How to set New year resolutions that actually work

After the Christmas holidays how many times you hear people saying the typical phrase “new year, new me”?

For gym owners January is one of the best month in terms of revenue because after the holiday binges, people make decisions to start living a healthier life and sign up to the gym.

Great but the problem is that these kind of people are the ones that by March/April latest will drop off, and after working in a big commercial gym for many years I can guarantee that these people are the ones who make decisions in base of their temporary motivated state, which is one of the biggest mistakes that people do as motivation is just a feeling that comes and goes. It

will be just like going to do your grocery shopping on an empty stomach, it just won’t work effectively!

Initially, motivation can help you get started, but ultimately is discipline that will drive your habits and behaviour change.

How you approach New Years resolutions and changes in general is crucial and most people go into this journey without a plan which is why they are destined to failure. Would you build a house without the foundation?

Planning is KEY to start your fitness journey and you should plan for short term and long term goals, which means a year or maybe two, where you should know what to expect.

That’s where fitness and nutrition professional come in handy because many think they do have a plan but just start going to the gym, working out at home following some random YouTube workouts and starting to “eat healthy” might feel like a plan in terms of good intentions but means nothing practically.

In fact when January comes so many people start running either outside, on the treadmill or join those sweaty circuit classes and they go vegan or start eating “more vegetables”, thinking that THAT is a good plan and I get why everyone’s first instinct is to load up on cardio: you run for 3 days a week, burn calories and water weight comes off so yo assume that it’s the way to go.

The issue here is that is not a long term strategy. For starters the more cardio you do the less calories your body will burn as you continue to do the same thing. This is the body’s way to optimise your performance . So as your body adapts, you need to either add cardio or reduce calories, which will not be sustainable enough as a habit for you to keep, unless you plan on running 6/7 days a week for the rest of your life.

Lastly, I can’t stress that enough, cardio doesn’t send muscle building signals and when in a caloric restriction will send the signal to burn muscle and hold on to body fat. Not ideal if your goal is the opposite, isn’t it?

I am sure that many have tried this maybe even every year and didn’t work, here’s why.

You need to change what you do in order to change how your body looks and I know is not easy to change behaviours that include how active your are and the foods that you eat so in order not to overwhelm yourself start with one change at the time, otherwise the odds that you are going to succeed will be very low so start with one big permanent and effective change. Get very good at it then go ahead with another one, get good at that one too and so forth.

You could start with any of these big rocks:

1. Avoid heavily processed foods, which normally are packaged food with long shelf life, by just eating whole natural food you save so many calories from those highly processed food. They’re calorically dense and SUPER easy to overeat. Whole foods on the other hand, are veery filling and naturally limit the amount of food you can eat. To prove this a study was done on two groups of people that were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. One group included processed foods and the other stuck to whole foods only. By the end of the study the BIGGEST difference was those eating processed foods ate on average 500 more calories than the whole foods group. When I start a client on a diet, normally 500 calories is the deficit we start at to stimulate fat loss. So sticking to whole foods only is most likely going to make weight coming off without having to count calories.
   

2. Start strength training a couple of times a week. Strength training impacts the metabolism in a positive way, whereas other forms of training have value but 2 days a week of strength training is way more powerful than any other forms of workout for an overall health, mobility, fat loss and muscle gain. Incorporating a resistance training routine that involves progression will provide the signal needed to build muscle and hold on to it when cutting calories. Lifting weight helps you also burning calories while at rest so the more muscle you have, the more you burn. Ideally full body sessions 2/3 times a week are great to start, choose a weight that you can hit for a rep range between 5-20 and try not to go to failure as you want your form to be very good. Once you are consistent with it, increase the resistance (weight) because if you use the same weights your body will adapt and eventually stop responding. Don’t fall into the trap of using the same weight for months, it will take you nowhere.
   

3. Walk and not on a treadmill, just walk more throughout the day. Walking is the form of activity that you are most likely to be able to be consistent doing and you don’t need to transform it into a workout you just need to be aware of how much you move so here is why step counters can come in handy. Even just 10 mins walks after breakfast lunch and dinner will help you get your steps in.
   

4. Improve your sleep quality. Sleep impacts your eating habits and your cravings by balancing out your hormones which will led you to make better food decisions. If you sleep is on point so many other areas of your life will improve as you are more likely to feel motivated, more focused and you will think more clearly. Sleep routines can help you improve the quality and quantity of your sleep and let me tell yo how. Start to dim the lights before bedtime, try to stay away from screen one or two hours before bedtime and if you can’t wear blue light blocking glasses. Reading a book over watching something in tv can help you regulate your sleep and if any of these strategies won’t help, consider talking to your doctor or physician about supplementing with magnesium and melatonin.
   

5. Track your macros, if you don’t track, you are just guessing and if you are just estimating you are not going to get tangible results, you will just reap the benefits of moving and feel better but very little will change in terms of fat loss and muscle gain. In fact most of the times that I and my clients are not tracking, we tend to under consume protein, which is the most important macronutrient for aesthetic goals. It might feel frustrating at first but I can assure you that it’s more frustrating to not being able to reach your goals than tracking your food, so ultimately is up to you to make the change.

Again take those steps one at the time, because doing it all together is challenging that’s why is best to break this all down into small changes that you can implement in your life and once a habit is fully established then add another of these big rocks.

Also remember that if you want to make all the changes at once, once you plateau it will be much harder to get your body to start progressing again as you did all together already, instead if you start small you know you can tap into any of these 5 big rocks and get things moving again.

With all being said make sure to learn to pay attention to how your body feels and responds, don’t get too fixated on just how you look and what your scale says cause if you are getting stronger, your libido and energy levels are high, your sleep is better, your digestion or your skin but the scale is stuck then you are still progressing.

Plateau is when NOTHING is responding anymore so make sure to attach your wins to more than just aesthetic metrics and learn to read your body signals.

If you need help with it fill in the contact form and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

LET’S MAKE YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS COME TRUE.