5 Tips to Get You Started on Your New Year's Weight Loss Resolution

5 Tips to Get You Started on Your New Year's Weight Loss Resolution

Every year millions of people make New Year's resolutions to lose weight, be healthier, more exercise, lift weights, or any of the countless resolutions "healthy". Unfortunately, only a very small portion of these people actually accomplish what they set out to do. Why is it? This is not because people do not sincerely want to get healthier. Everyone would like to lose that spare tire or return to their goal weight. However, many people either the goals without a good strategy, or find the right strategy but do not determine their goals. This article will introduce five tips that will help you set achievable goals and determine a strategy for achieving these goals.

1. Set realistic and achievable goals and then write them, and cast them everywhere you go

You can not achieve a goal if you do not define. It's fine to say "this year I'm going to be healthier" or "2015 is the year I lose weight," but they are vague objectives that you could strive forever without a specific end time . If you want to lose weight, make your goal you will lose 20 pounds by a certain date. Do not leave it open ended. In addition to this, set smaller goals intermittent to keep you on track. If your goal is to lose 20 pounds in two months, then set smaller weekly and monthly goals to keep you on track.

Second, set realistic goals. You will not go couch potato Arnold in a month. If you want to lose 50 pounds of body fat, do not expect this to happen within 30 days. Set goals you can achieve, so each time you reach this goal, your motivation builds, rather than being overwhelmed by this goal shoot-for-the-moon-type that seems unattainable. It binds to the establishment of a step by step timetable for reaching your goals.

2. Keep a food diary

Most people have no idea how much or how little (eating too little is just as bad for weight loss than eating too much) they actually eat. If you have never taken the time to count your macronutrients (notice I did not say count your calories) then you probably do not know how much you actually eat in a day. Whether your goal is weight loss or building muscle, your diet plays a role in the process. You need to know exactly how much you consume, and distribution of your total calories. I recommend doing this part of your permanent routine. It's really not hard to connect your food these days with all the available applications. MyFitnessPal is an application that allows you to simply scan the barcode of your food and it will generate the nutrient contents for you. It also records the breakdown of carbohydrates, fats, protein, fiber, and more, rather than just calories.

At the very least, try connecting your food for a few weeks so you get an idea of ​​how much you're actually supposed to eat. If you never have to establish a benchmark for yourself, you'll never know if you are eating too much and not eating enough.

3. Plan your exercise schedule for each day of the week

You can lose weight through your diet, but if you want to tone, tighten and sculpt, build definition, increase lean muscle mass, get big as hell, or any other hot sentence is there for building muscle and the definition you have to incorporate resistance training. Cardio is great, but it takes the right combination of resistance training and cardiovascular exercise to build a great-looking good physical health.

To build your new physique, you must establish a plan of attack and stick to it. It is too easy to skip a day if you're just trying to fit in exercise when you can. Even if it's as little as 20 minutes a day, you must set a time each day for exercise.

In addition to this, you should plan your actual exercise. What muscles are you going to work every day? Will you do cardio and resistance training or just one? How long will your rest periods? Sets? Reps? Have a plan. If you really want to spend a ton of time in the gym and will not have any results at all, go without any sort of plan. Do not waste time walking around thinking about what you will do, or forgetting muscles you worked yesterday or the exercises you did two days ago. Take ten minutes to sit down and plan the attack you are about to come on your body. You'll save time and see more progress.

4. Recruit a Friend or Family Member

Achieving your goals will be much easier if you can find someone to do it with you. A very important thing to remember is to hire someone who is already having regular or really wants to make a change. Do not take the laziest person you know to be your workout buddy. There will be many days you will need a little more motivation, so it will help a lot to have someone who will push you to get better, do not agree that you should take the day off to eat pizza and ice cream instead. In addition, when you begin to see progress, you will have someone to share that joy, and you can continue to help each other better.

5. Learn something new every day

Take 10 minutes each day to read something new about nutrition or fitness. It's really hard to stick to something if you do not care, and it is much easier to take care of something if you know about it. If you feel like you do not know how to eat right, lift weights, do cardio efficient, large targets, or anything else, then learn about it! You can find just about anything on the Internet. Take it upon yourself to learn more about what you are trying to do. Learn more about effective methods to lift weights. Learn about the most effective forms of cardio. If the layout was simple, everyone would be in shape. This is not magic, but it takes some knowledge. This is an important part of your strategy. If you do not know how to create a great strategy, it will seriously hinder your goals.

If you do not want to take the time to learn (or do not), then hire a professional such as a certified personal trainer. Their sole purpose is to provide a roadmap to success. All you have to do is follow it.