Ah, the infamous “New Year’s Resolution!” The yearly promise we make to ourselves to change something about our lives that we don’t like. Or a promise to do more of the things we did in the previous year that made us happy. No matter what you want, a resolution means commitment.

Year in and year out, the two of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions are “Lose weight” and “get fit.” For most people, especially in America which has a high rate of overweight people, losing weight and getting fit are goals we want to achieve no matter what time of the year. After lots of indulgence through the holidays, the first day of the New Year seems to be the opportune time for changing our habits to get a better body.

Unfortunately, most people never reach their goals when it comes to weight loss. Many will make progress for the first few weeks then regress into old habits that lead to being overweight. Some give up on their goals before they even start.

Don’t let another year pass you by! If you’re going to make a Resolution to yourself, keep it! Even though its cliché, New Year’s Resolutions are actually a good motivator for losing weight and getting fit. Here are some tips on how to help you keep them.

1. Have a Good Plan

You won’t lose weight for the New Year if all you do is occasionally go to the gym or eat healthy every once in a while. It’s likely you can lose a few pounds this way, but it’s only temporary. As soon as you go back to your old habits, then your weight will return to where it was too.

Real weight loss is due to daily commitment. Moving towards your goal every day and building momentum. Going from overweight or obese to fit and healthy will not happen overnight, and it won’t happen without effort. It’s hard work to change our bodies, no matter which way you want to look at it.

We recommend the P90X Workout as a great plan for weight loss. It is a 90 day program that will get you fit when you commit to the program. It’s not some useless machine you hide in the closet to bring out when you’re feeling motivated or a pointless diet you can’t stick to.

P90X provides all of the tools you need for losing weight, getting trim, and keeping in shape for a long time. A diet guideline will give your nutrition throughout the 90 days. The P90X diet is not difficult to follow since they are simply guidelines on what you should eat. It is designed to give you energy for the P90X Workouts. You won’t be starving yourself or eating only vegetables or anything extreme like that.

The daily P90X Workouts will start burning body fat immediately. As you progress, the workouts get more challenging and you push yourself harder. Your cardiovascular ability builds up and your muscles get stronger and more toned. By the end, you should feel like a completely different person in terms of how healthy you feel.

P90X is great for anyone who wants to lose weight for the New Year. Whether you’re overweight or in shape, P90X has helped thousands of men and women lose weight.

2. Success = Motivation + Momentum

Success, when it comes to losing weight and getting fit, means reaching an end goal. We all have a defining point where we consider our health a “success” or not. Most of these goals are “Lose 30 pounds” or “Fit into the skinny jeans I got for Christmas by March.”

To attain success in a long-term goal (like make more money, improve my personality, lose weight, etc) requires two things: motivation and momentum. Motivation is what kick starts our minds towards a goal. Momentum is what allows us to reach those goals over time. A combination of motivation and momentum is the formula for reaching any goal.

So what’s the difference?

Motivation is the “incentive for action.” It’s what we imagine or desire to move us towards a goal. In simplest terms, it’s the reward for our hard work. Sometimes this motivation is positive, like “I want my body to look like this Hollywood actress’ body so I am working hard for it.” Other times, we motivate ourselves with something negative, like “If I don’t lose 20 lbs in the next 2 months I will be very unhappy with myself…”

The New Year’s Resolution is for many of us great motivation, even though it can be negative. “Did I just let another year go by with me being 50lbs overweight? I need to do something!” Most of the time though, we are excited to a new beginning, a new year to start over and make better than the previous years.

But motivation doesn’t last. On the night of December 31st, right before the New Year, we are usually drunk with excitement (while many are literally drunk too.) When the ball drops, we give love to the people around us then start thinking about the upcoming year. We make plans to go to the gym, eat healthier, quit smoking, get a 6-pack, or do whatever necessary to reach the goals we have.

This cocktail of emotions is very powerful. The problem is that we can’t replicate such powerful motivation over and over. The effects seem to wear off after only a few days, and from there we are on our own.

That’s what we need momentum. Momentum is “strength or force gained by motion or by a series of events.” Sure, motivation can work for the next day after New Year’s Eve, but momentum will be the reason we reach or do not reach our goals in the next few weeks or months.

