Goal Setting

• Types Of Goals

• How to Set "S.M.A.R.T." Behaviour Change Goals

• Personal Goal-Setting Template

• Self-Monitoring Using a Food & Activity Diary

Types Of Goals

It is important to review goals and set new ones. Try to focus on setting goals in the areas of diet, physical activity and family lifestyle.

Each is important to a healthy pregnancy and the combination will help to reinforce your efforts. For example:

• Diet-related goals will help you to identify areas for change in not only the foods you eat, how you eat, and where you eat but also why you eat.
• Physical activity-related goals will help you to increase your level of physical activity. Being more physically active will help you work towards a healthy pregnancy weight, and also help you to stay focussed and positive.
• Family-lifestyle-related goals will ensure your whole family benefits from your lifestyle changes. As a parent, your attitudes and behaviours related to food and physical activity will be role-modelled to your children. When children grow up eating a wider variety of nutritious food and including physical activity as a normal part of their life, they are more likely to carry these habits into their adult life. Think about how your family can benefit from being a part of your move towards a healthier lifestyle.

How to Set "S.M.A.R.T" Behaviour-Change Goals

Follow the principles below to make your goals are S.M.A.R.T, that is;

Specific: Write your goal clearly and specifically, as if it is an instruction telling you what to do e.g., instead of "walk more" set the goal "go for a walk for at least 15 minutes, 4 days per week during March".

Ask Yourself: "How much? How often? For how long?"

Measurable: Make sure you can measure your progress towards a specific goal and keep a record so that you can know if it has been achieved. This will help motivate you and provide a confidence-boost for when you make progress.

Ask Yourself: "How will I know when it is accomplished?"

Achievable: Goals should be ambitious, but not impossible. You may have to break larger goals into smaller ones so that you establish a baseline from which you can gradually build on. It is also important to recognise the other steps that are necessary to achieve your goal e.g. waking up 15 minutes earlier so that you can park a few blocks away from work to increase your activity.

Ask Yourself: "How am I going to achieve this?"

Relevant: Your goal should be relevant to you and something you want to achieve. It must be your own goal and not someone else's e.g., not just what your partner or your health professional thinks you should do.

Ask Yourself: "Does this seem worthwhile and relevant to me? Is this the right time to make this change?"

Time-Specific: Attach a time-frame for a healthy sense of urgency and to prevent you from feeling as if it is okay to start and finish whenever.

Ask Yourself: "When do I aim to achieve my goal?"

Personal Goal-Setting Template

Print out a copy of this Goal-Setting Template and fill it in to help you set some S.M.A.R.T Goals!

Self-Monitoring Using a Food & Activity Diary

Recording food intake and activity levels in a diary helps you understand your eating and activity patterns and is a first step in making positive, lasting change.

Use the Food and Activity Diary to record the time you ate, what you ate, where you ate, what physical activity you did, and describe the situation and your feelings about your eating behaviour and/or activity.

Check out our Healthy Eating page for information on how to use the Hunger Scale on your Food & Physical Activity Diary

It can be challenging to be honest about eating and feelings and it may seem a burden to record everything however, your food and activity diary is a key part of this programme so it's crucial you complete it as accurately as you can. It does get easier the more you do it.

Tips for Successful Self-Monitoring:

- Record As You Go: Complete the food aspect of your diary while you are eating or straight afterwards, not later in the day. Making records in the moment will increase the accuracy of your diary, and help you reflect on your thoughts at the time of eating. The temptation to fill in the entire day in one go will inevitably result in you forgetting what you ate and how you felt

- Time: Record the time you began eating the meal or snack

- Food and Liquid Intake: Record both the foods and the liquids you consume (including water, coffee, tea or flavoured drinks)

- Location: Be specific about the location of eating. If you are at home eating on the couch, write "couch at home" rather than "home"

- Feelings/Thoughts/Circumstances: Note the situation around your eating, the way you felt and the thoughts that accompany or trigger eating

- Physical Activity: Record any planned or incidental physical activity that you did that day including the length of activity. Did you go for a walk, did you park further away from the shops, or did you take the stairs at work? Where possible include the length of time and whether you felt your heart rate increase (this will be easier for planned activity). You can also record pedometer steps here.