By Gabe Sanders PhD, NSCA-CSCS
Every year millions of people aspire to eat right, exercise and overhaul their lifestyle in order to enhance their health and well-being.
In fact, research has found that 70% of all New Year’s resolutions revolve around the concept of improving one’s physical health.
Resolutions are wildly common, although some people have recently refrained from such resolutions because they believe they will ultimately fail, so they adopt the “why even try” mentality. These people believe it is simply a matter of time before the resolution dies and old bad habits become the norm again.
Go For It!
While I understand this type of thought process, I often question its rationale. Why not go for it!
Why not try to drastically change your behavior and adopt a New Year’s resolution that might lead to a healthier lifestyle. If you do fail, so what, try again!
Let’s say you go hard and adopt a strict diet and exercise regimen for four- six weeks and then you trail off. That is a victory!
The fact that you adopted a new behavior for four-six weeks should demonstrate that you can do it.
On the other hand, the fear of failure should never deter or scare you from trying to be healthier. While a healthy lifestyle is a forever commitment, it often takes a drastic change to kick start a life-long behavior change.
Go All In!
With that said, go all in! Many experts recommend setting a date to commence a new behavior or stop an old habit.
Three effective ways to lose weight
Aside from daily exercise and strength training, here are three very effective ways to lose weight as you kick start your resolution.
- Cut out the sugar! Your goal should be to consume less than 25 grams of sugar a day. Twenty-five grams per day is the amount you may naturally consume from eating your daily amounts of fruit, dairy products, and whole grains. The moment you “splurge” you will go way over 25 grams.
- Start your day being physically active. A morning walk, stretch, or bout of aerobic exercise can help get your day off on the right foot. This morning bout does not include your daily exercise but it will boost your daily activity.
- Stop eating or drinking alcohol at night. Dinner should be your final meal of the day. Late night snacks will halt any weight loss efforts. Replace any type of eating behavior with an activity or with a positive non-eating behavior.
*Before starting any exercise or nutrition program, consult with your physician and/or healthcare provider
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Article’s Resources
Oscarsson, Martin, et al. “New Year's Resolutions-A Large Scale Randomized Controlled Trial.” 9th Swedish Congress on internet interventions (SWEsrii), 3 November 2017, Linköping, Sweden. Linköping University Press, 2017.
Rössner, Sophia M., Jakob Vikaer Hansen, and Stephan Rössner. “New Year’s Resolutions to Lose Weight–Dreams and Reality.” Obesity facts 4.1 (2011): 3-5.