Chapter II: Setting Obtainable Goals

After realizing that there needs to b a change implemented into your life, you must now set long term and short term goals for yourself. This applies to any sort of change that you want to undergo. For example, If you want to lose weight, you might want to set a short term goal such as two pounds a week or 10 pounds a month etc.

This is truly a huge step in the achieving total fitness. If you choose obtainable short and long term goals you will be able to actually see and feel the hard work you are doing. Each small goal you achieve is like a tiny battle you have won. The more battles you win the more likely you will win the war (Achieve your overall long term goal).

A fitness goal should be comprised of a few different parts. The first part of the goal should be what you want to change (lose weight, tone, build muscle etc.) The second part of the goal should be the amount of time that this goal should be done by (days, weeks, months.) The third and final part of goal planning is how you are going to do it. That is what the remainder of this guide will focus on.

Not everybody’s goals are the same so it is quite hard to generalize a typical goal. I will give a few example of unattainable and poor goal planning so you can see what to do and what not to do.

EXAMPLE #1

My name is Laura and my goal is to lose 40 pounds in two months. My short term goal is to lose about 3-4 pounds a week. I don’t really know how I am going to do this because I haven’t read the rest of the “Beginners Guide to Total Fitness”

This is an example of poor goal planning. A general rule of thumb that I tell people that work with in the gym is that you should never lose more than 2 pounds of weight a week. Now you might be wonderinig about shows like “The Biggest Loser.” The contestents on the biggest loser are under DIRECT medical supervison. After every workout they have they are montered by a medical personal. The medical community generally agrees with my “rule of thumb.” So in that being said the 40 pounds in one month is out.

EXAMPLE: 2

A more reasonable goal would be as follows: I would like to lose 40 pounds in 4 months. I will conquer my long term goal by setting a short term goal of 10 pounds a month as well as 2 pounds a week. As to how this will be done will be shown in later chapters in this guide.



Setting long and short term obtainable goals will help in the total fitness process. So far we have covered two critical steps in the total fitness transformation. The first was discovering a need to change lifestyle habits. This is all that this step required-just needed to realize that a change was needed. The second step was setting long and short term obtainable goals.

In the next chapter we will explore the motivation aspect of aquiring that physique that you have always wanted!