Setting goals.

Over the last week, I asked each of my workout partners what their goals are in the gym, and I was simply shocked at the answers one said "to be in better shape" and the other said something along the lines of "so i feel better". My response to both was something along the lines of "how do you know when you get there?"

Personally, I set quantifiable goals. Even though I'm not much of a numbers person, I like to use them to measure stuff (which seems like an obvious use for them to me). My goals usually start with a qualitative bent, and often start off sounding like my December 1st goal of this year, to "be ripped for summer". Though this is a perfectly valid and realistic goal, it's tough to tell when I get there, so I will at that point try to reduce it to numbers. For instance, using the goal above, when I started this goal I was about 140lbs and 25-30% body fat, so I had to gain some muscle to show off, and lose the fat concealing it, so i broke down my goal into two parts, "get big" and "get lean".

These were two separate goals that had to be achieved to meet my main goal of being ripped for summer, but they are still not numbers. The next part of breaking down my goal was to assign numbers to these sub goals. I decided that I had 45 days (a month and a half) to get my weight up to 160 on a bulking diet/workout regimen high in protein, carbohydrates and intense workouts. I also know from previous fat-loss experience, that my six pack won't show until my body fat drops below 10% (around 6-8% i think). This gave me something to shoot for, numbers wise. By February 15th (when I purchased my scale), I was up to 165lbs through my bulking diet and regular weight lifting. I had surpassed my first sub goal, I knew this because the numbers told me so. It was time to begin the cutting phase.

My body fat levels had dropped a little bit, coming down into the 20% range, so i decided that by may-long I wanted to be able to see my six-pack. As I stated above, this is quantifiable as having under 10% body fat, so I began working on a limited calorie version of my bulking diet. I managed to get to under 15% in 4 weeks, but I began to see the predictable slowing of my progress as the reduced calorie /fat diet took it's toll on my mental stability and my metabolism. On march 1st, 2009 I began a ketogenic diet to try it out, and I saw my losses speeding up again (might still just be water weight loss at this point though).

This is how I set my goals. I find that having wantifiable goals helps me remmeber not to give up and helps me to stay motivated through slumps. I'm not sure how clear I was in describing my process, as I'm a tad foggy from the keto, but I hope it helps someone. Just remember to stay motivated and keep working toward your goals.