Whether your fitness goal is to lose twenty pounds or gain more overall muscle mass, setting personal goals and working toward them can be very rewarding and doesn’t have to be a painful process!
Your success is determined by the goals you set for yourself and the plan you come up with to reach those goals. If you’re exercising three times a week and eating what you consider to be, “healthy,” but you’re not seeing the results you want, you may need to take a closer look at the numbers (people tend to overestimate calories burned during exercise and underestimate the amount of calories consumed). If you do the math and find you’re coming in just slightly under your daily calorie needs (or even worse, over your daily needs), you may want to reconsider your diet and fitness plan.
Experts recommend a person aims to lose between 1-2 lbs per week. This is a safe and reasonable amount and won’t leave you feeling deprived or at a loss of energy. To lose one pound, you must burn 3,500 calories more than you consume (500 calories per day over the course of a week) for 2 pounds, you must burn 7,000 calories per week (1,000 calories per day). You can do this either by cutting calories from your diet, exercising or a combination of both. This would mean simply cutting out 250-500 calories from your daily total and exercising to burn an additional 250-500 calories.
*Everybody should know their daily needs, to find out your daily caloric needs, go to this website, it’s easy and free: http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/calories-goal.php)
To see results you must have a game plan. Below are several simple steps to take if you are serious about being successful and reaching your healthy lifestyle goals:
1. Plan how much weight you want to lose. This number should be realistic and reachable. You may want to start with a small goal, such as, “I would like to lose 5 pounds in 6 weeks,” or a more aggressive goal, such as, “I would like to lose 20 pounds in 3 months.” (Try not to aim for an amount over 2 pounds per week, most people will gain it back.)
2. Plan exactly how you’ll reach your goal. To lose a pound a week, you would have to burn an extra 500 calories a day, everyday through diet or exercise or both. If you want to burn half with exercise and half from your diet, that means determining the activity you’d need to do to burn about 250 calories as well as how you can cut 250 calories from your diet. (To get a rough estimate of how many calories you burn during any given activity, go the exercise calculator at: http://www.caloriecontrol.org/exercalc.html a 20 minute jog burns about 200-300 calories, depending on your weight)
3. Keep yourself accountable. Many people find success if they keep a food diary and/or tell their friends, family and co-workers about their goal. Even taking weekly or monthly before & after photos can be a great visual reminder of your goal! It’s unrealistic to think that you will never stray from your plan. You may find yourself at a birthday party and overdo it on the cake and ice cream or maybe one margarita led to three more, plus an order of nachos! If you really want to lose weight, don’t harp on these set-backs. The worst downward spiral to fall into is beating yourself up over a lousy meal choice and in turn eating more junk food in defeat. So if you have a “cheat” day and consume more calories than you planned, just move forward and exercise a little harder the following day to offset the added calories.
If you’ve signed up for Urban Athletics Boot Camp, you’ve already taken the first step toward doing something good for your body by blasting calories three days a week. The next step should be to find the eating plan that is right for you. Educating yourself on your daily caloric needs and refining your diet to include more fruits & vegetables, whole grains and protein and less fast food, saturated fat and sugar, will surely put you on the road to success!
Feel free to talk to us anytime about your diet and exercise, we’re happy to offer suggestions!