How To Stay Motivated To Meet Your New Year Fitness Goals

Staying fit or losing weight is not an easy task. Just like everyone, you probably have other things you need to do or would rather be doing, but being healthy really is possible for anyone who tries. This week we will discuss how to stay motivated to meet your New Year fitness goals.

1. Create More Than One Goal

Think of what your one main goal is; let's just say it is to lose 20 pounds. Give yourself a realistic time line and then break that big goal down into smaller goals. 20 pounds in six months is more than doable. So in three months, you will need to lose 10 pounds, meaning you only need to lose less than four pounds in a month. By only losing less than a pound a week, you can lose 20 pounds in six months.

2. Compete With Friends or Strangers

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Find out if you have other friends or family members that are trying to lose weight and team up with them to stay motivated to meet your New Year fitness goals. You do not even have to be in the same state. By tracking progress online or through social media sites, you can keep each other in check. If you do not know anyone personally, ask at fitness centers or online forums for anyone else that needs to lose the same amount of weight or wants to maintain their current form.

3. Keep a Blog or Journal

It is a good idea to keep a journal during your weight loss journey. Sometimes you may have ups and downs that you need to express, but might not feel comfortable expressing them to someone else or you may not have someone else to express them too. If you would like to share your experiences with others, an online blog is also a good option. Just be prepared that for every good comment you receive, you must also be prepared to receive negative comments.

4. Know That It's OK to Fail Sometimes

You never know when you will have an unexpected lunch or party at work, or you might just want to eat pizza and watch movies with your kids. It is OK to enjoy food and your life. If you do not lose the weight you want one week, or gain some of it back, it is OK, you have the next week to make up for it. You need to be happy during your fitness plan or it will not be worth the work.

5 Weight Loss Tips to Help You Acheive Your Goal

When it comes to weight loss tips, it's not the "magic cures" that you should pay attention to, it's the real, solid advice that will set you on a healthy track for the rest of your life. And when you're setting a new weight loss goal, anything that'll make things easier on yourself is worth trying. With that in mind, here are 5 steps you should take at the start of your weight loss journey.

1) Buy A Scale: You'll need to keep a scale not only to keep track of your weight, but also scales for the kitchen to weigh out proper portions of food. Many of us overeat when we don't strictly measure our portions!

2) Find Support: If you can find an exercise and/ or dieting buddy then you'll have the support you need to continue even when things are at their most difficult. Studies show that dieting alongside someone else makes it a lot easier to meet your targets and set up healthy new habits. If there really isn't anyone who wants to join you, at least confide in others and share specific goals that will keep you accountable.

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3) Get A Notepad: You need a notepad to note down the foods you're eating, and even the exercises you're doing if that helps. Although it can be tedious, knowing exactly what goes into your body helps you to improve things little by little. You can also use your notepad as a place to vent if you're feeling frustrated, and to reinforce your goals to help motivate you to continue.

4) Go Through Your Cabinets: If you're going to be dieting then you don't want to have temptation all around you in your home. So go through all your cabinets and get rid of food that will lead you astray and won't serve you well. Then go shopping and buy plenty of healthy snacks, like fruit, vegetables, and nuts, that you can have on hand whenever you're feeling peckish.

5) Choose An Exercise Program: Now that you've got everything else sorted, it's time to decide on the kind of exercise you want to do. Although you'll have to make sacrifices and sometimes do things you won't enjoy, you can cater your exercise to what feels best for you, which will keep you motivated. This could mean starting by walking every day, taking a yoga class, or running x amount of miles on the treadmill  - whatever you enjoy doing the most. Whatever you do, make sure you put it into a solid plan - and have some fun with it!

How To Set Realistic Fitness Goals For The New Year

If you want to succeed, you cannot set yourself up to fail.  If you want to get into shape and start leading a healthier lifestyle you need to learn how to set realistic fitness goals for the New Year this year.

Take Advantage of The Entire New Year

Instead of trying to lose a large about of weight or being able to run a five minute mile in a month, plan out your goals over the course of the entire New Year. If you have a certain amount of weight you want to lose or a certain fitness goal that you want to attain, like running a mile in under 10 minutes, plan to achieve these goals over the next 12 months. In that time you can slowly lose the weight and get healthy, giving you a higher success rate without feeling too much pressure. If you accomplish those goals before the allotted time, you can set new ones, and advance even further.

Give Yourself Time

Not everyone can hit the gym for four hours a day, but try to dedicate at least three hours a week to start. If you can't find a solid 30 minute block of time during the day, break it up into 10 minute increments and spread them out. If you exercise for an hour one day but take a break the next day, do not beat yourself up over it. You will soon find out that the more you exercise, the easier it is to find time to do it. If you still have trouble, try to incorporate more exercise into your daily life - as described in the excellent book, "Move a Little, Lose a Lot" - instead of looking at exercise as an exclusive activity. Start with three hours a week and give yourself the entire New Year to work up to six hours a week, or more.

Make It a Game and Keep Score

Create your own personal score board. Keep track of your weight lost and gained, because it is not unusual to gain back a little bit of the weight you have lost during the process. Write down your calories for the day and also subtract the calories to consume for your resting metabolic rate as well as from exercise and even household chores. One pound is worth about 3000 calories, so for every 3000 calories you can cut out of your life, it will be one pound less you are taking off of your body.

The most important part of getting in shape is keeping a positive attitude and learning how to set realistic fitness goals for the New Year. If you do this, you're sure to achieve them!

