Establishing a Starting Point – Body Composition and Setting Goals

By Robert L. Selders, Jr. – Dallas South News Contributor
One of the first steps in the process of the transformation is to determine your starting point. To do that, you will need to assess your current body composition and eating habits as well as your general health, fitness level and lifestyle habits.

The shape of your body is determined by three things: muscle, bone and fat. While there’s really nothing you can do about changing your bone structure, there is a whole lot you can do about muscle and fat. This ratio of muscle to fat is commonly known as your body composition.

It is important to realize that altered body composition is attained through fat loss and lean muscle tissue gain, not weight loss. When your body receives the proper amount of calories and nutrients, you can reach and maintain your fitness goals. Additionally eating supportive foods that fuel muscle tissue will help burn fat efficiently during exercise and when at rest.

Why is it important to understand the difference between fat loss and weight loss?

Calories are burned in muscle tissue. One pound of lean muscle burns approximately 50 calories a day. Conversely, body fat is a store house for calories. One pound of fat burns approximately 5 calories a day and stores 3500 calories of energy.

By simply restricting calories to shrink the number on the scale, a minimum of 25% of weight loss (more than two pounds per week on average) will be lost from lean tissue.

As a result, your metabolism will be suppressed by 50%.

Rapid weight loss from under-eating causes muscle tissue to be used for energy, which cripples your body’s ability to burn fat for energy. In the future this will cause you to put the weight back on and most likely gain more than you ever had before.

Providing your body with a regular exercise program and the food and nutrients it needs will sufficiently fuel working muscles, initiate fat loss and develop an accelerated, fat burning metabolism.

Proper fat loss strategies will allow you to lose 75% of your weight from fat and less that 25% from lean tissue.

Setting Healthy Goals

The first step to achieving results is setting a realistic goal. No matter what the reason, successful and healthy weight management depends on sensible goals and expectations. If you set sensible goals for yourself, chances are you’ll be more likely to meet them and have a better chance of managing your weight long term.

Setting healthy goals at the start of an ongoing program can help you change and improve your physical activity and eating habits. To set goals that are right for you, think about what you want to change and why, and what steps you can take to reach your goal. These changes don’t have to be big. Even small steps can make a difference. Also, think about who can help you, and how you’ll reward yourself for making these changes.

5 Steps to Setting Goals

Make a choice – Look at your body, your quality of life. What do you really want to have?
Be specific – Leave no detail left behind.
Find Your Y-Factor – Now that you know what you want to change, ask yourself WHY?
Create your plan – What is it going to take to get there? What are you going to have to do?
Take action – Do you know what the number one cause of failure is in most people’s lives? Never taking action. We develop these comfort zones and become afraid to step out of those boundaries and really go after our goals.

We know that we must change. We know that we have to follow our plan to be happy, but seldom do. Do not let your written plan of action go to waste. Start immediately on working towards your goals!

Next: Keeping Records and Controlling Portion Sizes

Robert Selders, Jr. is a certified personal trainer, author, speaker, and the owner of 3Q Fitness Studio (Home of CrossFit Garland) in Garland, TX. Learn more about how you can receive free personal training and nutrition programs at www.3QFitness.com.

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Edited by Shawn Williams