Lose the Holiday Heft: Three Simple Steps to Stay on Track this New Year

We’ve all been there, making our list of resolutions that, nine times out of ten, includes a gym membership or a crash, fad diet. We then go through with our brand-new plan for a few days, maybe even a month and then we just stop, leaving us feeling defeated and unaccomplished. This year will be different though, we’ve come up with three simple and do-able steps for staying on a healthy path this New Year. 2012 is looking brighter already!

1. “Take Small Bites”

We don’t mean to literally take smaller bites; we mean start slow and simple when going for a lifestyle change. The whole idea of changing your entire diet is unrealistic. When Mariel Hemingway, Wellness Week 2012’s spokeswoman, stopped by to give us all a few tips for staying healthy, she told us to start slow. “I say to people, if they want to change the way they eat, change your breakfast – start with one thing, because it’s do-able and more often than not, if you change your breakfast, you’ll feel differently at lunch and make a healthier choice then. If you push too hard or make it so extreme and so far from your regular life, then you won’t continue it. So I always say go slow, take small bites.”

2. Make it FIT!

If the idea of getting up an hour early to go for a run or head to the gym makes you cringe now, you likely won’t actually get up and go when the alarm is blaring at 5am. Make your goals fit in with your lifestyle. If you don’t like waking up early then then try to tackle your workout after work. Buy free-weights and use them and do a few sets of crunches while you watch your favorite TV show if you can’t get the gym. Make working out a group activity. Go for a brisk walk with your friends or children. Keep in mind that SpaFinder isn’t just about spa, and find a fun yoga, Pilates or fitness class to take. As far as dieting goes, SpaFinder’s Food and Wellness Editor is always bringing us healthy and delicious spa recipes to try at home so you don’t have to stick to an unappetizing diet. Make the goal pleasant.

3. Give it Three Weeks

Don’t buy a gym membership or start a crash thinking that after a week, you’ll have lost 10 pounds and gained a brand new set of abs; that’s just not how it happens. Hemingway says that so many times “we put so much pressure on ourselves that we feel beaten before we start.” Don’t expect immediate results, “wellness doesn’t happen overnight, lifestyle is something that is created, its habits that are ingrained in you. Habits get ingrained over 21 days. It takes that long for a habit to happen, so you have to give something three weeks’ time in order for it to be in your cellular structure. [Once] you do that past the 21 days, then it becomes something that you just do.”

If you start with these three, simple steps: start slow, make the goals possible and be optimistic, we can guarantee that this year’s weight-loss resolutions will be kept!