Each year the calendar starts afresh, but hangovers linger from the last year. What you are right now, you’ve been building to, or fallen to by virtue of what you’ve done over the last year. This holds for you as an individual, and for bigger things like the economy.

Many say it is not good to make resolutions at the start of the year. And it is true that most resolutions are broken. In fact, many may be broken before the sun sets at the end of the day, or within a week at best. But, this is a fine time for re-evaluation, for setting a plan, and for determining your goals. So off we go, we’ll set goals and not make any resolutions.

Goal Setting

This year then, rather than resolutions, we will be setting goals. Then we’ll go for those goals. If you don’t achieve them, re-evaluate and reset your goals. Evaluate your goals regularly and set up weekly and monthly reviews.

Goal setting is an excellent concept. Set near term, intermediate term and long term goals. You now have something to measure and chart and can observe your progress. Make certain to set short term, achievable goals also.  If you only set long term goals, you are likely to get discouraged and give up. Start now and set up achievable short term goals, so that when you accomplish them within the next 4 weeks you’ll be encouraged to continue.

In sports and fitness, this holds for both the experienced, well conditioned athlete, and for the lapsed out of shape, determined to come back one. It is important for both, but definitely more important for the out of condition athlete. The experienced athlete likely already has goals. The experienced, well conditioned athlete must be prepared to modify their goals based on daily and weekly changes that they need to carefully monitor. They must guard against injury, as in reality we all must do.

The beginning athlete, or those of you starting up, determined to whip yourselves into shape need to exercise caution and realistic goal setting. Your ideal, dream fitness accomplishments and body weight and composition can be a long term goal. Realistic improvement, changes in activity level by increasing 5-10% per week with drop backs every third week  can be a short term goal. Setting up a plan with a trainer, or following suggestions from the many helpful websites, books, and plans available can help you get started. Of course the usual caveat applies, if you have or have had a serious medical condition or if you are over 40 years old, have a physical before starting a vigorous physical fitness program. But realize that sitting on a couch watching tv, or sitting on a comfy chair surfing the web can also be dangerous activity.

As you start off the year, make plans to improve in all of what I call the 3 Pillars of Fitness: Cardiovascular (CV), Musculoskeletal (MS), and Physiological (PY).   There is overlap within these categories.

Goals 2009:

Cardiovascular Exercise:

Walking: Increase amount to ___________ steps per day. (Goal – minimum of 10,000)
Running: Weekly range _____ to ______ miles per week
Other: Elliptical

Racing: Event 5K, 10K, 10 mile, Half-marathon, Marathon, Ultra

Musculoskeletal (MS)

Setup a strength (resistance) training , conditioning, and a gentle stretching program to do at a gym or at home. You can use body resistance, dumbbells, combination free weight, or machines.

A certified trainer can help you get started. But don’t be ignorant of what they are doing. Learn the exercises, learn good form, learn how to modify your program. Check your budget, but at least get started and have a form check with a certified trainer. Make sure your trainer understands your medical conditions. Discuss your goals. If you have osteoporosis, osteopenia, and a history of stress fractures, you don’t want your trainer starting you off with jumps onto and off of high objects. If the trainer is aware of this and leads you down a dangerous and high impact path, for your medical condition, your best exercise will certainly be running. Running away. There are many good certified trainers around. Seek them out.

Physiological

Physical examination for evaluation of blood pressure, blood chemistry, lipid measurements, etc.

Make certain your blood pressure and cholesterol and lipids are at good levels. Make certain everything else that needs to be controlled, corrected also is acted upon.

Improve your diet.  Evaluate it thorougly and realistically. Determine to eat healthy 95%, if not 100% of the time. Follow a rationale and balanced plan. Avoid fads. Understand that caloric balance is the key to successful weight loss.

Set your goals for body weight and composition changes (fat loss, muscle gain, etc.) if needed. Short term, intermediate, and long term. Most authorities recommend losing 1 pound per week, with some allowing more than that for a limited time period. Start working on it immediately. You should have been working on this one already, but yes, most people do put weight on over the holidays. In fact, most put weight on, and more than the need over their lifetimes. All of these areas of fitness complement each other. By improving your cardiovascular fitness, getting aerobic exercise, and improving your muscular strength and fitness you’ll also be assisting your diet. In fact they are all connected. Eating properly will improve your workouts also.

Get Going Now

In short, now (and always) is a time to set goals, evaluate progress, and move ahead. Have hope and a plan for the future. Reach for it, run for it, train for it. Get there, where you should be!

]]> http://www.drpribut.com/blog/index.php/2009/01/getting-off-on-the-right-foot/feed/ 0 http://www.drpribut.com/blog/index.php/2007/08/fast-is-not-phat-30-adults-in-mississippi-are-obese/ http://www.drpribut.com/blog/index.php/2007/08/fast-is-not-phat-30-adults-in-mississippi-are-obese/#comments Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:02:25 +0000 pribut http://www.drpribut.com/blog/?p=18

The obesity epidemic is certainly spreading faster than the Nile Virus. Mississippi is reportedly the most obese state and cracks the previous record by having over 30% of its adult population classified as obese. Colorado is the leanest at around 18%. The CDC has declared obesity to be a serious problem and feels that there is a strong relationship between lack of exercise and obesity. D.C. has the highest percentage of obese youth, at 22.8%. It’s time for people to get moving!

This is covered by the AP at the WSJ, among other places.

A variety of conflicting studies and articles are coming out regarding high glycemic foods in performance. What impact do they have and what conflicting studies show is a future topic for us. Fructose is not considered an optimal source of carbs and the sports drinks and gels you use should be examined to make sure that fructose is not high on the ingredients list.

It is lower down on the listing of ingredients in Gatorade, but it is number 2, after water on Powerade (Matrix Reloaded). Powerade is said to be the official drink of the US Olympics. Perhaps it is time to revisit that choice.

At the same time this is under discussion Abel Pharmboy at Terrasig has a fine post up entitled “The Questionable Dark Side of Fructose“. He notes that the consumption of fructose has been suggested to be one of the possible causes of obesity and metabolic syndrome. In conjunction with this he links to an article at Medscape which notes the atherogenic profile of fructose vs. glucose.

The question that plagues this research area is whether the growing (pun intended) obesity epidemic since the 1970s is due to HFCS or simply our overall increase in consumption of all sweetened beverages. I remember when Coke used to come in 8 oz bottles; now you can buy a 44 oz Big Gulp, or at least an average 20 oz bottle. The HFCS issue is also entangled with public aversion to genetically modified foods, including corn, and the fact that large corn-processing companies benefit from subsidies unavailable to conventional sugar cane producers.

Regardless of whether HFCS is more problematic than glucose or sucrose, the only sure way to reduce one’s risk of weight gain due to HFCS is to replace sweetened beverages with good old water.

quote from: Terra Sigillata – Abel Pharmboy

It is definitely up to you to carefully determine what should be in your sports replacement drinks and gels. For long distance running, it is possible that you will benefit from electrolyte replacement. Avoidance of hyponatremia in events of more than a few hours is important. Weighing in and monitoring your body weight over the course of a marathon or ultramarathon may help you reach the proper balance of fluid replaement vs. over or under hydration. During training for long distance events you can weigh yourself after an hour of exercise, if you are in good health, and your doctor clears this, to get an idea of how much fluid you need to replace per hour. At the end of your long runs, with a weigh in before and a weigh in after, you can see how close you are to meeting your goal of proper fluid replacement.