Happy New Year to all of our wonderful readers of the blog! You may be reading this after your morning workout, or maybe after trying a new recipe that is going to kick start your new year’s resolution to eat better. This time of year is filled with new goals, gym membership sign ups, and the setting of great expectations to make this year the best one yet. As fitness professionals we are so excited that more people are making a commitment to improving their health. Unfortunately we all know too well how quickly these commitments turn into loose promises, and eventually become a lost cause. It is troubling to see the statistics that are stacked against those who are trying to improve their health.
Of the top 10 new year’s resolutions, 7 of them are related to improving health. These include:
- Exercise more (38 per cent)
- Lose weight (33 per cent)
- Eat more healthily (32 per cent)
- Take a more active approach to health (15 per cent)
- Learn new skill or hobby (15 per cent)
- Spend more time on personal wellbeing (12 per cent)
- Spend more time with family and friends (12 per cent)
- Drink less alcohol (12 per cent)
- Stop smoking (9 per cent)
- Other (1 per cent)
From the same poll, they reported that of the people who made new year’s resolutions, 63% of them failed. There are reports out there that present even higher rates of failure. For all of the people who join the gym in January, at least 80% of them quit by the second month of February. These are shocking numbers and worry us even more because feelings of failure, and the extremely restrictive diets that people put themselves on in the month of January, often lead to people regaining the weight and even leave the individuals in poorer health than they were prior to January.
At Free Form we do not want you to become one of these statistics. We believe that goal setting is an important part of living a healthy life and therefore making a New Year’s resolution to improve your health in any aspect is amazing! So here are our tips on how to stick to your New Year’s resolution and avoid being just another statistic.
Start Small
Look at your whole life and pick 1 thing that you think would be easy to improve. Instead of saying I am going to quit smoking cold turkey, or, “I am going to lose X amount of weight this year”, pick something like “I am going to stop having a smoke when I am at work” or “I am going to get myself to the gym regularly every week”.
Keep Your Whole Life in Perspective
Making a New Year’s Resolution can make people feel like they only have the next 12 months to get to their goal. Some people even make resolutions to get themselves in shape for beach season, adding extra pressure to look perfect in just 4-5 months. If you are looking to improve your health and well being this year think about it as something to improve your health and well being for the rest of your life. So if you slip up one week because family or work stress throws you off your game, know that you didn’t lose 1 of the 52 weeks you have to reach your goal, because 1 week is really a small amount of time in the grand scheme of life.
Celebrate the Little Wins
Somewhat related to the first tip – celebrating the little wins allows you to feel successful on a regular basis. If you only allow yourself to feel accomplished when you reach the major milestones and goals in your life, then you lose out on feeling good about yourself and life for all the time leading up to it. If you goal is to quit smoking this year, celebrate the days when you smoke less than you did before. If you want to eat better, celebrate the days when you reached for a salad instead of the pasta dish, or celebrate the days when you practiced moderation for every meal. When you reward yourself mentally, the journey towards your ultimate health and wellness goals become much more enjoyable and will lead to greater adherence to your plan.
Speaking of plans…
Making a plan for yourself can help keep you focused. Similarly to how a personal training program allows us to track your progress and success, making a plan for yourself can help you track your progress and success along the way. Adding in rewards throughout the year to help keep you on track can make planning out your goals exciting. Lastly, if you are making a goal that has a specific time frame in mind, include a re-evaluation at the end of that time frame. So often we see people say they are going to get healthy in time for a wedding or birthday and then they do! But then they go right back to their old ways and all of that hard work they put in was for nothing. Have your goals serve you long term by evaluating the successes and failures of resolutions, and then learn from those to create a new resolution for the next time frame.
We really want to see everyone succeed and make 2018 the year where we all do something to make ourselves a little bit more healthy and happy! Try some of these tips out when you’re making your New Year’s Resolutions and let us know how they worked for you!
From all of us here at Free Form Fitness – Have a safe, happy and healthy New Year! – FFF
