Are you as healthy and fit as you can be?  Take a moment to reflect back on the past year.  How successful were you in 2011 in taking charge of your body?  Did you follow an exercise program or activity plan that worked for you?  What did you accomplish that you are proud of?  And where could you use improvement?

As we enter the holiday season and approach a new year, a little advance planning in terms of your exercise goals and expectations can go a long way to keeping you on track.  Goal-setting is one of the best ways to stay motivated to exercise.  If you have a clear purpose, you are more likely to persevere.  Experts in the field of self-improvement often recommend the SMART system of goal-setting, which states that goals must be Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic and Timed.

Specific:  "Wanting to stay in shape" is not specific enough.  You need to create objectives that will keep you in shape, such as accumulating 30 minutes of moderate cardio activity 5 days of the week; doing two 15-minute strength training sessions per week, and 5 minutes of stretching every day.  Regarding your food intake, your goals might be:  Eating only one portion of food at your meals, limiting alcohol at parties and just having a taste of rich desserts.

Measurable:   It's easy to measure your success in maintaining your weight during this time if you're in the habit of weighing yourself. The scale offers hard evidence!   If not, however, you can get a good sense of how you're holding your shape by using a favorite pair of jeans or a skirt as your "tape measure."  Hopefully, they will fit just as well on January 2nd as they did on November 23, the day before Thanksgiving.

Action-Oriented:  Have a written action plan that breaks your long-term goals into weekly targets.  This gives you both the satisfaction of meeting short-term goals and a regular opportunity to assess whether your goals are reasonable.  Ask yourself:   Do your goals fit your lifestyle?  Your schedule?  Your work and family obligations?  If your action plan appears to be unworkable, you need to adjust it.

Realistic:  Don't be a casualty of unrealistic goals.  For example, if you find it impossible to do your normal strength training routine, do bodyweight exercises like push ups, squats and crunches for muscle maintenance.  Small increments of exercise done consistently can be an effective "active rest" from your full program.  You'll be that much further ahead when you hit the weight room in January than if you had just given up completely.

Timed:  Setting a target date gives you the motivation to stick with an exercise program.  How about setting January 1 as the deadline for your maintenance program and the beginning of another phase?  As your time frees up from the hectic holiday season, you can devote more time to resuming your normal exercise routine.  It's the perfect opportunity to set goals for another 5 weeks and focus on achieving them.

Be SMART about laying the foundation for a Happy, Healthy New Year!

Joan Pagano, former trainer to Jacqueline and Caroline Kennedy, is a best-selling author, a speaker on health and fitness topics and the owner of Joan Pagano Fitness in New York City.  For more about Joan and her services, please visit www.joanpaganofitness.com

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