FITNESS IS NOT A RESOLUTION

Exercising and healthy eating habits should not be a New Year’s Resolution... Rather a part of your daily activities just like brushing your teeth. People who set out with strict fitness plans as well as stringent dieting as their goal for the New Year often set themselves up for failure. Often they will start out on their regime extremely disciplined and really strict, falling off of the fitness wagon in the first few weeks. Usually every January you will see health clubs as well as Yoga classes and tracks filled with ambitious people ready to set out on their new fitness program, By February, half as many people are still at it. This is because people will set unrealistic goals for themselves , going to the gym every day and overtraining, starting on a crash diet and stopping drinking. You should first start off by setting realistic goals for yourself. an example of this would be to eat clean during the week and give yourself a cheat day on the weekend or cutting your drinking out during the week and having a glass of wine on the weekend. Maybe start out going to the gym 3 times a week and making time to go on an hour walk each day. By starting of slow and not with an all or nothing mind set, you will be more likely to keep up with your workouts and healthy eating plan. A good way to start out on your fitness endeavor is with "Possibility thinking", which allows you to live into the body that you want. Examples of this would be putting up a picture of yourself when you were in good shape or a picture of someone's body who you would like to look like on your bathroom mirror. You can also make a scrapbook or "vision board" of things you would like to try such as snowboarding, kayaking or some yoga poses. Another example would be writing down all of the goals that you want to achieve with exercising, maybe running a 5k or doing a set of 20 pushups or going on a 6 mile hike. Each day you should try and incorporate a workout of some sort into your schedule, whether it is just doing 20 minutes of weights or going on a half hour walk at a fast pace at lunch, you will be more likely not to fall off course of your fitness goals and less likely to put off your workouts because of time constraints. This goes for your healthy eating habits as well, try and eat 4-5 smaller meals thru out the day or have a healthy breakfast and lunch if you know you are going out to a party or a dinner. In conclusion start out slow, be realistic with your fitness goals and healthy eating habits and don't set yourself up for failure.