Momentum means taking action! Every single day we must do something that moves us towards our goal. You must build momentum (it starts with motivation) and you must keep it going if you want success.

This means going to the gym on schedule, doing our daily workouts, and eating healthier for every meal. These actions add up to build momentum and they will be the reason we actually lose weight. Momentum means work! Every single day that moves us towards our goals means a tiny success we can cherish.

Motivation is usually in our heads and momentum is usually physical action. It’s why coaches can motivate a losing football team at half-time with a powerful speech but the momentum of a game doesn’t really change until that losing team scores a touchdown to change the direction.

Success can only happen when we have motivation and momentum. Too many people get hung on motivation. Few take the action necessary to build momentum, a process that takes time and effort on our part. Commit to a long-term goal of losing weight, and reach it by making progress towards it every day.

3. Positive, Daily Motivation

While we’re on the subject of motivation, it’s important to know what kind of motivation works best.

Daily Motivation – Over time, we build momentum with our actions. Every time we spend an hour at the gym or finish a good workout, we are building the momentum we need to reach a long term goal.

The problem, of course, is getting ourselves to the gym or starting that workout. It’s especially true during the dark winter months when most of the country is freezing and snowed in. This is why we need to motivate ourselves daily. We are trying to build momentum and that means taking action every day. You absolutely must motivate yourself every day to take these necessary actions.

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily. — Zig Ziglar

Every time you need to work out and can’t get yourself to do it, just think about all the reasons you are doing it in the first place. Get yourself pumped about it and start. For most people, the trouble is with getting started. Once we do though, most have no problem finishing their workouts.

Positive motivation – When we motivate ourselves, it usually means giving ourselves a mental pep-talk. It’s important to avoid using negative thoughts to motivate ourselves, especially if we want any long term success. We say stuff to ourselves like “I’m so fat! I’m disgusting and need to work out!” or “I need to lose weight or he will never ask me out!”

Focus on the positive. Focus on what you want – “I want to do this work out because it will make me feel good!” “I want to prove to myself I can do this!”

Being mean to ourselves is temporary motivation. We use it as a mental trick to feel in control, when in reality, we are not (otherwise, you’d be in shape and healthy, right?) Don’t say things like “I need to lose weight…” or “I should be getting healthy …”

It is much easier to figure out what we want and focus entirely on that (internal motivation) then forcing ourselves to do something because we “have to” or “need to” to please someone else (external motivation)

4. Take Advantage of Winter

New Year’s Day happens during the winter in the Northern Hemisphere, which can help us and hurt us at the same time. When it gets cold out, we try to avoid going outside unless we absolutely have to. Trips to the gym get set aside for a movie and a bag of popcorn. Since we don’t have to wear revealing clothes, we are not very motivated to get in shape either since we can cover ourselves up with a big coat.

The upcoming 3 to 4 months of winter are a great opportunity to get into shape. When springtime rolls around, anyone getting healthy during the winter has a huge head start on someone who has been lazy during it. Someone who starts a diet and exercise program now will be much more successful then someone who wants to wait 3 months and try to rush in a bunch of exercise to catch up before the warm weather comes.

Workout programs like P90X and Insanity are great for winter because you do them at home. You have no excuse when your gym is right in your living room!

This is a bit of a motivational post. This post is a mind exercise, not a muscle exercise.

More Gyms. More Health Products, Yet Less Healthy

It is truly amazing that America has the highest obesity rates in the world, yet more gyms and health clubs than any other country. We spend more on health care than any other country, yet rank 37th in the world for effectiveness (Without getting in a health care reform debate, our poor health care has a lot to do with treating disease after it has happened, and little on preventing the problems in the first place.)

Fast-food chains spend billions of dollars on advertising each year to get us to eat at their places of business. Does this huge amount of money influence you? Maybe, maybe not, but it does influence many people around you.

Are we to blame the systems around us for the obesity problem? We can, but the problem is truly within each and every one of us. If you are overweight or obese, the blame is on you and you alone. If you want to change your life, it starts in your head.

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Do you weight yourself every morning? How about a couple of times per day? Does it drive your absolutely insane?

