Do you have a fitness related New Year’s resolution? If you do, read this article!
Every year, millions of people set a new year's resolution to lose weight and to get in shape and unfortunately the vast majority of them fail.
So, the question is, why do so many of them fail? Is there something wrong with most people, or is there something wrong with most weight loss and diet programs?
The answer is the latter. There are a lot of things wrong with most weight loss and diet programs but especially the way they approach weight loss. They expect people to change overnight. They don't take into consideration the fact that people are creatures of habit. Did you know that according to cognitive neuroscientists, 95% of the things we do and think are controlled by our subconscious mind? In other words, they are habitual behaviors. Consciously, we only control 5% of our daily actions.
So, if you want to lose weight and keep it off, whatever you did to lose weight has to become a habitual behavior. In other words, you have to train your subconscious mind to take over all of the actions you took to lose weight and get in shape.
The way most diet and weight loss programs approach weight loss, makes it impossible to make the new actions habitual. Since your subconscious mind can't take over those actions, it is only a matter of time before we burn out and quit, thus regaining the weight back. This is one of the biggest reasons why 95% of people who lose weight gain it back.
Do you want 2018 to be different? Do you want this New Year to lose weight and keep it off for life? If you do, here is the only way. Whatever you do to lose weight has to become a habitual behavior and the only way to create new habitual behaviors is to introduce the new behaviors into your life, one at a time.
In other words, figure out what habits you need to develop in order to lose weight. Then pick one habit that you would like to develop first and start working on it. Don't worry about the weight. Weight loss will come sooner or later. It is only a matter of developing enough healthy habits and also eliminating unhealthy ones.
This is the way I help people achieve sustainable weight loss with my Live Your Way Thin System for years, and the results have been amazing. One of the things that many of my clients tell me about my approach is that it is very easy to follow. It does not take as much effort (physical or mental) to stick with the program, which makes it very easy to make it part of your life.
Let me give you an example: Let’s say you are overweight and you wanted to start eating better and also begin to walk more. Some of your bad eating habits include eating too much junk food and you don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables. I would first start with developing the walking habit. Set yourself a goal to walk 4x per week for at least 5 minutes each time. I know that 5 minutes of walking does not sound like a lot but by keeping the duration very short, it is more likely that you will stick with it long enough to make it a habit. Think about it, if you made your goal to walk at least 30 minutes 4x per week, like many fitness professionals recommend, and you got home late and you were very tired, what is the chance of you getting on the treadmill and walking for 30 minutes? Not very good, right?
On the other hand, if your goal is to walk only 5 minutes, you are more likely to get on the treadmill. Remember, your first objective is to get into the habit of walking 4x per week. I don’t care how long you walk for. Over time you will find walking becomes part of our daily routine, and you would also find that your 5 minutes of walking has become 10, 20, 30 or more minutes. The difference here is that you chose to walk the extra minutes, you did not have to walk the extra minutes. You feel very differently when you choose to do something than when you have to do something.
Once you get into the walking habit, start working on the next habit you want to develop or eliminate. Let’s say now you want to cut down on the amount of junk food you eat. My suggestion would be to make junk food special. In other words, allow yourself to eat junk food only on the weekends and holidays. I would never suggest that you completely eliminate junk food because that could backfire. It is in human nature to want what we can’t have, so if you are a big junk food eater and all of a sudden you tell yourself that you cannot have junk food again, you will be craving junk food even more. It is much easier to resist cravings when you know sometime in the near future you can have it.
By the way overtime, you will find yourself eating less junk food naturally. (I am talking from personal experience and also from the experience of all my clients). So, I would set my goal not to eat any junk food, Monday through Friday. Just so you know, very few people can do it cold turkey, so expect to break this rule in the beginning. My suggestion is to keep track, only Monday through Friday, of how many times you ate junk food. Each week try to eat less junk food than the week before. For example, if last week you ate junk food during the week 5 times, this week your goal should be to not eat junk food more than 4 times. Once you get into the habit of not eating junk food Monday through Friday, you start working on the next healthy habit you want to develop, which in this example would be to eat more fruits and vegetable. Again, start by keeping track how many vegetables you eat each day. Each day, try to increase the number of servings you have until you get to the recommended number of servings.
My other advice is not to wait until the New Year to start working on your fitness resolution, I would start right now.
“The best time to start a weight loss program was last year, the second best time is right now”
FREE GUIDE on How To Make Exercising a Habitual Behavior
This year, at Live Your Way Thin, to help people with their New Year’s fitness resolution, we are giving out a Free Guide on How To Make Exercising a Habitual Behavior. Click On The Link to sign up and receive your Free Guide.
If you have been thinking of starting an exercise program, read this exercise guide first. It will show you how to approach exercising, so it becomes a habitual behavior and avoid burn out!
Stavros Mastrogiannis
Creator of the Live Your Way Thin System
Live Your Way Thin
18 Mill Plain Rd
Danbury, CT 06811
(203) 778-9545
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