Are Your Fitness Goals Realistic?

There are many success stories from the people who use personal trainers at Thrive Fitness in Pittsburg, CA. Trainers help clients with a personalized program that meets their fitness goals. They also help to ensure those goals are realistic. If a goal isn’t challenging, it doesn’t cause excitement or create transformational changes. If it’s too difficult or not achievable, it creates discouragement and limits the potential for any change.

Let’s look at weight loss.

It takes a 3500-calorie deficit to lose one pound. The average active man burns 3000 calories daily. An active woman burns approximately 2400 calories. Even if you went without eating for a week and lost the 10 pounds, it would be mostly water weight that would return quickly. It would take over fourteen days of total fasting for a woman to lose that much and approximately 12 days for a fasting man to lose that much. It’s unhealthy, almost impossible to do, and an unrealistic goal.

Exercise goals.

If you’re a couch potato and want to get into shape, don’t expect miracles overnight. It takes a week before you begin to feel more energized from exercise and a month to see any physical changes. Whether you want to tone your body or get ready for a marathon, creating an unrealistic timetable can mentally set you back. If you initially push yourself too hard it can cause injury or immense muscle pain, increasing the potential for quitting.

Some things will never change.

Exercise can improve your posture, which will make you taller. Exercise and weight loss may cause your feet to get smaller due to fat loss on the feet and less pressure on them that can stretch tendons. Losing weight may make you taller or wear a smaller shoe size but not significantly. You’ll be disappointed if your goal is to go from 5’7″ to 6’2″. The same is true for shoe size. Weight loss might cause you to go from a size 9 to a size 8, but you won’t get down to a size 5 shoe. Create goals around things you can change, like weight. Accept things you can’t change, like your body frame.

• A realistic weight loss goal is approximately 2 to 3 pounds a week. The more you weigh, the easier it is to lose weight because carrying the extra weight burns more calories. Expect weight loss to slow as you get thinner.
• Track your progress in the gym. Focus on increasing the intensity a little at a time. If you can do 3 sets of 10 push-ups, focus on making it 3 sets of 12 push-ups. You can increase the number of sets or the number of repetitions.
• Don’t set a date you want to achieve your goal. Instead, decide how much progress you can safely make in a week. If it’s losing two pounds a week and your goal is to lose ten pounds, it will take five weeks. The goal is to lose ten pounds in five weeks.
• Expect some setbacks. Getting fit doesn’t chart in a straight line. You’ll lose more weight in some weeks than others. Some workouts will be difficult no matter how long you’ve exercised.

For more information, contact us today at Thrive Fitness!