Be Goal-Specific

The most basic thing someone can do to change anything in their life is setting a goal. By doing so you create an end result that you will strive to achieve. Goals should be simple and straight-forward. Setting smaller, realistic goals that create a step by step plan will allow you to better measure progress and increase overall motivation. By having a plan in place it allows you to make more dramatic changes in the shortest time possible. It allows you to customize your training, nutrition and supplementation to best suit your specific needs. Someone trying to build muscle won’t follow the same plan as someone overweight trying to lose bodyfat. Tailoring your program once a goal has been established will ensure both short and long term success. What would be a specific goal? Lose bodyfat and maintain muscle mass, gain size and strength, and gain muscle mass, while maintaining and/or losing bodyfat would be a few.

This tends to be the most confusing and difficult part of building a better body. With so many experts and so many diets, the amount of information all claiming to be the best to follow is staggering. Nutrition is truly a key factor in many regards. It’s the key to building muscle mass, losing and keeping off bodyfat, and improving and maintaining overall health. So how do you sift through all the various diet and nutrition plans out there? Well most all have common threads that all follow. There are a few core diet principles that if you just stick to them consistently, you will continue to improve over time and reach your goals. How many calories? How many carbohydrates? What ratio of carbs, protein, and fats? None of that really matters if you aren’t following the few core principles of a better diet. It’s why most fad diets don’t work long term since people get bogged down in the details and aren’t consistent with the basics. Once the details get too frustrating, people fall back to their old habits without ever forming new ones. So what are a few basic core diet principles?

These are just a few of the core principles that will help build a better body. If you’re not following these three principles consistently, determining calorie needs and carb counts won’t matter. Just changing and establishing new nutrition habits will be the major key in long term success in building your best body.

Almost all the major functions in the body occur and require water. Without a properly hydrated body, trying to burn fat, build muscle or even absorb food will not occur optimally and make reaching your goals more difficult. Drinking at least 1-2 glasses of water with every meal should be the goal to keep properly hydrated. Make sure you drink water before, during and after all exercise, both cardio and weight training. Non calorie flavored water is fine, just avoid carbonated and sugar laden water products.

To maintain motivation and discipline toward a goal, you have to take the effort at the beginning to establish a baseline to measure progress from. Using just the scale can be deceiving and disheartening when your weight doesn’t change, even though you still can be losing body fat and gaining muscle. Taking "before" and "after" photos, though to some can be difficult in the beginning, is a great tool to judge progress. Taking body measurements and getting your body fat measured are both essential tools to show progress and how far you’ve come from when you started. By doing so increases your motivation and adherence when you see that you are moving forward toward your goals. Other motivational tools are posting an inspirational photo on your fridge and telling co-workers and friends about your goal to build support.

Consistency is key, not perfection. You’re always going to waver from your goals at times. Friends, family, work obligations can all deter you from your goals. If you get off track, don’t let it slow you down, just jump back on your plan. If you can follow your plan 90% of the time, you’re still going to reach your goals as fast as possible. That’s why "cheat" meals, days, etc. aren’t the best since you plan to stray off course vs. just taking each day and sticking to your plan, so when you do "cheat" it’s the 10% that you’re allowed and you go right back to being consistent. It takes 3-4 weeks to create a habit that you’ll continue to do long term. This can be as simple as walking 15 minutes every morning. Use a calendar and cross off the days of the month till you get to the end of the month and you’ll see how easy it is to stick to your plan. Most diets and exercise plans fail after two weeks since it’s the third week that either creates the new habit or whether you go back to old habits. The same goes for bad habits, if you follow them for more then two weeks they’ll replace your new, good habits, so even if you do fall back to old habits, catch yourself and get back on track the next day vs. just giving up entirely, before you know it, you’ll be following new, better habits that you’ll have for the long haul.

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