With the New Year just around the corner a lot of people make resolutions to lose weight and change their lives, but I read a statistic that said that only 8% of people actually stick to their resolutions by the end of the year! I made a resolution to lose weight and get healthy in 2013 and I’ve been successful at changing my body and lifestyle so I wanted to share some Do’s and Don’ts of being a successful New Years resolutioner:
✅ DO make sure you’re losing weight for the right reasons: Losing weight should be a positive change to your life and your reasons for doing it should be positive too (to be healthy, live longer, be able to play with your kids), as opposed to negative reasons (to appease others, out of self-loathing). A negative mindset will make the process seem harder, and make it more likely that you won’t stick with it. Positivity is an important part of a healthy, happy life, and when you think positive thoughts about and do positive things for yourself you’re more likely to extend those positive vibes to all aspects of your life.
🚫 DON’T fall victim to quick fixes and scams: Things like cleanses and detoxes are great ways to drop some water weight fast, but if your goal is to lose fat they’re not gonna help ya out, plus they’re completely unnecessary, your body has a liver for a reason! Not to mention some of these “skinny tea” companies steal progress photos (teatox has stolen mine) and pay those “insta celebs” to promote their products, so save your money (and multiple trips to the bathroom from drinking teas that contain cathartic herbs which act as laxatives) and realize that the only way to change your body in the longterm is a true lifestyle change.
✅ DO be honest about your current eating habits: The reason most people are overweight is because their eating habits are SAD, otherwise known as the Standard American Diet (lots of processed, junk, and fast food, most of which is largely made up of corn). Honestly look at what you’re eating and drinking to figure out where you can make changes, and work on incorporating more natural, wholefoods into your diet (veggies, fruit, grains, nuts, seeds, lean proteins).
🚫 DON’T extremely cut macronutrient groups: Your body needs carbs, fat, and protein to keep you healthy, and all of these macronutrients play crucial roles in making sure your body functions optimally. Drastically cutting one or more will negatively impact bodily functions, so eat a healthy balance of all of them, besides “low carb” diets (or any diet really) are not sustainable, and if your lifestyle isn’t sustainable the results won’t be either. You can also look into IIFYM to figure out the most optimal macronutrient breakdown for fatloss for you.
✅ DO lift weights: This is one I wish I had known before beginning my journey, in an ideal world when you lose weight all of it would be fat, but it’s not an ideal world and water and muscle loss are also components of weightloss. You can help minimize the amount of muscle you lose by lifting weights and keeping them utilized, and making sure that while you’re eating in a deficit for weightloss it isn’t an extreme one (I’d recommend 250-500 less than your BMR times activity level or TDEE, depending on how much you have to lose).
🚫 DON’T be restrictive: If you’re laxtose intolerant or have Celiac disease than you should absolutely cut dairy or gluten from your diet, but if you don’t have a legitimate food allergy or intolerance there is no need to cut those kinds of things out of your diet. When you restrict things from your diet it only makes it more difficult on your body when you do eat them (think bloating, digestive issues, unnecessary weight gain), so don’t feel like you need to eat perfectly clean and strict 24/7. The most important part of “eating clean” in my opinion is that you eat natural, wholefoods 80% of the time, which allows you to be flexible the other 20%.
✅ DO move more: Most people spend a lot of their day sitting, which isn’t what human bodies were designed for, so try to be an all-around more active person. Walking more is the easiest thing you can do more of on a daily basis, but also be creative when it comes to getting your body moving, go swimming, ride a bike, climb a tree, go ice skating, play frisbee, take a hike, not all exercise has to occur at the gym!
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