Fitness Friday: 6 Tools To Help You Slaughter Your Fitness Goals

Quiz Time!!!  What was the Number One New Year’s Resolution made in 2011?

You win, if you guessed “TO LOSE WEIGHT!”

Actually, if you Google “Top New Year’s Resolutions,” you’ll see health-related goals show up multiple times in multiple forms on every list:

“eat healthy”

“quit smoking”

“drink less alcohol”

“manage stress”

Most of us know we need to improve our health, and many of us use the momentum of the new year to make changes. I say, Go FOR IT!

I’m a big fan of setting fitness goals. In fact, this year I’ve set a pretty big one for myself: Over the next 90 days, I am going to complete P90X2.

In case you are not familiar, P90X2 is the successor to the wildly popular 90-Day extreme fitness program, P90X. I love P90X and have recommended it numerous times on Fitness Friday. I’ve already completed P90X twice, but I’m bored and am ready for a new challenge. So, this year, not only am I going to do the daily (insane!) workouts, but I am also following the recommended diet guide AND submitting my final results to the P90X2 people. When I do, I will earn my exclusive P90X2 T-shirt (not available in stores) AND enter to win a chance to be featured in a P90X2 infomercial, which in turn, will make me rich and famous and eternally happy as I prance around in my P90X2 t-shirt, signing autographs as random strangers recognize me on the streets. Oh, the glory of it all.

I intend to slaughter this goal. Seriously, I’m so psyched about it. But, as you all know, it takes more than a ginormous dose of excitement to succeed. Everyone’s excited on January 6th. Let’s talk again on February 27th. And again On April 12th. Excitement will only take you so far. To write your own success story, you need tools. Maybe you’ve already set some fitness goals. Or maybe you haven’t, but you know you want to achieve better health in 2012.

No matter if your goal is big or small, you’ll glean something from this


Handy Dandy List of Things That Will Help You Slaughter Your Health-Related Goals in 2012

(or HDLOTTWHYSYHRG2012, for short)

1. Set a realistic goal: I know. Crazy-original, here. But , listen: it’s really important to strive for something you can honestly achieve—especially in fitness. I am only 5 days into the program, and I already know I would never, ever recommend that someone try to do P90X2 unless they were already (a) in excellent shape, (b) had the discipline of exercising daily for at least an hour and (c) enjoyed working out alone while on a stability ball and/or balancing on two medicine balls or maybe even on one leg. This workout is not for beginners, fo sho!

If you are just starting out, it may be more realistic to set a goal of exercising for 30 minutes, 3 times a week. If you prefer to work out with a buddy, it would be better for you to join a class or a gym. Think do-able—which may be small.

Huh? Small? Where’s the glory in that?

Think about it: worst case scenario is that you achieve your goal and then get to set a new one! That’s fun! Besides, I have found that the most lasting changes occur in tiny increments, over time. Glorious!

2. Prepare Mentally: For me, health and fitness is probably 50% mental and 50% physical. When planning to start P90X2, I spent a few hours on You Tube watching promo videos and commentary about the program. I read the entire nutrition guide and fitness guide from cover to cover to see what I was getting myself into. I looked at my calendar and determined the very best day to start and end. I stared at my giant box of new gear sitting in the corner of my dining room and envisioned myself using it.

In other words, this was anything BUT impulsive. By the time Monday, January 2nd rolled around, I was 100% ready to attack this thing. For you, it may be necessary to look through cookbooks and websites to see how you can incorporate healthier meals into your diet with food you enjoy. Or maybe you need to think about how you will rearrange your daily schedule to fit in a jog or a spinning class. Or perhaps you need to grieve the loss of your daily six pack of Coke. Seriously, you will have so much more success if you give yourself the opportunity to adjust mentally to your new habits.

(BTW, for the next 90 days, I’m eating absolutely no junk. I’ve never gone that long without a treat—so, I spent the entire month of December grieving the loss of home-baked goods!)

3. Prepare Physically: I preordered P90X2 in the Fall. And the very next morning, I was in my basement diving head-first into P90X, in preparation. For nearly 11 weeks, I prepared my body for the challenge of the new program. I knew if I wanted to succeed, I needed to be in the best possible shape when I started.

How can you prepare physically for your goal? If you plan to change your diet, you will need to physically remove junk from your home and go shopping for better food. If you want to run a 5K this year, you will need to get off the couch and start moving. If you plan to hire a personal trainer, you need to work out your budget so you can afford it. Do what you need to do to create an environment that encourages you toward your goals.

4. Talk About It: I promise, everyone who knows me well knows I started P90X2 this week. How? I talked about it—all. the. time. Why? For one, I found the more I talked about it, the more excited and committed I became. And B, over the course of the next 3 months, I hope people ask me how I’m doing. I want people to encourage me and cheer me on. I want the accountability. And consequently, people now want me to shut up. What ev.

5. Choose Accountability: Speaking of telling people, I think it’s really important to find someone who will hold your feet to the fire. We do such a good job (especially as Christians) forgiving each other’s failures—we call it “extending grace.” Grace is awesome. I’m pro-grace. I NEED grace when I fail. But when I skip 3 days of workouts because I’m too busy and then eat a plate of chocolate chip cookies because I don’t feel like cooking dinner, I don’t need you to tell me how much I deserve the break. I need you to encourage me to stay the course and do the hard thing:

Sandy, you’ve set a goal. You can do this. Don’t let a plate of cookies derail you! C’mon, you are better than this! Think about how good you will feel if you work out and eat salad!!!

I don’t generally need accountability to achieve my fitness goals—I’m very self-motivated in this area—but I wanted to set up a safety net, just in case I decided to go soft half-way through. That’s another reason why I chose to join the official P90X2 Challenge. I took “Before” pictures and recorded all my measurements. And I have to do it again at 30 days, 60 days and 90 Days. Then I report in at the end. When I’m smelling that plate of cookies or thinking about blowing off a workout, I will think first about reporting those monthly results, and it will help me stay committed.

(Choose wisely, though…if you don’t want your husband questioning you when you reach into the bag of Doritos, don’t ask him to hold you accountable.  Know what I mean?)

6. Know What You Can Control and What You Cannot: You CAN control what and how much you eat. You CAN control how hard and how often you exercise. But you CANNOT control how your body will respond to those changes. I realize many of us need to lose weight—me included. But setting a goal of, “I am going to lose a pound a week for the next 3 months” is ridiculous—no offense. Go ahead and set your weight loss goal, but realize that each person is genetically unique.

You’ve heard the popular mantra, “Calories in—calories out.” That’s catchy, but it’s wrong. The human body is not a math equation. Many factors contribute to how quickly and how efficiently you lose weight—everything from genetics to the amount of sleep you get to how much weight you need to lose to the quality of the calories you eat.

Better to set a goal of, “I am going to lose 25 pounds,” without setting a time-frame—realizing it may take three years. Or, “I’m going to complete this program or finish this class or run this race” and then let your body respond the way it will.

And it will! 

 You just won’t be able to control how it responds or how quickly it responds.

(BTW, it has taken me a YEAR of a controlled and whole foods diet coupled with a variety of physically demanding fitness routines to lose 6 of the 18 pounds I gained in 2009/2010. A YEAR to lose 6 pounds! Where’s the math equation for THAT?)

Q4U: In the past, what goal-setting principles helped you succeed? Would you add anything to this list? What are your health-related fitness goals this year? Share them with me, and I will cheer you on! Also, if you haven’t linked your New Year’s Resolution Post, there’s still time!