Each New Year, many people promise to improve their health by exercising more. Starting on January 1st, new diet plans and exercise routines that were made, sadly, fail before they begin. Thankfully, there are some hacks here to help!
Here are ways to make your exercise and weight loss New Year's resolutions work.
Set Realistic Goals
Arguably the most common resolution made on January 1st is to lose weight. Where they go wrong is the number of pounds people expect to drop.
Instead, set smaller goals that are more achievable. Come up with a plan of how you will go about accomplishing your mission.
Find The Root Of The Problem
Lots of people make resolutions to eat healthier in the upcoming year. Not many of them, however, know how to accomplish this. Identify the problem you want to solve.
Changes to diets can come by cutting down on salt intake, having more vegetables, or eliminating meat from your meals.
Break Up Your Resolutions Into Tinier Bites
Resolutions are meant to be long-term goals. The steps along the way need to be small and detailed. Outlining New Year's resolutions and breaking them into mini categories makes organization easier.
If the goal is to climb a mountain, mapping out the path will make the journey less difficult.
Change One Thing At A Time
While there is nothing wrong with making a list of resolutions, doing them one at a time is the key to their success.
Rather than promising to drink more water, lower salt intake, and cut down on useless carbs, all in the same week, try accomplishing one thing per week.
Be Specific About What You Want To Accomplish
January 1st is when many resolutions, like wanting to lose weight, are made. They are typically too vague, which leads to failure.
Be specific about what it is you want to accomplish. If weight loss is a goal, write down how many pounds you want to lose and when.
Have A Backup Plan
Batman is not arrogant enough to go to a battle without a backup plan. Making resolutions, sticking to them, and finding ones that work is challenging.
Weather, sick kids, or a call into work might delay workout plans, so doing yoga or cycling at home could be an alternative.
Create An Atmosphere For Your Success
Most resolutions that flourish are the result of proper organization. Making more efficient use of time before going to the gym, for example, allows you to concentrate on the workout alone.
Instead of wasting precious minutes deciding what to wear to the gym, lay everything out the night before.
Don't Just Make A Statement...Write It Down
When people look into their mirrors and make resolutions, it is just lip service. Instead of speaking about what you will do, write it down.
Someone new to working out should put it into a statement to themself like, "I'm going to start working out __ times per week."
Avoid The Quick-Fix Guarantees
Fitness resolutions take time to accomplish. Online there are all sorts of advertisements and posts claiming to shorten weight loss time or boost muscle growth without putting in the work.
Magic pills and quick-fix diet plans rarely succeed. After schemes fail, those unsightly pounds make their return.
Variety Is The Spice Of Life
Mix up your exercise routine. Many people stop working out because what they do has become boring.
Switch things around from day to day. You can walk daily and divide the week by doing Yoga, lifting weights, and finding a group class to join once or twice weekly.
Water! Water! Water!
Drinking water regularly is what everyone, not just those exercising, should be practicing. When you do not consume enough water, it can negatively affect your mood, concentration, and physical performance.
While working out, find a fountain or bring water instead of slurping down energy drinks with too much sugar.
"Rome Was Not Built In A Day!"
"Rome wasn't built in a day" is a saying with a hidden meaning. To accomplish great things, like building a great city like Rome, takes time and will not happen overnight.
Improving a diet plan, like cutting out unhealthy foods, should be something done in moderation, not cold turkey.
"Jump Around!"
Once you have been working out regularly, calories will burn even when seated. So moving more, even slightly, will increase the number of calories flying away.
Walking or biking to work instead of taking public transit or driving your car, if possible, are subtle ways to increase daily movements.
Keep Track Of Your Progress
The best way to know how well or poorly you are doing is to keep track of your progress. Like keeping a journal, writing down the moments, you have made positive results daily goes a long way.
Recording your weight every day will show the fruits of your labor.
Measure The Unmeasurable
Stay with us on this one. Weight and pounds are things that can be measured, but there are also positive achievements that cannot be quantified.
