Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
Seneca
Now as anyone whose spent the slightest bit of time looking into improving their health and fitness will have read, setting goals is important. Actually, that's true of pretty much anything you need to work at the achieve. Setting goals gives you something specific to aim for, which allows you to decide on your method and allows you measure progress. So, as I've already established in my previous post where I'm coming from, I now need to define where I'm going.
Right now, I have two core aims. Reduce body fat and maintain lean mass. Losing weight is such a bullshit term and so are many of the diets that promote losing weight. They often cause muscle loss, which is always a bad thing, m'kay. Put simply, muscles burn calories, more muscles burn more calories. The greater amount of muscle you carry, the greater amount of general calorie burn without doing additional exercise (your rested metabolism). So, while dropping my body fat I do not want to lose much, if any, muscle.
General aims established, it's time to get specific. Short term I want to:
- Lose 14lbs of fat within 4 months
- An average of 0.82 lbs of fat a week, though with the Christmas gain a better goal would be...
- 1.17 lbs per week, with all December classed as a bust. If I still work my ass off as much as I can, probably only losing a week of workouts due to travelling and family commitments, I should be able to maintain. If not, it's overtime.
I won't go into mid/long-term goals in detail, but as a guide I'm thinking another 6 lbs over the following three months, then longer term another 6 lbs over the next 3 months. That's all subject to change, inasmuch as my focus may shift to gaining size or strength. Time will tell.
That's it for this entry. Just have to check at my next stat check how I'm doing.
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