The First Step to Fitness: Defining your Fitness Goals

In this world of five-minute ab machines, fitness workout DVDs, and the general ‘fitness program in-a-box’ mentality, it’s often so hard to sift through what is real. Promises of getting fit using machines, drinking power shakes or slimming herbal teas have saturated the market that those interested in getting fit and healthy are simply overwhelmed. A lot of people who start with great enthusiasm quickly get jaded because of all the blatant marketing and promises of instant success.

I have nothing against fitness products from anyone, and honestly, some of them (not all) do actually work. The main problem is that people become enamored with the “promise” of fitness and not the “getting fit” part. Owning all the exercise machines ever invented may look and sound cool, but what people really need is the right motivation, the right goals, and the right fitness plan in order to succeed.

People are motivated by different things, so goals will vary from person to person. Before we get into defining your fitness goals, let’s spend a little time discussing what fitness goals are not. Losing 5 lbs is not a goal. Running 10 miles is not a goal. Doing 100 crunches on your mega-ab machine is not a goal. They’re merely milestones on the path to reaching your true goal.

Fitness goals, in order to be effective have to be long term. Why? Fitness is not achieved overnight, not in one week, not even in one month. The first step to true fitness is to identify your overall fitness goal.

Most people say they exercise “to be healthy” – that’s just too vague. Goals should be specific, measurable, and tangible. For example, an overall health goal could be “to have my cholesterol levels under control to the point where I can minimize the medication I need to take within one year.”

A lot of people undergo fitness training to lose weight, but some just focus on one part like the arms or the waist. This is unrealistic and unsustainable. A good example goal for weight / fat loss would be “I want to lose at least 50 lbs within a year from today, and fit into a size “insert desired size here”.

On the flip size, some people want to gain weight to look better and feel better about themselves. A good goal would be something like “I want to gain at least 20lbs of muscle in the next year.”

If you have ambitions of competing in sports, your goals could be some thing like, “I want to improve my basketball game to make the junior varsity next year,” or “I want to improve my swimming performance and lap times before next year’s competitions.”

These are all tangible, measurable, achievable, long-term goals that you can use, BUT there’s more to it than that. Now that you know what you want, the next step is to figure out how to achieve it, which is what the topic for the next article will be.

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