Nutritional Goal Setting

It has been proven that individuals who write down their goals are six times more likely to be successful to achieve them! Don't just think about where you want to be and how you want to change, WRITE IT DOWN!

Follow this blog post to help arm yourself with the necessary weapons to attack your goals head on, having goals are important in all fields of life, and that includes nutrition! Achieving your nutritional goals can be extremely important in indirectly helping to achieve targets in other areas of life also.

HAVE A VISION

Having a clear vision of what you want will give direction and a sense of purpose, envision yourself eating healthier foods, feeling less bloated, and generally feeling healthy throughout the day rather than having short energy rushes.

A vision is more than a goal, as it consider the motives behind the goals and why they are important. What effect will changing your nutrition have on you and your life? Gather information from resources to why eating different foods will have a positive benefit for you. Real change only takes place when an individual resonates with the changes they are making and the reasoning behind them. When I was young I never wanted to eat vegetables and fruit, nowhere near as much as chocolates and sweets anyway, however as I grew older and began to understand the importance and benefits of eating correctly I simultaneously became fonder of these nutritious foods.

4 STEPS TO BUILDING A VISION

1. Set and outcome goal: What weight do you want to be? Keep it positive and write down the

weight you want to be not the weight you want to lose.

2. Set a time frame: When do you want to achieve X weight? Keep it realistic, healthy weight loss is based on a maximum of 2lbs per week.

3. Visualise what you want to look like: Use your imagination here or a picture of you when you were happiest with the way you looked, or an image of someone you admire.

4. Understand your motives: Ask yourself what impact being X weight will have on your life? These are your motivators, you should consider these deeply, for you to succeed you must believe they are worth it.

TIP: If you are serious about your goals keep a nutritional diary, logging your meals and their macro/micronutrient intake.

Here are a few of the top apps and details about them:

http://lifehacker.com/five-best-food-and-nutrition-tracking-tools-1084103754

PROCESS GOALS

Process goals are more like actions and are the foundation to achieving your outcome goal. From a nutritional standpoint examples of process goals may be:

1. Drink 1.5 litres of water per day

2. Always have breakfast, preferably consisting of low GI/GL carbohydrates that will allow slow release of energy

3. Eat vegetables or salad with every meal

4. Eat natural foods such as nuts for snacks instead of chocolate or sweets

Setting process goals and maintaining them is essential to success. You must be aware of what change is required to achieve your outcome goal, and the process by which it will occur. I would recommend focusing on a maximum of 3 process goals per week, or less if you know it is going to be more of a challenge.

MASTERY - When you have mastered your 3 goals and they are becoming habitual then you can think about the next logical process goal.

SUCCESS CYCLE - To ensure you are moving towards your vision each week, it makes sense to have a process you can follow.

Having a clear vision and process goals are a positive start and the foundation to change; the next step is to be aware of what is working best. The review of your action will be different depending on your goals set.

For example, if your target was to reduce the amount of chocolate you eat, then at the end of each week you could count your cumulative chocolate intake for the week.

If your focus was on losing weight then you can weigh yourself once a week (ideally on body fat measurement scales) to see what changes have taken place.

Aim to review your progress at the same time each week!

Ideally you should spend at least an hour at the end of each month to really address the success cycle, being honest with yourself as to how hard you have worked and how successful you have been. You can then re-plan your goals and change the processes in place to achieve them if required.

TIP: Making changes to your life can be very difficult at first, particularly if these are habits that have been part of your life for a long time. Change requires motivation, repetition and routine. Incorporate new habits in to your routine everyday and soon it will become second nature to you.

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