Healthy New Year’s Resolutions

Every year, millions of people make the same blind promise on the first of January. The gym will be my new home, people say. The pounds will melt away, millions vow.

At the same rate the resolution to lose weight is made, though, it is broken.

However, if you have a plan and set realistic goals, a resolution to lose weight can become more than a resolution — it can become a reality.

Proper planning and realistic goal-setting are musts. Because it’s no secret that resolution-making is generally ineffective.

An informal study of more than 220 people in the journal Cognitive Daily, for example, found about 40 percent had broken their resolutions just one week into the New Year.

Another study from Franklin Covey, a time management firm, backed that claim. Its study, which tracked more than 15,000 people, found that one-third of people who make resolutions will break them by the end of the first month.

And there isn’t a resolution more commonly made than the resolution to lose weight, according to USA.gov.

So why do most people fail? It’s a simple problem, said Jeff Kotterman, the director of the National Association of Sports Nutrition. People are failing a simple math problem.

“In order to burn excess body fat, you have to eat less calories than you burn in a day,” Kotterman said. “Then you have to make up that difference. And the way you do that is finding out how many you burned and how many you ate.”

While the equation of burning more calories than you take in to lose weight is straightforward, many people still can’t get a grip on their eating and exercising habits.

Clark Bartram says that people need to develop a better understanding of the effect food has on their health. Bartram, the director of media relations for the International Sports Sciences Association, said all food should serve a purpose. And you should know what that purpose is.

As a personal trainer, Bartram said he has seen countless people approach their resolutions the same way. They expect big things and their goals reflect that. Their level of commitment, though, isn’t on the same level. The first step, he said, is to get a grip on your nutrition and the effect it has on your body. Bartram encourages people to simply write down everything they eat in a journal for two days to better understand the consequences of the food they eat. However, nine out of 10 people can’t even follow this simple step when trying to lose weight, he said.

“You shouldn’t put unnecessary hope and expectations into something that’s not really tangible,” Bartram said. “You should start by writing down what you eat for two days. People need to see what’s going into their bodies.”

It’s not just a calorie game either. Although caloric intake is the main factor for weight loss, you still have to make sure to get essential vitamins and minerals in the food you do take. Kotterman said too often people only focus on calories, ignoring intake of needed nutrients like fiber, protein and good fats.

“The makeup of those calories has to include nutrients for growth and repair,” Kotterman said. “Your body needs nutrients and uses them every day.”

Once you understand the science behind the nutrition, exercise should be worked into the mix. But the frequency and amount of exercise is just as important as the exercise itself.

“You have to begin to make subtle changes in your daily regimen,” Bartram said. “That’s what’s successful in the long run. You can’t make a sudden change in lifestyle.”

Overexerting yourself early in the new year might seem like a good idea to kick start the new regimen, but it often leads to failure. Going too hard early on in the process might lead to exhaustion, which leads to the end of your weight loss goals.

Kotterman said it’s better to exercise at a lower intensity more frequently than at a higher intensity less often. Aside from avoiding the early burnout, metabolism is also boosted, he said.

“(Frequency) goes for both eating and exercising,” Kotterman said. “How often you exercise is important. Those who exercise more frequently will have a higher metabolism than those who exercise harder but less frequently.”

Sticking to a diet also entails just that — sticking to a diet. It’s easy to get sucked into gimmicks and products, Bartram said.

But in the end, all of the pills, juices and infomercials aren’t a substitute for good old-fashioned diet and exercise.

“The best advice is don’t think a program or system or supplement is the answer,” Bartram said.

More than anything, losing weight takes dedication. Bartram said you shouldn’t want to lose weight just because everyone else is doing it. If you decide to take the weight-loss plunge, your motives should be well thought out. You should want to lose weight for your health and well-being, not for someone else or to keep up with the status quo.

“It needs to be more than a resolution,” Bartram said. “You have to ask yourself why you’re doing it. It’s turned into such a surface-level decision. People just do it because everyone does it.”

So if proper diet and exercise is all you need, why do two-thirds of Americans fail at their resolutions? Kotterman said one of the biggest diet-killers is the American lifestyle.

People are too accustomed to the lifestyle that led to the extra pounds around the waist and can’t maintain the gradual lifestyle changes they make.

Proper nutrition and adequate exercise are lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday corporate America.

“We’re no longer a society of baseball and apple pie,” Kotterman said. “We’re a society of McDonald’s and iPhones and having a meeting in between meetings with a Bluetooth in your ear. The American lifestyle is killing proper nutrition.”