Then why do you do it? I won’t lie, I used to think that weighing yourself everyday makes sense, especially if you are on a diet and exercise program. But sometimes our bodies don’t make a lot of sense. We can work our butts off in the gym and eat right all day long, and still gain weight the next morning. We can eat a ton of food, wake up, and actually lose weight.

It would happen to me all of the time, and it’d set the precedent for the rest of my day. If i didn’t lose weight after a great day of exercise and diet, I’d get depressed for the rest of the day. If I did lose weight, then I’d end up doing what I was going to do anyway.

I’ve learned to weigh myself just once a week. If your happiness level is tied directly to your weight, then you should do the same. Daily fluctuations in your weight are not worth thinking about. They will drive you nuts.

Set a goal for yourself – If you’re on a long-term weight loss program (30lbs in 2 months for example), set weekly goals. That’s about 4 lbs per week. If you are pushing yourself to eat properly and get a lot of exercise, then you will stick with it all week long until “weigh-in” day. If you’re weighing yourself every single day, then you are going to think way too much about what you are doing.

Focus on How You Feel – When you don’t focus on the number of pounds you weigh, have lost, or have gained, you think about other things. Ideally, you’re focusing on your goal. And if you’re doing everything right then you will be more concerned with how you actually feel (which should mean you feel good!). How you feel is far more important than your weight or body fat percentage.

If you’re a habitual weigher, try only weighing yourself once a week and see how it does. I think most people will benefit from this because you will be much more focused on what’s important.

OK, maybe that headline is a little untrue. As far as I know, there is no TV on the planet that feeds you food while you watch.

But lets be honest. Americans watch more TV than any other country, and America is the most overweight country on the planet. The correlation is there. Take a look at this graph: correlating the amount of hours of TV watched vs obesity rate.

Can’t find the United States on that graph? Take a closer look at the lonely dot on the upper right hand corner.

Replace TV with something Productive

The data is there. Watching TV doesn’t add on calories to your tummy, but it does absolutely nothing to help you burn them. As you sit there, watching your favorite shows, you’re not doing anything for your body to burn those calories you ate today.

A simple remedy for this is to replace an hour or so of TV with something productive. Take a walk, hit the gym, whatever. Just get off your ass and MOVE! If you can’t stand missing your favorite shows, get yourself a Tivo. Reward yourself after a workout by watching your favorite shows without commercials.

As Americans, we’ve fallen into a trance with our TV’s. It’s so bad that the NFL started a program to encourage kids to go outside and exercise. We’re going in the wrong direction with our priorities in life, but heck, it’s been like this for ages.

Studies on happiness have shown that people are not happiest when they are watching TV. It would be safe to assume that we enjoy TV so much that it makes us happy, but that is not the case. There is no interaction with TV, there is no input from us.

Instead, we find ourselves happiest when we challenge ourselves, whether mentally or physically. Replace some TV with working out and exercise and you will reap the benefits.

“Eat to live. Don’t eat to live.” I don’t know who to give credit for that quote, but it has deep meaning when it comes to being healthy. I’ve checked out some blogs lately, and I see a lot of people skeptic about dieting. They think, “I don’t know if I can do this because I’m used to such and such a food everyday.” When it comes down to it, dieting, like everything else in your life, is a habit. If you’ve read any of the dieting articles on this website, then you know we don’t believe in the idea of changing what you’re eating for a few weeks to reach a particular goal and then once you’ve reached it, going back to your old habits.

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Why People Do What They Do When It Comes to Fitness

No intro to this article; I’m just gonna get down right down to it. Some may be offended or insulted by this article, but unfortunately my information does not take into consideration anyone’s feelings. I’m here to give the information honestly and truthfully, because that’s what reveals character.

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Lift Heavy!

“DIG! Bury Me! Underneath! Everything that I am!” – Mudvayne

“Heavy! I want it Heavy!” – Disturbed

“Yeah! You push it! Yeah! You push it!” – Static-X

We all love music. I find that some bands are better used as the soundtrack to my weight training than others. While my local pussyfoot gym spins tracks from the latest Britney Spears record, in my head I’m singing Mudvayne and Disturbed tracks over and over again, hell I even sing out loud sometimes (but not too loud). Yes, I do need an Ipod Nano, but I digress.

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