10 Simple New Year's Fitness Resolutions

When you start to notice that you need to lose a few extra pounds, want to get back in shape or just maintain your current level of fitness, you need to get yourself motivated. Since it's that time of year, here are 10 simple New Year's fitness resolutions to get you going.

1. Start a Fitness Plan: Talk to your doctor or a qualified personal trainer about what your fitness goals are. Decide if you want to join a gym or exercise on your own. Most gyms offer a free trial period in their facilities.

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2. Make a Friend: Find someone to keep you motivated. You can find a partner to exercise with or just an online buddy to help you track your goals. Websites such as Spark and Livestrong can even help pair you up in groups with others.

3. Walk and Bike More: Park as far as you can from work, school or even the grocery store. Take the stairs whenever possible and for longer distances use a bike.

4. Drink More and Less: Try to drink more water, as much as you can possibly stand. The more water you drink the less hungry you will be. Try to cut out all alcohol and soda and cut down to just one juice a day.

5. Count Your Steps: Get a pedometer – note that even some smartphones have step counters. You can also get them at Walmart for under $10.

6. Eat In: Prepare your meals at home with fresh ingredients. You'll cut out preservatives and hidden calories. (See our Cooking From Scratch blog for weekly recipes, and cooking tips and articles.)

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7. Count Calories - But Not Too Much: Keep a food journal of what you eat and an exercise journal of the activities you do each day and for how long you did them - but don't obsess about this one. Just making sure you are eating good, whole, healthy foods will go a long way towards helping you get (and stay) in shape, without having to obsess over calories.

8. Reward Yourself: Set goals and associate a reward for each of your goals. It could be anything from a piece of your favorite cake to a professional massage. Note: When giving yourself food rewards, keep it in moderation.

9. Take a Day Off: Once every two weeks give yourself a break. Take a day off from exercising and cheat a little bit on your diet. People who have periodic breaks tend to succeed more on their diet and exercise plans by not feeling so restricted.

10. Track Your Results: Take before and after pictures and chart your weight and measurements. Share your successes with others. Celebrate any change even if it's just an inch or a pound or two lost.

And last but not least, be sure to check this blog regularly for new, fun, and interesting workouts weekly!

Video - Setting Effective Fitness Goals

This video gives you some excellent pointers for setting fitness goals and sticking with them throughout the year. He mentions the 5 areas where you need to set goals in order to see best results, and also warns you about some areas where people often slip up and lose motivation (for example, trying to measure weight loss instead of fat loss - bad idea).

He also discusses the importance of setting specific goals, with a time deadline to meet, and most of all creating the "why" for pursuing the goals you set, which gives you a positive mindset towards achieving them.

Check this out, and follow these tips to achieving your exercise and fitness goals for 2013!

Fitness Goal Setting
fitness.mercola.com Mercola.com personal trainer and healthy lifestyle coach, Darin Steen, discusses the important things to consider in a fitness goal setting.

Why Rest Is Important For Your Exercise Goals

It's that time of year again: Time for New Years Resolutions! It's the time when so many people decide to get healthy, get fit, and set some exercise goals for the year. So it might seem odd that we're starting off the year talking about rest - but it's actually an important factor for achieving success with your fitness regimen this year.

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When you get started on a workout routine, you want to keep it going strong, but you have to remember that it is possible to do too much.  Working out as much as you can, for as long as you can, and as hard as you can, is more likely to get you injured than in shape.  Our bodies require regular rest to heal and to function optimally.

Every time you work out, you create damage in your muscles and other tissue.  It’s often too small to really notice, but it’s still there - that's why you get sore after a workout.  Resting your body allows these tiny injuries to heal themselves.  If you don’t get enough rest between workouts, these tiny problems can add up to a larger, more serious injury.  Rest also gives our muscles time to build themselves, so if you never get adequate rest, you won’t see significant improvement.  Not only should you take adequate rests between each individual workout, you should also alternate light and heavy workouts during the week, and have a much lighter week every 6 weeks or so. 

In addition to just “taking a break” between workouts, you need to get adequate sleep at night as well.  Not only does sleep help us rest and relax our brain, it also allows us to relax and repair our bodies.  Not getting enough rest will leave you sluggish, not at your peak performance, and will eventually even make you ill.  While it is recommended to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night, you should remember that each person is different.  Some need only 5 or 6 hours of sleep to function properly, while others may need 9 or 10 to feel refreshed.

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One type of rest people don’t usually consider when thinking about a workout is rest from stress.  A workout provides stress to our body, but it’s not the only thing that does. If we are mentally and emotionally stressed throughout the day, it shows physically.  If your body is in a constant state of stress, your muscles won't relax and heal, even when you’re just sitting still.  If you are showing symptoms of fatigue and feel overworked, you should try adding yoga, Pilates, or even meditation to your routine. These will truly relax your body and mind, and allow it to get the rest it needs - at the same time as giving you a nice workout! 

If you don’t rest between workouts, get sleep at night, or take the time to de-stress, you’re not only more at risk for getting hurt, you’re probably also pretty tired.  If you don’t feel like you have the energy to get out of bed in the morning because you’ve worked out too hard, chances are you probably won’t feel like exercising either.  By doing too much too soon, you’re actually likely to decrease how much you work out in the future.

So remember, working harder isn’t always better.  Set a plan to reach your fitness and exercise goals for the year, but remember to add rest time into your program. You'll end up getting more out of your workouts, seeing better results, and finding exercise more fun and enjoyable. Take the time to relax and let your body prepare for its next challenge.