Setting Goals When Dieting! What Should You Know?

Setting Goals When Dieting:

As with most things in life, setting goals is very important when dieting. When you look at things truthfully and objectively you should notice that most of the things you’ve accomplished in life have been accomplished because you not only had a goal but also had a clearly planned and well thought out process for achieving that goal.

That being said, why is goal setting so important when it comes to dieting?

First of All,

It is difficult to achieve a goal if you do not have a clearly defined goal. There are times in life when it is almost impossible to tell whether you are succeeding or failing because you aren’t certain exactly what the desired outcome should be.

Identifying your dieting goals before you begin eliminates this particular possibility.

Start by eating more fruit and vegetables and less foods containing sugar. Then eat more healthy fats, such as olive oil and avocado and less saturated fat such as red meat and butter.

Second, 

• Having dieting goals gives you a measuring stick by which you can judge your process.
• This is important so that you know when your efforts are falling behind and when you are moving along schedule or ahead of schedule.
• In other words, you will know when to celebrate and when to give yourself a swift kick to the rear.

Now that we know why we set weight loss goals, let’s discuss how we should go about setting those goals that are so important for dieting success.

You want to set goals that are aggressive without being impossible to achieve.

1. Possible:

• If you set goals that are beyond your reach you will find that frustration will be your dieting partner until you reach the point where you give up altogether.
• In order to avoid this, you should take great care to ensure that your goals are possible for you to achieve.

2. Specific:

• When it comes to weight loss be specific when setting your goals.
• Rather than setting a total goal of 40 or 60 pounds start with a specific goal such as 10 pounds in one month.
• Then you can extend the goal to the next month until you’ve reached the overall goal of 40 or 60 pounds.
• It is much easier to lose 10 pounds four times than it is to lose 40 pounds at once.
• It’s a trick of the mind but it works.
• Ten pounds sounds simple and achievable.
• Forty pounds sounds like an insurmountable obstacle.

3. Positive Change:

Decide to introduce a positive change each week and build on your new healthy eating habits each week. Don’t change everything at once. Remember it can take at least twenty-one days for a new habit to embed itself into your unconscious mind.

4. Accountable:

• Another thing about goals is that you want to hold yourself accountable but you should not call the whole thing off if you only lose 9 pounds instead of 10.
• Instead, find out where you dropped the ball for the final round and set your 10-pound goal for the next month.
• You should also take great care that you are working on your personal goals and not the goals that someone else is pushing on you.
• The truth is that if it’s personal to you, it will be much more rewarding than if you are doing this for someone else.
• If your heart isn’t in it, there are very few goals that are going to motivate you properly.

Finally, 

• You should establish small (non-food) rewards for accomplishing your dieting goals.
• Perhaps your reward will be a new accessory for your new (or new old) wardrobe or a pedicure for your new look.
• Make your reward something fun and frivolous and teach yourself that accomplishing your goals can be accomplished by something other than food. This is a key to dieting successfully.

Here’s a Plan to Get Fit And Lose Weight:

What is it that makes you want to lose the weight at this point? The desire to lose weight because you are ready to improve your health and body image is a good motivator. People who diet and exercise for their own reasons are more successful at weight loss.

1. Set Your Goals:

Set short-term goals are easier to achieve. For example, if you wish to lose 20 pounds over the next three months, write down weekly or even daily goals with an emphasis on writing. Place your goals where you can see them several times a day. This will help you to make the steps necessary to reach them.

2. Making a Plan: 

A good plan is to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week. Say that over the next 90 days, you would like to lose 24 pounds. In order to lose 1 pound of body fat per week, you need to cut and/or burn 3,500 calories for that same period.

3. Healthy Weight Loss:

The healthiest and most beneficial weight loss is gradual. People who lose too quickly usually experience a lack of energy and gain the weight back when resuming a more normal diet. If you lose weight too fast, you may be losing water weight or lean muscle instead of fat. Losing weight slowly leads to a better likelihood of keeping it off.

4. Cut Calories With These Substitutions:

Calorie reduction strategies-calorie deficit:

• Eating a sandwich made with only one piece of bread/80.
• A burger without the top bun/80.
• Having a one-egg omelet instead of the standard three-egg omelet/105.
• Drinking water instead of a 16-ounce soda/200.
• Substituting berries for maple syrup on pancakes/100.
• Replace ground beef with lean ground turkey in your meatloaf or chili/45.
• Switch from chocolate ice cream to chocolate frozen yogurt/50.

The key is to take it slow and easy. Planning your meals so that you make nutritional choices reduces the likelihood of losing important vitamins and minerals along with the weight. That can result in a slowing metabolism. A slow metabolism won’t burn calories effectively, making it harder to drop those pounds.

5. Exercise to Burn Calories:

To lose weight, you’ll need to decrease your total calories or increase your level of physical activity. An easy choice is to decrease calories by 250 per day and increase calories burned by the same amount. Exercise a bit more and eat a bit less than you already have been. For example, walk for 30 minutes at a 3-mph pace to burn about 250 calories. There are many ways to exercise including carrying packages up the stairs.

What is The Best Way to Plan Your Meals? 

Eating wisely is one of your most potent weapons. Saturated fat and refined sugars make up about a quarter of the average person’s caloric intake. So, if you want an effective method of planning your meals, you can do this by scheduling your appetite around your workouts. Most of the time your main meals will be after your workout or some time before. The reason for planning your meals this way is vital for several reasons.

• You will have the energy for your workouts.
• You will get the nutrients you need to replenish your body’s stores after your workout and take advantage of a natural insulin spike.
• You will make better use of the carbs you consume, by either using them to fuel your workouts or replace what was lost afterward as opposed to providing an additional supply, which is frequently needless.

What Would Be Tremendously Helpful:

Regardless of your health goals, is to consume most of your daily calories within the 6-hour window surrounding your workout. Outside of this window, you can still eat, but you should avoid carbs and large meals.

Many claims suggest exercising boosts your metabolism, allowing your body to burn more calories at rest. The truth of this is not as important as the negligible effect it would have. What is worth considering, however, is the post workout window allows you to take advantage of the insulin spike that would replenish glycogen stores in your muscles. So, the carbohydrates or carbs you consume after exercising, as long as they are not excessive, would serve a useful purpose.

The Alternative,

which is eating without any plan and solely following the urges of your appetite, is to be avoided at all costs. If you are…

• Trying to lose weight,
• Reduce blood sugar, or generally.
• Improve your health.

Your appetite is not to be trusted when it is compelling you to eat when you are not hungry. Plan your meals around your workouts, and benefit from the difference it could make to your well-being.

Eat Healthily. Live Healthily!
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