10 Tips to Help You Keep Your New Year’s Resolution for Fitness or Weight Loss

1. 8 Ways to Keep Your Resolutions
This Year
by The FIRM Master Instructor Team

2. The new year is a time to reflect on what we
have done, to make plans for the future, and to
celebrate with friends and family. It is also a
time for resolutions. How many of you have
made resolutions in past years that have
somehow been, well, less than achieved? Let
that all change this year. This will not be the year
that a goal has been set and not met. This will
be your year of success, and here are the eight
simple ways to make that happen.

3. 1. Emphasize WILL rather than WANT.
How you think of a goal is critical to achieving it.
Your mindset needs to be that you WILL
accomplish what you set out to do. A goal is not
something you merely WANT or desire, but
something that you can and WILL accomplish.

4. 2. Be specific.
Telling yourself that you want to be thin or fit is
a sure way to sabotage yourself, because no one
really knows what “thin” or “fit” means. These
are unknown quantities that can change
depending on your mood or self-esteem (even
“thin” people can think they are “fat”). Instead,
focus on objective targets like a loss in weight or
inches. Alternately, you can set action-oriented
goals like running a 10k or a half-marathon.

5. 3. Get real.
If you set unrealistic goals, you will fail. Period. You
need to be honest with yourself about what you
think you can do in the short- and long-term. If you
have never been a runner, it is not realistic to think
that you can run a half-marathon in three months.
If you need to lose 75 pounds to reach a healthy
weight, that is not going to happen in three
months, either. If it does, you are starving yourself,
and I guarantee that it will all come back — with
some extra pounds.

6. 4. Plan daily, weekly and monthly
targets.
The long-term goal is something that you are striving for
eventually. Something like, “I will lose X inches or X
pounds.” In order to get there, you have to keep on
putting one foot in front of the other. To stay on track and
motivated, set weekly nutrition and exercise goals (again,
being real). Break down what you have to do each day to
reach your weekly objective. Post your daily plan to reach
your week’s goal somewhere that you can’t miss it. (Best
place for me is on the refrigerator door.) Plan for the
week on the same day each week so that you can go
grocery shopping and get your schedule ready. It is
essential that you dedicate some time and energy to
creating the plan and thinking about the week’s goals.

7. 5. Expect setbacks.
• Things will happen that disrupt even the bestlaid plans. It’s OK to stray from your plan as
long as you get right back to it. Do not let an
occasional slip completely throw you off track.
If you eat too much one day, forgive yourself
and get right back to the plan the next day. If
you miss a workout, forgive yourself and put
extra effort into the next one. Do not let guilt
or self-doubt from a momentary lapse ruin
your progress.

8. 6. Keep a journal.
• Record daily what you eat, what exercise you
have done and how you feel. Record your
measurements weekly. This will keep you
accountable and also be a great motivator.
The record is something that you can look
back on and marvel at how far you have come.
In three months, you can read through the
entries and see how much more energy you
have and how many inches you have lost, and
then you can look back on how much you
have accomplished.

9. 7. Stay accountable.
Tell people what you are doing. Get involved in
The FIRM Believers Club. Join a team or one of
the challenges in the forums. Not only will this
force you to be answerable to someone other
than yourself, but it will also remind you that
you are not alone in this process and there will
always be people supporting you, feeling your
pain, offering encouragement and giving advice.

10. 8. Reward yourself.
Pat yourself on the back with some kind of
reward. Sweet tooth? Shopping? Wine?
Whatever your pleasure, but in moderation.
Give yourself permission to indulge (within strict
reason) every once in a while, like once every
week or two weeks.