Goal Setting for Success
Exercise plateau and lack of motivation are two factors which really limit us reaching our potential. Goal setting is a crucial part of gaining success, you must have a clear goal in mind every time you step into the gym and a long term vision of what you want to achieve.
Having smaller short term goals and an overall long term goal will help to keep you motivated to keep working hard.
Goal setting for success should of course include what you want to achieve. But you must dig deeper and break the goal down into more detail.
Ask yourself what specifically do you want to gain from exercise and nutrition whether its sports performance, fat loss, strength gains or increased energy levels you must write down detailed goals in which will help you achieve success. For example if you want to strip body fat…
- Decrease body fat percentage by 10 per cent
- To lose 4 inches from waist
- Drop 2 jean sizes
Once you have determined specific goals you now must give yourself a time frame in which you want to complete it in. This again will keep you more driven and achieving your training goals will become easier with a time line in place. So for example your goals would now look like this…
- Decrease body fat percentage by 10 percent cent by June 10th for my holiday
- To lose 4 inches from waist by March for wedding
- Drop 2 jean sizes by February for my birthday.
Setting out a reward for when you accomplish your goals is another great way to keep you focused and driven to succeed. This reward should be something positive and not be anything related to bad eating habits or something counterproductive to what you’re trying to achieve. A good idea is to set a reward that encourages you to keep going and stay healthy like a beach holiday or a nice piece of clothing. Your goals may look a bit like this now..
- Decrease body fat percentage by 10 percent by June for my holiday and buy a few nice new outfits for it.
- To lose 4 inches from waist by march for the wedding to buy a certain dress
- Drop 2 jean sizes by February for my birthday to fit into some new skinny jeans
Set your goals for success and achieve them using a well structured framework which will keep you focus and driven when things get tough.
Is it your slow metabolism to blame for increased body fat?
Your metabolism refers to the amount of energy or calories your body burns in order to maintain itself. The rate of which your metabolism runs is affected by different factors such as your body composition for example.
This blog will take a look at the relationship between exercise and nutrition and the body’s rate of metabolism.
Through consuming food and drinking liquids we of course are taking on calories which in turn is what enables the body to function. Your metabolism is a complex biochemical process which is constantly working even when your asleep, It maintains hormone function, repairs the bodies cells and circulates the blood.
These functions of your metabolism are referred to as your basal metabolic rate and determines how many calories you burn at rest.
One of the main factors which determine your basal metabolic rate is body mass. People with more muscle mass or people who are overweight will burn up more energy at rest.
Gender is another factor which can shape your metabolism, males usually have more muscle then women, they burn more calories throughout the day. Age also can dictate your metabolism because as we age testosterone levels drop meaning so does the amount of lean muscle tissue which again has a direct affect on the rate of your metabolism.
Factors such as the amount of exercise you do and the types of nutrients you consume will determine how many calories you burn; these two factors are the most variable. The more exercise you do the more calories you burn increasing your metabolism.
Is having a slow metabolism an excuse for gaining body fat?
This is often what people blame their weight gain on is having a slow metabolism. However a slow metabolism isn’t always responsible for an increase in body fat but in fact it’s the amount and quality of calories consumed compared to the calories burned through exercise which is to blame. If this ratio of calories consumed is greater then calories burned your body will not use it so it will be stored as fat around the body.
Leaner people have less body fat not necessarily because they have a fast metabolism but because they are more active. Having a slow metabolism is actually quite rare and doesn’t usually lead to obesity. Instead factors leading to obesity, weight gain and poor body composition are low activity levels, eating too many low quality calories, unhealthy habits, and lack of sleep and skipping meals.
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