Many people make New Year diet resolutions with the intention of losing weight, getting fit or just eating more healthily, but unfortunately, not everyone manages to stick to them. If that sounds like you, here are some tips to make this year the year that you stay with your resolutions, and get in shape – permanently.
Set Clear Goals
It’s very important to know exactly what you want to achieve with your resolutions. Rather than just saying ‘I want to lose some weight’, write down how much you want to lose, and the timeframe in which you want to do it. Then you can break this goal down into stages, and know how much you’ll need to lose each week or month.
Make Sure Your Goals Are Realistic
While it’s great to set ambitious goals that motivate you strongly, it’s also important to make sure that they’re achievable. One major reason why people give up on their New Year’s resolutions is that they try to do too much too soon. So don’t be tempted to try to make drastic changes overnight, or to lose weight too quickly. If you just make small improvements in your eating habits first, and gradually add in more changes as you go along, while being happy to lose the weight at a slow, steady pace, you have a much greater chance of success.
Get Support
Losing weight and changing to healthier habits can be challenging, so it helps a lot if you have some support from others who know what it’s like. Friends and family who have lost weight or got fit, weight loss support groups and online forums can be good sources of motivation when you hit a rough patch.
Listen To Your Body
When starting a new diet or health plan, you might find yourself craving junky foods, and feel like you’re battling against your body. But if you tune into its signals, it’ll tell you exactly what it wants to eat, and when. You don’t have to force your body into being healthy – it has a natural desire for healthy foods and it doesn’t want to be unfit or overweight, and you’ll find it much easier to reach your goals if you listen when it tells you that it’s had enough food, or that it wants to be more active. When you can trust that your body will push you in the direction of what’s best for it, you’re no longer fighting it, and the whole process becomes easier.
Focus On Health
If you’re overweight it can be easy to focus purely on getting rid of the fat a.s.a.p., but you’re much more likely to succeed if you make your health your priority, and avoid short term crash or fad diets. By eating a sensible, balanced diet with appropriate quantities of food, combined with moderate amounts of exercise, the weight will come off, and you’ll also be building healthy new habits that will help it to stay off. Plus you’ll have lots of energy and feel great mentally too, making it easier to stay with your new regime. Crash diets, on the other hand, may help you slim down quickly, but they’re practically impossible to stick to for long, you’ll feel terrible, and you’ll almost certainly put the weight back on.
Reward Yourself Along The Way
Make sure that you have some system in place to reward yourself for staying with your healthy diet and exercise plan. The reward shouldn’t take the form of food however – try something like new clothes in a smaller size, a spa treatment, or whatever you personally find enjoyable, but wouldn’t normally do for yourself on a regular basis. Having lots of little incentives to look forward to along the way can help you to stay on track.
Keep The Benefits In Mind
It’s easier to build healthy new habits if you know exactly why you’re doing it. You might want to slim down for health reasons, or to look better, or feel more confident or energetic. Whatever the reason, spend some time each imagining how you’ll feel when you get there, and the goal will feel more and more real to you.
Take Some Exercise
Exercise is a vital part of a healthy lifestyle, and while it’s possible to lose weight without exercising, permanent weight loss is difficult to sustain without it. Regular exercise will also life your mood and energy levels. So as part of your New Year health resolutions, choose an activity that you enjoy (even just walking is good), and do it for at least 20 minutes three or four days a week. It might take some motivation at first, but after a short while you’ll find yourself actually wanting to do it.
Keep Going
Chances are that you’ll have days where you eat something that you shouldn’t, or you’ll overeat, or miss an exercise session. If that happens, don’t feel like you’ve blown it, and be tempted to throw in the towel and give up on your diet resolution. Instead, be nice to yourself, and get right back on track. Building new healthy habits can be difficult and most people will slip up from time to time, so don’t feel like you’ve failed. You only actually fail when you give up completely.
Keep these points in mind when embarking on your new diet or health plan, and this could be the last year you ever need to resolve to lose weight or get healthy – because this time next year, you’ll be living it!
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