If you have health and fitness goals, look at them closely.
- Do you want to lose 10 pounds?
- Do you want to build better health?
- Do you want to have a stronger heart?
- Do you want to have less stress during the upcoming busy Fall season?
Next, look at your behavior.
Does your behavior match your goals?
If you want to lose 10 pounds are you tracking your diet?
Do you know how many calories you ate yesterday, the day before that and the day before that?
So the 64, 000 thousand dollar question becomes, does your behavior match your goals?
If yes, congratulations, you are well on your way to reaching your goals.
If no, then you either have to change your behaviors or change your goals.
If, for instance, you are trying to lose those 10 pounds that just won’t go away but you are only willing to change your diet to only things that are really easy to eat and taste good to you, then
“Houston, we have a problem.”
It’s one thing to have a goal but it’s quite another to line up your behaviors so that you reach that goal.
Is it tough to do?
Sometimes.
Is it worth it in the end?
Every time!
Here’s a personal example.
In January of this year, I weighed 208lbs.
As of today, August 2009, I weigh 195lbs.
I’ve done this by tracking my calories using a fantastic free tool called ‘Lose It!” available for the iphone .
It takes about 30 seconds to log each meal and I know exactly how many calories I can eat to reach my goal.
Some days, I work out twice a day – once with my boot camp class and then again with my training partner at the gym.
My goal is 190lbs by September 26th 2009.
I have about 5 weeks to get there.
That’s plenty of time to do it in a safe and healthy way.
And there are 3 words to which all of this really boils down to.
They are:
As Dan John talks about in his book, “Never Let Go”, “There’s certainly a value to each level, but success in life and lifting only occurs during the “must phase” of goal-setting.“
“I should lose 10 pounds”
“I should eat healthier”
“I should workout more”
This approach is worthless.
The person accepts the issue but then lets the problem slide by him as he reaches for the TV remote and the bag of chips.
The “could phase” is the beginning to the path of success.
“You know, I could lose 10 pounds and I could do the low carb thing.”
“You know, I could keep an eye on my diet a little more and include more healthy foods.”
“You know, I could workout in the morning before work and have my husband watch the kids.”
Knowledge is power in the could phase.
You know what to do but just don’t seem to find the power to do it.
So enter the “must phase”.
And you know what?
Not one thing in this article matters at all because to be truly great at accomplishing your health and fitness goals, you’ve got to make your goals MUSTS.
“I must go to bed by a certain time at night in order to get up at 5am to kick some tail at my boot camp class tomorrow!”
“I must pack my lunch each day with high quality protein, low glycemic carbs and one or two fresh fruits in order to fuel my body properly”
“I must understand that there will be days that I want to eat the entire display at Krispy Kreme doughnuts but I know that that thought will pass”
“I must not focus on being hungry because I just ate a healthy 500 calorie meal so my body has everything it needs to operate at its highest level.
Those thoughts that I am having are pure emotional triggers.
And they will pass.
In fact they will all but disappear as I start looking forward to eating healthy and as a result feeling better!”
