Goals or resolutions for 2011

Today's Post: Thursday, 12-30-2010

Last year, I set two goals for myself for 2010 in Decmber, 2009. Then I did a post on Tuesday, 1-5-2010 titled:

Health Resolutions you can achieve, Part 2....

Since you may have things you'd like to have or achieve that you haven't gotten or done, now & that might be possible for you in 2011, why not set a goal to get some of them in 2011?

In doing that, it may be of value to you to read the key goal achievement part of last year's post and what I learned in from the two goals I set for 2010.

That combination may improve your chances of achieving your goals.

I. Here's that part from last January's post:

"a) Since I value self-improvement and have a ways to go on some things, I read a few articles about New Year’s Resolutions to see if I could learn any tips that might help me on my two main resolutions.

Wow !! I am so glad I did.

I learned something incredibly valuable I had no clue was so.

At least according to the stories I read it’s true.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Caroline Zinko quoted research saying that 40 % of the people who set resolutions actually were still on track to achieve them 6 months later!

And, another article said that 65% of the people made at least some progress towards their goals in their resolutions. That includes the 40 % who basically succeed and another 25% of all the people who set resolutions who get at least some progress out of doing so.

This is about five times better than I thought was the case because of all the bad jokes about people who don’t get anywhere at all with their resolutions.

b) I already knew that you are more likely to achieve goals if you:

Write them down.

Have a deadline or target date by when you plan to achieve them.

Pick only the one, two, or three most important goals to work on.

And, perhaps most important of all, you make a list of things you can for sure do that will make your goal more likely to happen or even happen for sure –
AND, begin doing the items on your list within two or three days of writing them all down.

You actually have no direct control over achieving your goal. But you do have absolutely direct control over whether or not you take the steps to achieve it."

II. My experience last year with my two goals showed those ideas to be right on the money.

My health goal was to re-lose the 15 pounds I'd gained back of the 30 I initially lost -- and do it using methods I could keep doing so it would stay off. My hope was that much lost fat would also lose enough inches from my waist to protect my health and improve my appearance.

I DID know about 14 things I could do to achieve the goal of losing 15 pounds of fat. I knew each one would have some effect. For some, I was able to calculate about what part of the 14 pounds it would help lose.

Better yet, they were things I had time to do; and I could afford to do all of them but two. THEN, I began consistently using the 12 things I could do.

I lost the 15 pounds in the first 6 months! The methods I used were not designed or expected to do more than that. And, although I did lose about 3 more pounds, I recently gained that back. So I ended the year right at my goal weight.

I also added 3 methods during the year. The two I added in the first 6 months helped get the job done. The third one I added when I gained back a bit. It worked and will help me lose back part of the 3 pounds I gained in the first part of the holidays.

I also did lose enough off my waist, two inches, to move me from the borderline of being fat enought to put myself at health risk due to being too fat to well under that.

But that was it. I did NOT lose the two more inches I had hoped I might. Worse, from an appearance standpoint, it was much farther from what I hoped than I wanted.

I looked more muscular in my arms and shoulders and chest and back and even in my legs. But because, in addition to losing two inches from my waist, I also did from my chest and hips. It was all fat; but because it was the same in each place, I looked about as pot-bellied at the end as I did at the beginning.

(I did try to add a method during the year to add more muscle in hopes of losing more inches from my waist. But I didn't just injure myself, I apparently broke something in my arm that may not be fixable. So, for now, I can's use this method. It's too bad too; because it was beginning to work just before the injury.)

So, my goal for 2012 will be to find things to do that will help me lose inches from my waist even if I wind up a bit lighter than I'd like or have to find more time to exercise than I have now. (Or I may have to have surgery on my arm and hope it does more good than harm and heals right.)

How did I do on my second goal?

Not at all well.

It was a financial goal. Why? Because I did NOT have a list of things to do and could start doing that I had time and money to do. There were those that I could do with more time and money. But with a bit more time and money going into my first goal, that was even less likely.

There are three pieces of good news though. That goal involved making money online by helping people lose fat and keep it off.

So, by proving that my methods worked by using them on myself, my first goal and achieving it actually WAS the more important of the two.

Two, I did make progress on having more money another way by starting a souce of income that enabled me to apply for a credit card since I now had the money to pay the payments on it. And, just last month, they actually increased my credit limit. (I used the card each month and then paid a payment that paid that back the next month and did this for several months in a row.) That credit increase will enable me to actually do at least one of three things that will get me started making money and by the end of 2011. I may well be able to do two more or even three.

So those taking as many of those steps as I can in 2011 is my main goal for next year.

Since I have set on my schedule how to achieve the first of these three things by early February, I actually have a shot at doing all three of them.

Three, I did find and successfully take a preliminary action that I learned something from I can use later. (This goal was in the 25% where I did at least make some progress.)

Now, how about you? What goals or resolutions are important to you where you can list things that will achieve them that you can do and will do and will start doing?

You only need one or two goals on that list. But if you can do it, it's well worth it. A year from now you'll be glad you did.

Health Resolutions you can achieve, Part 1....

Today's Post: Monday, 1-4-2010

a) Since I value self-improvement and have a ways to go on some things, I read a few articles about New Year’s Resolutions to see if I could learn any tips that might help me on my two main resolutions.

Wow !! I am so glad I did.

I learned something incredibly valuable I had no clue was so.

At least according to the stories I read it’s true.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Caroline Zinko quoted research saying that 40 % of the people who set resolutions actually were still on track to achieve them 6 months later!

