Realistic Healthy New Year’s Resolutions

By Jonathan Hickson, MD

Gentle Wellness Center

. http://www.mygentlewellness.com

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Realistic Healthy New Year’s Resolutions

With the New Year upon us, many look at this as a time to start anew. Re-establish our health goals and possibly re-invent ourselves. Unfortunately, many of us fail at accomplishing this when we make our New Year’s resolution a huge lifestyle change instead of keeping it simple. In medicine, we generally like to establish what’s called S.M.A.R.T. goals for patients.

These are Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely goals that are easier to keep track of.

It’s a lot easier to start walking for 10 to 20 minutes a day versus just getting up and running five miles out of the blue.

Set clear goals

If your goal is to simply lose weight, implement simple lifestyle changes like cutting out one soda a week. Incrementally decrease the amount of sugar in your diet. If you don’t want to define your goal by a set weight, you can also define it by activity. Go dancing or pick up a sport that you enjoy.

Consistency is key

Nothing worth having just manifests itself out of thin air. The key is to be disciplined and consistent with what you want. That’s the benefit of making your goal simple and easy to do. It makes it a lot easier.

Your current situation is the result of your habits and actions over your lifetime. Thinking of overturning the results of a lifetime in a few months is not reasonable. If you want to lose weight you need to consciously take actions and consistently make lifestyle choices.

Do not be discouraged when you face a setback. Sure, you may gain a couple of pounds instead of losing them in a week. The important thing is to not be discouraged and keep working towards your goal.

Keep it fun

If you do not enjoy working towards your goal, chances are you will quit. If you want to lose weight, instead of just running on the treadmill, there a lot of other things you can do – go for a hike, join a kickboxing class, go rock climbing, and so on. If you enjoy what you are doing, you are less likely to abandon your goals.

Keep yourself accountable

It is important to have a support group that keeps you accountable for your goals. Have a group of friends that support you towards your goal and do activities that work towards your goal with you. Your support group will help to keep you in the right track when you lack motivation.