In the aftermath of all the pounds gained during the holiday season, New Year’s resolutions oriented towards losing weight through a better diet and fitness are far and away the most popular type of resolution. The sad truth is that many of us end up forgetting about these resolutions around the time February comes around – gyms love people who sign up early in January since these people often pay for an annual membership and are the least likely to actually stick around and use it!
Sticking to your resolutions is entirely possible, but you have to be realistic with yourself. Many people say that they’re going to go on some kind of crash diet for New Year’s. Then, when January rolls around, they embark on this ridiculous diet for all of two weeks, get frustrated with the unsustainable nature of a crash diet, and then go back to their old ways for the rest of the year, disheartened.
You should think of your New Year’s resolution as something that you will be able to stick to for the rest of the year, so some sort of fad diet that you can barely stick to for two weeks is out. Instead, focus on things that are easier to live with: plan on eating out less often and cooking your own meals more, choose healthier options rather than indulging in fatty calorie-fests, and introduce or intensify a physical fitness regimen into your life.
The death of most New Year’s resolutions is impatience: you see how much weight you’ve gained over the last year (which is spiked up by the over-eating of the holidays as well) or how little you have managed to lose over the last year, and you desire something faster and more immediate.
Unfortunately, drastic lifestyle changes are the ones least likely to be integrated effectively into our lives for the next year; they are simply unmaintainable. So, if you want to actually stick to your New Year’s resolutions, take time in the planning phase to pick realistic resolutions that increase your health and wellness, rather than choosing some fad diet that you can’t maintain.
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