When you are setting new fitness goals, there is a lot to consider. You have to think about your overall goal and what you want to accomplish. It may be to build up your endurance, lose weight, or build up your strength. The way you go about setting new fitness goals depends on what you are trying to achieve.

It is important to spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day doing some type of physical activity. You can do that 10 minutes at a time throughout the day if you prefer. If you commit to 30 minutes a day, you will see your endurance go up over time. However, if you want to make a big change in your endurance levels as part of your new fitness goals, you have to do a more intense workout that gets your heart rate at the maximum level but no higher.

If you are new to working out, take 220 minus your age, multiply that by both 60% and 90%. The two percentages will tell you the lowest heart rate you should aim for and the highest you should let your heart rate get. If you are a fitness expert, you will use 70% and 90% instead of the other percentages. You should get your heart rate up in these ranges between 3 and 5 times every week. If you do this, your endurance will go up over time.

If you are focused on weight training, setting new fitness goals is not as complicated. Do you lift weights frequently only to find that you no longer feel your muscles get tired? If so, you need to increase the weight that you are lifting by two pounds. That does not sound like much but it will make a difference. If you can easily do the additional two pounds without tiring your muscles out, you can go up another two pounds. 

Your workout should be hard enough that finishing up your entire set is difficult. The last sets that you do need to challenge you if you want to build muscle. Resting between sets is important. If you are new to weight lifting, you can begin using a lower amount of weight and slowly build up to a higher weight. You will have to try a few different weights to find one that works for you but that is the only way to safely determine what your limits are. As you get used to lifting weights, you can increase the weight again and again.

If you are setting new fitness goals for weight loss, remember that losing one pound of fat requires you to burn 3,500 calories. That is not as hard as it sounds, though. You have to focus on burning more calories than you are taking in. Healthy new fitness goals for weight loss should be based on losing one pound every week, which means burning 500 calories a day more than you do now.

You should figure out how many calories you are burning while exercising and what your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is before setting your goals. You can use the many online resources and calculators to easily do this. Then, you simply add those numbers to each other and subtract 500. That tells you how many calories you have to eat to see some weight start to come off. You need to consume a minimum of 1,200 calories every day or else your body starts to think it is starving and you will not be able to lose weight.