Healthy Living: How setting proper goals got me where I am.

I find myself constantly writing these "healthy" posts and getting mired in the first two sentences. Constantly re-writing them because they're not cited or as well researched as I'd like. In an effort to stop that and re-affirm that I'm presenting "The World as I see it" I'd like to start with a basic but incredibly important subject.

Goals.

Feel free to read all of it below or skip to the very best bottom for some useful rules to follow for setting proper goals!

Goals can be specific: "I would like paint the bathroom today so it has time to dry before the weekend." or vague "My new years resolution is to be better." Naturally you would think that the more general the goal the easier it would be to reach and the more likely you are to succeed and feel good about having done so. It's not quite that easy.

The first goal is very very specific with a clear point of pass and fail. This kind of goal is a little more intimidating because you will know exactly when you have failed. This puts pressure to on you to succeed. Usually pressure is a good motivator for making sure you reach your goals.

With generalized goals you don't have any way to measure success or failure, thus you cannot succeed. You do however, always have the ability to rationalize why you didn't succeed and foster an "I'll get it next time" mentality. This seems like a very safe place to be because they cause very little stress. When you get into conversations you sound like you have a "solid plan" you can lay out before people and convince them that you're strongly motivated and on a path for success.  What... a... LIE.

Worthless goals are set all the time, I routinely set them for myself without realizing it and I have to constantly make a mental effort to change them into a specific results oriented form. In December I knew I needed to lose weight. I was 280lbs on an bad day, tired all the time, taking 1 or more Zantac 150's a day for heart burn and I looked pretty terrible. I knew I needed to change. I also knew that Christmas and New Years were not going to be amenable to my waistline so I came up with a strategy. I wouldn't start worrying about losing weight until the new year. 

I hate new years resolutions, but I didn't feel I had a choice. So in the time leading up to January 1st I decided to work on a plan of action and I set a solid goal for myself. Read Tim Ferriss' new book "The 4 Hour Body" I came to the conclusion to read this book after seeing an excerpt on about how it was re-searched. The author treated himself like a fancy computer where he would try new inputs (foods, supplements, schedules etc.) and carefully measure the outputs (body fat percentage,waste production,muscle size). A human guinea pig. I loved the concept. I'm a tinker-er by nature so I figured why not try out some personal bio-mechanical modificaiton.  Before January first I had read all the parts of the book pertaining to weight loss.

I set my first goal. "I would like to stick to the 4 hour body  "Slow Carb Diet" for one month and see how it works."  I did no exercising. I simply focused all of my energy on doing that one thing properly. I knew I couldn't measure how many pounds I would lose following what could have been a fake diet. I didn't want to blindly believe any claim from the author so I set a simple easy to measure goal of simply following the diet. I had the dramatic success that I truly wanted. I went from weighing 273 to 259 in 14 days. 

Small Success Check - Did I only eat Slow Carb Diet approved foods today?

Specific Observations - Measure waist/arm/thigh circumference. Record weight on scale.

Overall Outcome - 100% I passed every single Small Success check!

Common aimless goals commonsly set instead are "I would like to lose weight." "I would like to eat healther." "I would like to get fit." "I would like to start eating right and exercising." Each and every one of those goals has no benefit for you built into them. There's no plan and no direction. How are you measuring healthy? How are you measuring fit? What do you mean by eating right? Does eating oatmeal for breakfast instead of cereal count as success? Does completing a 5k run? 

Goal Setting tip #1: Only make goals where you can measure how successful you were before starting and how successful you were after.

I set a goal to follow the Slow Carb Diet. Prior to when I started I was 0% successful, after I stared I managed a 100% success rate with a pass/fail graded per day. 

Around the Middle of January, I set a two more goals for myself.

1)I would like to continue losing weight.

2)I would like to find a way to make slow carb tastier and more sustainable.

1)I would like to continue losing weight.

This goal seems worthless but it was actually right on the money for what I wanted. I wanted to continue to have the numbers on the scale go downwards. That was the only goal I was looking for. I didn't care if I was losing muscle to atrophy, fat to buring, or limbs to chopping. I just wanted those numbers to keep going down. Because as the number on the scale went down, my self esteem went up.

2)I would like to find a way to make slow carb tastier and more sustainable.

WORTHLESS! I didn't even know what I meant with this goal. It should never have been a goal in the first place. It did however end up being a great starting point. I started researching what diets were similar to slow carb, how they were similar and how they explained their benefits. I started looking into  what other similar diets I could transition to. I found "The Paleo Solution" and "The Primal Bluerpint" right off the bat. 

How could I possibly choose between two such well respected diets with rabid followings? I needed to solidify my goals. I wanted lots and lots of information explaining why this method was so successful, and why it contrasted so starkly against what I may expect. I also wanted lots of delicious meal suggestions that I could take and make my own. Mark's website had more information that I had ever hoped for and tons of recipes that all just looked so mouth watering. I chose The Primal Blueprint

By the end of February I manged to weight 248 pounds having done zero exercise. This was a great feeling but I knew that it simply wasn't sustainable. Starting In March I had to set new goals. I knew I couldn't just continue to lose weight. I needed to lose fat and gain muscle. Additional muscle would bump my resting metabolism in addition to giving me more energy and ability to do fun activities. New goals were born.

1) Continued fat loss through following the Primal Blueprint lifestyle.

2) Follow the SimpleFit program for increased Strength.

And these two goals have sustained me until this point. The first goal is easy to track because I know when I cheat and go "off diet" because I still maintain a cheat day or a cheat meal once a week. However to actually measure fat loss I needed to have a tool to do so. I settled on the largely inaccurate "fat calipers" method. I devised a simple and repeatable process for taking measurements. Now, even though I accepted I wasn't getting an accurate body fat percentage, I would be getting results that were relevant when compared to one another and I could measure success.

SimpleFit itself is inherently trackable. There are 10 levels in the program and ways based upon time and repetitions that can qualify you to move up a level. As long as I stay at the same level and improve my repetitions or speed I am succeeding. I also continue to succeed when I max out a level and transition to a new one.

Where has all this gotten me?

I now weigh about 227 . I've got tons of energy, I'm stronger than I've been in years. You can clearly tell there are some serious abs beneath my somewhat flabulous exterior. I'm gaining levels in SimpleFit at a solid pace and I have no problems sticking with the Primal Blueprint Diet, and I'll even skip a cheat day on occasion. I'm helping my friends get fit and healthy as best as I can. I can curl a 55lb dumbell 4 times with each arm. I'm a happier person.

Goal Setting Tips

1. Small Success Check - Did I succeed performing a specific task today?
2. Specific Observations - What characteristics that you're measuring have changed? 
3. Overall Outcome - What percentage of my small success checks did I pass?

Set goals that you can measure on a very small scale. Did I eat according to XYZ diet today? Did I follow XYZ exercise plan today? Did I sleep for 8 hours last night? If you're keeping a physical log always include why's and anything else that you feel may be related so you can try and draw conclusions. Always find a way to measure and if you can't find a direct way to measure your goal find something you can and observe the changes you're looking to have happen. I couldn't tell how much weight I could lose at maximum if I followed the Slow Carb Diet. So I simply set the goal to follow the diet and made Specific Observations of my weight, and circumferences of body parts.