Helpful Tips for Setting Realistic Fitness Goals

Getting in shape is a marathon, not a sprint. It may sound cliché, but fitness is all about a lifestyle change. Habits take time to form, and if eating unhealthy food has become entrenched in your life, breaking this habit won’t happen overnight. Ultimately, the first step in making a positive change to your health is to set realistic and achievable goals. To take your health into your own hands, check out these helpful tips for setting realistic fitness goals.

Take Baby Steps

You don’t need to become a fitness enthusiast and completely change your lifestyle overnight. Instead, start with one healthy meal. For example, consider ditching your usual choice of fast food and making a delicious salad for lunch one day.

Then, try choosing healthy options for each meal for an entire day. Then two. Then a week. Before you know it, you’ve gained momentum and are beginning to lose weight. That said, you may have a few slip-ups here and there—that’s OK. Just get back on the horse and continue chasing your health goals.

Identify Your “Why”

Another helpful tip for setting realistic fitness goals is to identify your why. In other words, take some time to think about all the reasons you want to be healthy.

Maybe you want to avoid heart issues or look good. You can even write these reasons out on a piece of paper. They’ll help you stay motivated when you want to eat that bag of chips!

Determine What Is Physically Possible

To set realistic fitness goals, you need to determine what’s physically possible for you to achieve. For example, if your goal is to lose weight, around one to two pounds per week is generally considered a healthy rate of weight loss, depending on your current weight. This means you may comfortably lose two to eight pounds per month by burning 500-1,000 calories per day. Remember that your body burns calories even without exercise—calories are the energy it uses to function, which is why you can lose weight just by eating less.

Don’t Rush Things

You may want to lose weight faster but never perform a crash diet. A crash diet involves drastic changes that you can’t maintain, so you’ll ultimately end up right back where you started. You need to make minor changes over time to get into a diet “groove” and build momentum. Again, diets are all about cultivating healthy habits that stick!

By following these tips, you can set realistic and achievable fitness goals. Best of luck on your fitness journey!

 

Authored by Admin @ Inspire Your Journey