Weight Management Part V: If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail! (part A)
Continuing our series today, we’ll talk about how to appropriately plan for goal achievement. In case you missed out, here are the previous four parts of our series:
Part 1: “If You Do What You Always Did, You’ll Get What You Always Got”
Part 2: Setting Emotional Goals
Part 3: Start Easy, Build on Success
Part 4: Mastering the “Basics”
So, you’ve taken a long look at yourself in the mirror, and have come to the following conclusions:
– You don’t like what you currently see
– You realize that your current strategy is not serving you or getting you closer to your desired self.
– You’re ready to make a positive, permanent change, and you’re vowing to not ever look back.
So, seeing how all this sounds all nice, warm and fuzzy, there’s one part missing… YOU’RE CONTINGENCY PLAN!
Yup, its time to get serious, folks. The saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” always rings true, and never does it ring truer than in our case of weight management. No long-lasting body composition change comes about without a sure-fire, fool-proof, multi-factorial plan that acts as the driving force to get you there.
In other words, “I’m just gonna try to watch what I eat and exercise more” NEVER work for permanent changes in body composition. Why might you ask? Well, for starters, there’s a lot of questions left on the table here:
– “Try to watch what you eat”? What does this exactly entail? What encompasses “watching what you eat”? Eating 50 calories fewer than normal? 500?, 1000? How much less are you going to eat? What kinds of changes will you make with regards to the quality of foods that you consume?
– How much are you going to work out? What kind of workouts?
– How often will you “try” to eat/exercise more?
– How will you measure progress? How will you progress your workouts/diet plan***?
*** (YES, DIET PLANS NEED TO BE PROGRESSED JUST LIKE WORKOUTS DO…. Don’t just think that you will continue to lose weight magically if you stay eating just 200 calories less than what you normally eat… there is A LOT more to it than that…)***
All in all, “I’m just gonna try to watch what I eat and exercise more” is faaaar too subjective of a plan to get you towards your goals. Your plan MUST encompass several important components that allow little to no room for error or deviance from the plan.
In other words, your contingency plan needs to be S.M.A.R.T!
To find out more about what a S.M.A.R.T. contingency plan consists of, as it relates to weight management, stay tuned for Part B.
Have a great day everyone!
MG