Here are my goals...
1. Lose body fat. This has the biggest health benefit. And I think it helps a lot in terms of energy level and the other motivating factors I already listed. As for appearance, I would like to reduce my "double chin", my "love handles", and my "beer belly".
2. Gain muscle. This will help me look better, and will also assist in goal #1, as more muscle means higher metabolism and I'll burn more calories even while sleeping.
3. Lose weight. Because of goal #2, this is a secondary goal. And personally, I don't believe that weight or BMI (which is really just weight over height squared) is an important indication of health. Muscle has much higher density than fat (meaning the same volume of muscle weighs much more than the same volume of fat). Right now I am almost 230 pounds. If I could get down to 200 pounds by Canada Day (July 1, 2006), I would be very happy, as my doctor told me last year I should be under 200 pounds. However, I talked with him last week and he agreed with me that this is not as important as general health and fitness, i.e. goals #1 and #2.
The reason I think that 200 pounds by Canada Day is a reasonable goal, is if I cut back 250 calories a day, and exercise an extra 250 calories a day, thats a delta of 500 calories a day, which is 3500 calories a week, and I read that you have to burn 3500 calories to lose a pound of body fat. If I was about 226 pounds on Sat Dec 31, then I should be able to lose a pound a week for 26 weeks, which puts me to Sat July 1. This is of course a very simplified calculation, and also does not take into account muscle mass increase, so like I said I am not making it an official goal.
