how much sweat you’ve produced, etc.
- As I mentioned above, your weight, and also your BMI, are not good measurements of health.
- Throughout my fitness career I’ve seen that when people improve other areas of their health (like cardiovascular fitness and strength), weight loss happens as a result.
When you come up with a goal, ask yourself why, and then keep asking why until you can identify the very specific
reason why you want to achieve it. More often than not, the language you use to outline your goal will change or your goal may change entirely.
Make Your Goals Measurable
Now that you’ve identified why you want to achieve a particular goal and you’re certain that this goal actually reflects what you want to achieve, the next step is to make it measurable. Your fitness goals (or indeed any goals) need to be measurable so that you can track your progress and know when you have achieved them (and then celebrate!). Having the goal of “getting fitter” or “more toned”, for example, are legitimate goals, but what constitutes “fitter” or “more toned”? How do you know when you have reached that goal? How much fitter or more toned do you need to be to pat yourself on the back and say, “hooray, I’ve reached my goal”?
Here are some great examples of measurable goals:
- To run 5km without stopping
- To swim three times per week
- To eat 6 types of fruit/veggies per day
- To do eight unassisted pull ups
- To increase muscle mass by one percent by [insert date]
All this being said, you may not want to set fitness goals. You may want to simply enjoy the journey and make some healthy life long changes. And you know what? That is absolutely ok. Whether you set fitness goals or not, I encourage you to set your eyes on the long term prize that is longevity.
Louise Hurley As a MumSafe™ trainer and Pregnancy and Postnatal Corrective Exercise Specialist, Louise’s mission is to help mums at every stage of motherhood safely start or return to exercise. Louise is the owner of Strong Mums and runs small group training and 1:1 PT. Find out more at www.strongmums.com or on social media @strongmumsgosford