Healthier eating is hard to track by itself, but checking off every time you sit down to eat a nutritious meal can be monitored.
Make And Celebrate The Small Victories
Every time you clear a hurdle in the race toward your New Year's exercise resolution, time should be spent enjoying it. Setting goals and accomplishing them regardless of size and importance is not easy.
Drinking more water or walking further distances each week are mini-success stories to be celebrated.
Applaud Yourself After Every Win
Provided you do not get a concussion from patting yourself on the back; it is completely acceptable to celebrate accomplishments.
Positively acknowledge any progress you get. Hooting and hollering about your own success helps keep you on the right path. Encouragement, even from ourselves, helps to maintain focus.
Create, Target, And Hit A Deadline
While you do not have to be Tom Cruise because you have a mission to accept or deny that expires, deadlines help accomplish resolutions.
Motivation can come from setting the target date to be the same date as an event. Birthdays and holidays months apart are excellent deadline days.
Still Create A Long-Term Goal
Resolution makers should remember one thing. To cross the finish line, people need to see it and ensure it is visible and in plain sight.
It is encouraged to make and monitor progress in small steps, provided there is a target. The goal has to be attainable long term.
Patience Is A Virtue
Coming up with successful exercise or weight loss resolutions requires time and patience. This is not an exact science. Sometimes people have to find what works for them through trial and error.
If there is something you are doing that is not working, explore all other available options.
Grade Yourself After Every Month
Allow yourself to become a teacher and create a monthly report card to grade your progress, successful accomplishments, and suggestions for improvement.
Giving yourself a mark allows opportunities to find solutions for what might not be working. Perhaps the time of your workout or eating schedule needs to be adjusted.
Eyes On The Prize! It's About "How," Not "What!"
Focusing on how you will accomplish exercise goals carries more weight than what they are. In basketball, the "what" is scoring more baskets than the other team, and good coaching provides the "how."
Sometimes another set of eyes can spot things our eyes cannot and provide ways to improve.
Surround Yourself With Support
Nobody has ever achieved or accomplished their goals on their own. Everyone could benefit from having people around to help keep them on track.
Family, friends, or whoever you trust, surround yourself with those who have your best interests in mind. Shed toxic negativity like it was weight.
Find A "Resolutions Tag-Team Partner"
Since familiarity breeds content, find someone to climb the mountain with you. Numerous studies have shown more positive results come from people working out together.
Motivation and accountability are challenging enough for people to have individually. Together workout partners can create routines set for specific days and times.
Enlist Support Online Or Create A Group
Fitness and health are just as much mental as they are physical. Online support can be found for almost any issue, and struggling to maintain a resolution of importance is one.
Many people find groups helpful because it is easier to progress when they realize they are not alone.
Post Your Resolutions Via Social Media
Using Instagram, Facebook, and other Social Media to post your resolutions forces accountability and provides extra pressure.
Posting can be used as a tool for tracking progress like a journal. The difference is that people online can call you out when you deviate from the plan, a diary cannot.
Seek Out Daily Inspiration
Superman and Wonder Woman work well alone, but sometimes even they need help getting out of bed in the morning. Find yourself a source of inspiration to follow and guide you every day.
Currently, apps have been designed to boost confidence and complement and reassure users about their progress.
Embrace Technology And Use It
Technology is attached to more ears and fingertips today than it ever has. Phones and other devices like "FitBit" can be programmed to monitor progress and display results before, during, and after working out.
The number of apps and devices that are free, reasonably priced, and available is limitless.
Mistakes Happen, So Forgive Yourself
Slip-ups along your path to making your exercise resolutions work are understanding that mistakes are bound to happen.
Indulging in food that violates vows to improve diet occurs occasionally, but a strong workout routine allows for this, or skipping the odd exercise day. Pick yourself back up and continue.
Believe What Your Mirror Says
When you look into the mirror, smile, and tell your reflection, you believe in it. For successful results from your resolutions, there needs to be self-confidence.
Although confidence building takes time and can be a resolution, there is no room for defeating yourself. Trust you're doing what's right.
