It’s easy to proclaim your New Year’s Resolution and get excited about the future, but most of us also know the struggle of breaking bad habits and forming new ones. If your resolution is to improve your health, use these 5 tips to help you stay on track this year.
- First, write your goals down. This gives you perspective and helps to keep yourself accountable.
- Set Realistic Goals. If your goal is to lose 10 lbs every 2 weeks, you’re not only setting yourself up for failure, but also setting yourself up to develop unhealthy behaviors. Losing 1 lb per week would be more attainable, but an even better strategy to losing weight would be to set behavioral goals such as “I will bring a healthy lunch to work everyday”, or “I’ll take the stairs up to my office everyday”.
- Make gradual changes. Radically altering your lifestyle is one of the main reasons why resolutions fail. If you never workout, don’t resolve to start a 7-day workout routine. Instead, aim for starting out with a couple days a week in the gym and increase when your body adapts. You’ll prevent injury and prevent your resolution from failing.
- Schedule it. Everyone is busy, but we make time for the things that matter most. Make your health a priority. Schedule the time to prepare healthy meals at home or to take a quick 20 minute walk everyday.
- Celebrate the small successes. Reward yourself for sticking to the plan for an entire week. Just make sure you don’t reward yourself with something that goes against your goal (ie. If you’re trying to cut back on drinking, don’t reward yourself with a glass of wine)
New Years is still the perfect time to refocus on your health. Just make sure to plan for success and avoid hurting yourself along the journey. Call us today to schedule your New year check-up.
Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2016!
