Goals: What do you WANT?

Do you ever feel overwhelmed at even the thought of "loosing weight" or "putting on some size"? Even if you have a specific number of pounds you would like to loose or add to you physique exactly HOW to go about it seems confusing or boring? Well, you not alone. Read on to find out the key to making things easy...

"Well, I just want to loose some weight"

This is the statement I've been hearing from a lot of people lately. I get it. I used to use that phrase myself. Until I became more knowledgeable about how our bodies burn food and respond to exercise. I then rephrased my statement in terms of either "Fat Loss" or "Muscle Building". This basic shift did so much for me I can't even tell you. But before I get into the craziness that is the mental aspect of changing your body lets talk about these goals.

Why Fat Loss OR Muscle Building and not both at the same time?

• Basic Math: 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories. [If you want to loose 5 pounds you need to create a calorie defect of 17,500 calories, by eating less and burning more through exercise, than you consume.]
• Basic Math: to GAIN 1 pound you must consume 3500 calories more than you burn. [If you want to gain 5 pounds you need to create a calorie surplus of 17,500 calories, by eating more than you burn through life and exercise, than you consume.]
• Your body, when faced with an imbalance in the amount of fuel (calories) consumed each day, will either burn or add to BOTH FAT & MUSCLE.

:Since your body will burn muscle as well as fat during a calorie deficit, and gain fat as well as muscle during a calorie surplus you must CHOOSE which one is you current primary goal.

There are many things you can do to maintain muscle mass during fat loss (and NEED to do). And there are ways to minimize the fat gain during muscle building. How? Read Fat Loss: A Guide to Maintaining Muscle & Muscle Building: A Guide to Minimizing Fat.

Once I changed the way I was thinking from "I need to loose a few pounds" to "I am going to burn 10 pounds of fat while maintaining as muscle as possible" I got clear on what I wanted and was able to do the specific things required to accomplish that goal. The key here was getting clear on what I wanted. And getting out of the sea of ambiguity that surrounds a lack luster statement like "I just want to loose a few pounds".

From there I write down what I want. What I want changes. I reached my last big goal right before I went home to Arizona in June [yea, Ireland to Phoenix in mid summer - can anyone say SIZZLE?! :)] Once there my new goal was to be active and eat whatever I wanted if I truly wanted it (read: Do I Really Want This?). No big time restrictions or eating plan. I skydived, shopped like a mad woman, and ate Mexican food like it was going out of style. What's funny is I get full much quicker than I did even a couple of years ago. I noticed this after I first started to eat 5-6 smaller meals a everyday. My body says "when" much quicker. So now my overeating is much less "over" than it used to be. The result was an overall gain of 4 lbs (1.8kg) in 4 weeks. This doesn't sound like much but on this very petite 5'4" frame it's more noticeable. The major issue was the depletion of muscle tissue. I went from 16% body fat back up to18% (I have been at this a while so my highs are still pretty low). I'm not worried. This is how life flows. I love life and food.

Now it's time to restate my goals. How about you?