So it might’ve been some time since you last determined a fitness goal for yourself. Maybe it was on your birthday, the start of the 2018 calendar year, or after the CrossFit Open. So how often do you re-visit that goal? Have you achieved what you set out to do, in time? Or is it time to re-assess?

If it’s been over 3 months, you may want to consider re-visiting your goal(s). This time frame is a good length of time to review what actions you took towards your goal, how often you put those actions into practice, and if they were effective or progressive towards accomplishing your goal.

Let’s say that for example, one of your goals was to lose 5 pounds of body fat mass in 3 months time. After re-testing, you may have found that despite the lack of major scale weight change, your InBody report shows that you lost 8 pounds of body fat mass, and gained 2 pounds of new lean body mass. So you may ask a few questions about your past 3 months that can help you determine if your action plan was successful. What did I do differently these past 3 months that allowed my body composition to change? — Chose high quality, whole foods, worked out 4 times per week, cut out the daily can of Coke, and drank at least 80 ounces of water per day. So you might find that these actions, which then built up to becoming daily habits, were the reason for success! So maybe it’s now time to change the goal! Onto possibly maintaining the new body composition, and setting some performance goals such as goals in the gym!

However, someone who has been exercising consistently for years, and has already been eating pretty healthy for some time with whole, minimally processed foods, then losing 5 pounds of body fat mass in 3 months may have to take a little bit more tweaking in the action plan. Maybe that person will have to start quantifying the foods that they eat, and logging them on a daily basis, or possibly adding in an extra few sessions of long, low intensity activity each week (long, slow, biking or rowing) to assure a decrease in body fat in this time. Changing the action plan for a person who has been doing the same actions for some time now is bound to bring about changes.

Thinking about whether it’s time to change your goal, or whether to change your action plan? Chat with your coaches at CrossFit Des Plaines! They’d be happy to give you some guidance based on what you’re looking to achieve next.