And, another article said that 65% of the people made at least some progress towards their goals in their resolutions. That includes the 40 % who basically succeed and another 25% of all the people who set resolutions who get at least some progress out of doing so.

This is about five times better than I thought was the case because of all the bad jokes about people who don’t get anywhere at all with their resolutions.

b) I already knew that you are more likely to achieve goals if you:

Write them down.

Have a deadline or target date by when you plan to achieve them.

Pick only the one, two, or three most important goals to work on.

And, perhaps most important of all, you make a list of things you can for sure do that will make your goal more likely to happen or even happen for sure –
AND, begin doing the items on your list within two or three days of writing them all down.

You actually have no direct control over achieving your goal. But you do have absolutely direct control over whether or not you take the steps to achieve it.

Part one, today’s post, is about Fat Loss. (Part two in our next post I plan for tomorrow is about other ways to improve your health.)

This one is the most popular resolution by far.

Losing weight, or more accurately and more useful, losing fat, is NOT easy.

Until recently the success rate in losing excess fat and keeping it off was been ridiculously low.

But, we are beginning to know how to both lose fat AND keep it off completely after it’s lost.

Unfortunately, that’s a fight I have yet to win completely myself.

I lost 30 pounds of fat and then had to reverse half the causes &, as might be expected, I gained 14 pounds of it back.

Even worse, I managed to regain almost all the two inches I lost off my waist.

So, my health resolution for 2010 is to lose back the 14 pounds using methods I can then continue indefinitely AND to lose FOUR or more inches off my waist by actually losing about 32 pounds of fat and gaining 18 pounds of muscle.

I have a large list of things to begin now or begin by mid-April when I’ll have a bit more money to spend on them.

Since I made that resolution, I’ve already begun doing two of the things on my list. And, I’ve researched many of the ones I’ll begin later in the year.

1. I’ve recently had a very bad case of the middle of the night munchies – for at least the last five years or more! So even though some of the things have been lower in calories and higher in fiber, this clearly has helped keep me fatter than I should be.

So, I began to simply go back to bed anyway when I woke up hungry. That’s occasionally obnoxious but by eating a bit more with dinner I was doing it. Then I ate just a little bit just once one night -- & my acid reflux which had gotten a bit better, immediately got much worse.

That tends to mess up the restfulness of my sleep as much as being hungry does. Ah Ha! I said to myself.

Since I will be hassled anyway at night whether from waking up hungry or acid reflux and NOT eating when I feel hungry at night is keeping me fat so why NOT use the method that is better for my health AND will help me lose the 14 pounds and 32 pounds of fat?

So far, this has worked & I’ve not eaten at night since.

As long as the extra I eat at dinner is mostly nonstarchy vegetables this one by itself may lose me 7 to 14 pounds of fat towards my goal.

2. Many people who do jumping rope have sharply lowered their fasting glucose and HBA1C blood sugar readings and, even better, lost inches off their waist measurements!

And, even though I’ve hardly any remaining time to exercise, I realized that jumping rope for just 4 to 8 minutes the three days I get home from work earlier and once on Sundays would get me in far better shape if I build up gradually and use the interval cardio style recommended by Dr. Al Sears in his PACE method.

Doing this will burn an extra 400 to 600 calories a week directly. And, according to some sources, it will also cause me to burn another 400 to 1500 calories a week late in the evening when my body is recovering.

It will also, I believe, add 9 pounds of the muscle I want to gain -- in my jumping muscles in my legs and buttocks.

This one also has the potential to lose from 5 to 25 pounds of fat & remove from an inch to 4 inches from my waist by itself.

This one I’ve not yet begun doing. But I have found two places in our house where I may have enough room to do it & the rope I can use initially to try it. If it works at all with that bit of badly suited rope, I’ll then invest the $25 to $35 dollars to get a good jump rope.

And, if jumping rope inside simply takes up more space than we have available, I’ll buy and use an Urban Rebounder that costs more like $150 or $160. That may take a few weeks longer to buy, but since this is a major step towards my goal, I WILL get it done!

By half way through the year, I’ll be adding that 800 to 1950 calories of exercise to each of my weeks. I already average 900 calories a week of strength training and interval cardio in a few minutes each morning. And, I burn about 600 calories a week walking mostly during my commute. So I’ll go from about 1500 calories a week to 2300 to 3450 calories a week burned by my exercises.

3. It was in the recent news that people trying to lose weight (or eat more vegetables for health reasons) did well by drinking just 2 glasses a day of low sodium V8. The people who drank the V8 lost about a quarter pound a month more than the people who did not.

Guess what? !! In a year of 52 weeks a quarter pound a month of extra fat loss is 13 pounds.

That’s almost all my 14 pounds on the scale that I want to lose and nearly half the 32 pound fat loss I intend to achieve!

I can DO that!

The big cans of low sodium V8 don’t cost much. So I’ll start with those.

Then, because of the potential health harm of the BPA in the lining of cans, when I can afford it, I’ll switch to Virgin Mary drinks made with unsalted tomato juice that I can buy in bottles.

As you can see, I’ve just begun my list of about 14 things I plan to do to reach my goal. I may not have direct control over my fat. But I can and will add those 14 things!

Then, I simply plan to keep doing them all.

I believe that if I hit my fat with 14 things each one of which might cause me to lose from 5 to 14 pounds of fat – from each one, I’ll reach my two key goals.

So, some of them won’t work. Some of them I may not be able to keep doing. But I believe the combination is virtually guaranteed to do the job.