New Year! New You! Why 2021 might be your best year yet!

 

2021 is the year that you will achieve your fitness and health goals and a chance to be in the best shape of your life! Say that to yourself as a positive affirmation every day.

Now let's look at how to achieve those goals. 

First, identify your objective.

What do you want to achieve most of all? Every one of us have different concerns- some of it could be related to weight, some to health. So think about what it is you want to achieve.

Is it weight loss and do you want to burn your body fat in order to let your abs show?

Do you want to increase your strength and increase your muscle growth?

Or do you want to develop more endurance?

Maybe it's your flexibility that you need to work on. 

Or do you have increased blood sugar or LDL levels and you want to lower them?

Next, plan out SMART goals.

SMART stands for the following. It helps you to chalk out realistic and achievable fitness goals that are tailor-made for you.

S- specific (What do you want to achieve?)

M- measurable (Can your goal be tracked?)

A- achievable (Can you achieve your goal within a realistic time frame?)

R- realistic (Is it realistic?)

T- timely (Can you set a realistic timeline to achieve your end goal?)

So your goal should not be something unachievable such as losing 10 pounds in 2 days but something which can be achieved and is realistic. 

For example, if you currently weigh 160lb and would like to lose 10lb, you can draw up a plan to lose 1 to 2lb a week. So your end date for achieving your goal would be about 5 to 8 weeks' time. In order to lose 1 to 2lb a week, calculate your daily calorie requirement and draw up an exercise plan. Try to exercise 5 to 6 days a week, with 2 to 3 sessions of strength training, 2 to 3 sessions of interval cardio and at least 1 session for yoga/stretching/Pilates on a weekly basis. If you would like to jump start your weight loss, kick start it with a simple diet such as the 3 day Toast diet plan or lose up to 5lb with the Weetabix diet.

Once you've identified your goals, draw up a plan.

 If you've identified that you need to lose 10 pounds over two months, you need to chalk out your daily calorie intake and how you plan to lose those 10 pounds. Is it going to come off from reducing your diet or increasing your exercise? The best combination would be through both diet and exercise. 

Keep a detailed fitness diary with your calorie intake, exercise routine, sets/reps of exercises and your energy level. You can review and tweak your routine/calorie intake as you go.

Have checkpoints to measure your goals.

With a fitness plan, you need to have checkpoints. These could be weekly weigh-ins or if it's testing your flexibility, it could be as simple as checking if you can touch your toes yet with your fingertips or if you can place your palms on the floor.

If your goal is to increase strength, increase the weight or the number of reps in your resistance training workouts.

Don't be discouraged.

 Your fitness goals are a journey- so don't be discouraged if you do not see instant results at once. Try to stay the course and celebrate even small achievements. Sometimes, you might take two steps back before you move one step forward. 

Set yourself a weight loss goal and stick to it.

Maintain your weight loss and your health goals.

Once you've achieved your weight loss or your health goals, now is the hard part. Which is to maintain it and not regress back to where you were. 

If you've lost weight, you might have to work doubly hard to prevent your body rebounding back to its original weight. This is because the body has a set point at which the weight comfortably tends to go back. So do continue to work on maintaining your weight loss and have frequent checks.

 

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