What Are Your Weight Loss Goals?

Before you launch into a weight loss diet or fitness program, it's important that you first determine what your goals are. You might initially think that the goal is obvious--to lose weight and get in shape. It's not enough to just say you want to lose weight, lose pounds, reduce fat, etc. Those outcomes are just too broad. The problem with charging into an ambiguous fitness program or diet is it's easy to get discouraged and give up. When you know specifically what you want to achieve, it's easier to set up and follow a program that will be productive and help produce the outcome sooner.

The best way to start a weight loss or fitness regimen is to identify what you want it to do for you. Do you want the bathroom scale to stop groaning when you step on it? Do you want to lose inches around your waistline? Do you want to build muscle mass so you look good at the beach? These are just a few examples of outcomes that you can pursue with your regimen, but each one of these results requires a slightly different emphasis within your weight loss and fitness program. For example, if you want to develop well defined muscles, then losing pounds is not your goal. Building muscle adds pounds to your body which means that you will be heavier. However, in pursuing this goal, you will have reduced abdominal fat and inches which is helpful for body sculpting.

Let's say that your goal is to lose inches so you can fit into clothes that you haven't been able to wear for awhile. This result involves both a healthy and nutritious diet and a workout regimen that is designed to burn calories. The idea is to burn more calories than you take in. Therefore, the diet you follow includes a lot of meal planning with foods that are low in fat. I lost 58 pounds over the course of four months by eating sensible portions of low or non-fat foods and burning as many as 500 to 600 calories per day three days a week doing cardio workouts. This isn't to say that this routine will work for everyone. My objective was to lower my cholesterol enough to get off the medication. Trimming body fat just happened to occur right along with it.

It's all about results. With the program I followed, the results started coming pretty fast so I recognized progress almost from the start. If you start seeing results early on in your program, such as the scale stops cringing when come near it, you will know that it's working and you'll be motivated to continue.

To get into an effective weight loss and fitness program, you should do some homework to learn about the type of regimen your body will respond to. You don't need to immediately invest in a gym membership or a commercial weight loss diet program. Start experimenting on your own with information about nutrition and doing exercises that you can do at home such as aerobics, running, or biking. The time to bring in professional help is if you have tried several programs, but you're not getting the results you want.

Achieving your wellness and fitness goals requires you to be mindful of what you eat and what physical activities you participate in. It's easy to make these decisions when you know in advance if what you eat and what activity you pursue will help you rapidly meet your goal or slow your progress.

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