Let's Start at the Beginning. Goals.

The beginning, to me, is the most important part of any journey. If you take the time to set your GPS, you will arrive at your destination. Sure, Garmin may take you on a few detours off your path, but you will pretty much end up where you set out for.

So lets think about the beginning of a fitness or lifestyle change journey. As you can see by looking back to the beginning of my blog, I have had different ideas of what I wanted but I never really had a clear cut GOAL spelled out. I wanted to get skinny, I wanted to get fit, I wanted to bodybuild. Those are not goals. Now, my goal is to loose 30 lbs by May 25th, 2010. (My anniversary.) THAT is what a goal looks like. There is a measurable outcome and a deadline! The key difference between people who succeed and people who fail is the ability to set a goal, and then break it down into smaller parts and accomplish them. Once I reach that goal, I will set another one for myself.

It is important to set a realistic goal. Loosing 5 lbs a week is not healthy OR realistic. If you are overweight there is a reason for it and I think it is very smart to allow yourself plenty of time and grace to change your bad habits. (We ALL have bad habits!! Mine is sugar. What is yours?) A healthy amount of weight to drop in a week is 1-2 lbs.

It is also important to take the time to do some research about how you plan to get there. You need to find excercise that you enjoy. The excercise needs to include both cardio AND strength training. You need to start a food journal so that you can see what you are eating everyday and what you need to eliminate and add to your diet to balance it. I found that getting some good recipes for desserts was helpful to me because I love sweets and I didn't want to deprive myself. You need to meditate on what it is that you really want out of your first leg of the journey. Maybe your first goal is cutting out soda by 14 days from now. That would be really helpful if you want to get healthy. Switching everything to "diet" is not a good choice for a healthy lifestyle.

Finally, write it down! Do some journaling to write your ideas down and then cut them down into a realistic and definitive goal.

There is a lot of information out there, and you have choose what fits into your life the best.

What is your goal?

Blessings!!!
Jenny