Fitness & Wellness

I help clients in Lakeland stick with their goals with helpful tips. You can achieve your health goals too when you use them. It doesn't matter whether the goal is to lose weight, build muscle or boost your cardio performance, these tips will help. Before you even set goals, learn to use the SMART technique to create them and give yourself a better chance to achieve them.

SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.

Each on of those letters and processes are important. The goal must be very specific. Setting a goal to get healthier isn't specific, but setting a goal to lose weight is. It must be measurable, so in the weight lost example, you'd include exactly how much you want to lose. The goal needs to be attainable. If you set your goal to be taller so you're the proper weight, that's definitely not attainable. Losing ten pounds a month is. A relevant goal is something that's important to you, not something a friend or lover said you should do. Finally, time-bound means you have to set a specific time to achieve the goal. Without it, most people never start and the goal becomes just a wish.

If you're goal is big, break it down to smaller goals.

If you have to lose 100 pounds or want to go from sedentary to marathon running, you need to break down that big goal to smaller ones. Huge goals are impressive, but also overwhelming. They take a long time to achieve and that can mean dwindling motivation. If you have a big goal, you need to break it down into smaller, easier to achieve goals that can be reached in a short time frame. That 100 pound goal could be broken down to a goal of losing ten pounds a month. It's easier and quicker to achieve, so you get the motivation to continue that comes from success.

Create your path to achieve those healthy goals and make it specific.

Being specific is so important when you want to achieve any goal. Rather than just saying you want to exercise and eat healthy to lose weight, create your routine, schedule your workouts for the week and plan meals and snacks that are lower in calories and high in nutrition. Make your path enjoyable. If you hate running, that's not the exercise you want to choose. It gives you an opportunity to find the best path. If you aren't getting results, you can modify the path or create an entirely new direction to reach your goals. While it's discouraging not to reach a goal, having a plan outlined helps you know what didn't work so you can change it and make it work.

• It's not a failure to decide to change your goals. There are many reasons to change goals. Achieving a goal is one of those. If you find your weekly goal was too easy, you can change it. The same is true if it's too tough to achieve.
• You might need to create several goals at once. For instance, if eating healthy is a goal, you might need to learn how to cook healthy or what healthy eating is. If negativity is stopping you from achieving your goal, learning to be more positive is a supplemental goal.
• Give yourself a reward when you achieve a goal. Make it something you really want that you wouldn't do otherwise. Buy new clothes, take a trip or lounge around the house for a day. Then start on the next goal.
• If you want to lose weight, that's find, but there are other ways to measure how healthier you are. It could be lower blood pressure, the flights of stairs you can climb before you beg for oxygen or the inches you lost.