5 New Ways to Reach Your Health and Fitness Goals
When most women decide to join a gym like Curves, their goals include getting in shape, adopting a healthy eating plan, and in many cases, losing weight. A Curves membership is a wonderful start. But in order to achieve the goals you set out for yourself, you have some work to do. Here are five health tips on how to reach your weight loss and fitness goals:3
1. Be Smart With Your Goals
Whether you are getting in shape for a marathon or starting a full body workout to lose weight, goal setting is important. When you set fitness relationship goals, you boost exercise performance, no matter what your fitness level. The American Council on Exercise recommends your fitness goals be SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timebound.1
- Specific. Ambiguous goals will just set you up for failure. So, as you create your weight loss and workout plan, map out how much weight you want to lose, the type of exercise you would like to engage in, when you will start, and how often you will go to the gym.1
- Measurable. Think about how you will track your progress. Maybe you will decide to weigh yourself each time you walk into Curves. Or perhaps you will periodically undergo a body fat analysis. No matter how you decide to track your benefits of exercise, make sure you map it out ahead of time.1
- Attainable. “Look like a supermodel,” isn’t a great goal. Instead, put a realistic number on how much weight you would like to lose. Research shows, an attainable weight loss for most people is five to 10 percent of their current weight.1
- Relevant. To be attainable, your goals should be meaningful and relevant to your lifestyle. Don’t set the goal of climbing a mountain or running a 100-mile race if you’re just starting to get in shape at age 50. Instead, be realistic and focus on activities you can do.1
- Timebound. Most of us will boost fitness or weight loss motivation if we set a deadline. Create a realistic timeline as to how long it will take to reach your goals. Keep in mind, the recommendation for healthy weight loss for women is no more than one to two pounds per week.1
2. Set Action-oriented Goals
As you move toward your weight loss and fitness goals, set actionable goals that help support them. For example:
- I will go to Curves women only gym four days this week and do my full body workout for 30 minutes
- As part of my weight loss eating plan, I will stop eating after 8pm
- For the next five days, I will drink nothing but water and green tea
- Instead of going out for lunch on my lunch break, I will eat a quick and healthy packed lunch, and walk around the building for 20 minutes2
3. Set Mini-goals for Weight Loss Encouragement
The thought of losing 20-plus pounds can be daunting, like staring up at a huge mountain you have to climb. To make the process seem less intimidating, set mini-goals along the way. If you have 20 pounds to lose, for example, break it into increments of five to eight pounds to lose per month. If you haven’t been exercising and need to ease your way in, begin by working at a moderate pace on the circuit. Work with your coach to gradually increase your intensity over the next few weeks.2
4. Get Ready to Reassess
Like many things in life, a weight loss and workout plan may not go exactly as expected. Be flexible with your weight loss and fitness relationship goals and adjust them if they don’t fit well into your lifestyle. After all, whether it’s part of a healthy eating plan or exercise routine, if you don’t enjoy an activity, you’ll never stick with it.2
5. Celebrate Goals Achieved
Life’s too short for constant deprivation. Reward is important, even if you’re just embarking on fitness for weight loss. The key is finding the right balance between maintaining a weight loss diet and exercise routine and treating yourself now and then. To stay on track, try to use non-food rewards when you reach one of your goals. Examples include a shopping trip for a new pair of smaller jeans, an extra hour of sleep on a Sunday morning, or tickets to a play you’ve been wanting to see. Or, if you’ve just been testing the waters, reward yourself with a permanent membership to Curves women only gym so you can make exercise, weight loss motivation, and a healthy eating plan permanent parts of your routine.5
Your Curves Coach is there to lead you through every gym workout. With your Curves Coach success is within reach. Visit ‘Why Curves’ to find out more about Curves women’s only gyms and our full body workout on the Curves Circuit, or find your local Curves and sign up today!
1 The American Council on Exercise
2 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
3 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
4 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
