HealthTree Blog

One of the most popular New Years resolutions is to lose weight. People usually get off to a great start with dieting and exercise but soon experience the dreaded exercise burnout, which then leads to eating unhealthy foods. The next thing, the diet and exercise resolution is broken, only to be tried the following year. If this sounds like you, it may useful to keep the following tips in mind.

• Start out slow

Promising yourself too much or placing unrealistic goals on yourself is one of the reasons why you may not follow through with your weight loss resolution. Start out slow by only doing a couple of things to promote weight loss, once you know you can handle those couple of things, tackle more. If you don’t overwhelm yourself you won’t feel like you’re fighting a losing battle.

• Allow mistakes and move on

Don’t beat yourself up over cheating on your diet or exercise routine. If you do something you said you wouldn’t do, acknowledge it and then get back on course. If you start to feel depressed about it, it will only lead you down the wrong path to weight loss. You’ll feel defeated and won’t be motivated to continue working on your weight loss resolution.

• Do what you like

If you don’t like the exercises that you are doing or if you don’t like the food on your diet, you won’t be as likely to keep doing it. You don’t have to do exercises that you don’t enjoy just to lose weight, try different types. If you’re doing Pilates, try Yoga. If you’re doing a certain aerobic exercise,  try another. Find your niche and finally enjoy being physically active. The same goes for food, if you don’t enjoy the food you are eating, try to find others that you like more. Of course, you may think, “Well, I like junk food more, but that won’t help me in this situation.”  While this may be true, it is possible to find healthier foods that you might like enough so that you don’t always have to eat unappetizing things.

• Give yourself time

It takes about a month to establish a new habit. Don’t give up too soon. Give yourself at least a month with your exercising and healthier eating and you’ll soon find that it’s much easier to do it each day. It will finally become regular to you and you’ll feel as though you’re missing something when you miss a day.

Remember to always take care of yourself and never be  too hard on yourself. Live your life better by loving you.

Photo Courtesy of:alancleaver_2000 on Flickr