Practical New Year’s Resolutions… ⭐️

Although I suggested alternative resolutions yesterday I’m aware that for many their resolutions do involve making a fresh start at health and fitness. Often these resolutions will be things like to “lose weight” or to “get fit” or perhaps “eat healthier’. Now whilst these are all great goals they’re quite hard to achieve without some practical steps. They’re outcomes of changes you need to make rather than actual resolutions per se.

If you are making New Year’s resolutions about your health and fitness, then instead of making generalised statements try to focus instead on small actions you can take every day that will lead to those end goals.

So instead of resolving to lose weight, perhaps instead resolve to identify where the excess calories are in your diet. Are they coming from alcohol? Extra snacks? Take aways? Portion sizes? And then you can take steps to reduce them and therefore reduce your calorie intake (leading to fat and weight loss).

Instead of resolving to “get fit”, instead focus on upping your daily steps. Rather than choosing an arbitrary goal of 10,000 steps, instead commit to increasing your steps. If you’re already hitting 12,000 steps a day then aim for 14,000, if you’re getting 4,000 aim for 6,000 etc. Also consider adding some exercise 1-3 times a week. It doesn’t matter what that exercise is really just pick something you actually enjoy; dancing, running, weight lifting, swimming cycling etc.

Rather than resolving to “Eat healthier” commit to adding a portion of fruit or veg to every meal. Aside from the fact that it will increase your overall nutrition, it will increase fibre levels, and will probably help reduce overall calories as by filling some of your plate with fruit and veg you’re going to eat less of other, more calorie dense foods.

This approach is far better than making massive changes, subscribing to fad diets/detoxes/challenges etc which may well cause you to lose weight quickly but will also see you putting that weight back on once you’re back to eating normally again. Take small sustainable steps and you’ll find you’ll hit your goals and be able to maintain it within your lifestyle too! 🙂

Xx

The office Christmas party… 🥂

At this time of year there are bound to be lots of festive social events – whether it’s the office/work party, drinks with neighbours, school parent gathering or a family party etc.

Now whilst it’s obviously only one month of the year and it’s perfectly fine to just indulge as much as you want, for many there’s a desire to maintain some sort of control to stay on track with their goals.

If you do want to stay vaguely on track then you’re going to have to make some compromises. So this may mean choosing which events to ‘splurge’ at and which to be a little more careful at. That doesn’t mean you have to shun all the festive treats, or not go to the event, you could just modify what you have or have smaller portions of the same things.

So rather than having say 3 large glasses of red wine and a glass of champagne, you could instead have 2 double gin and slimline tonics and a glass of champagne. Rather than mindlessly shovelling 150g of crisps and a couple of mini mince pies in your mouth, you could just have one decent sized bag (40g) and one mini mince pie. In doing so you’re saving yourself over 1000 cals and still having fun without being a ‘party pooper’.

You can still enjoy the festive period and enjoy festive treats but you can also choose when to indulge and when to moderate things a bit. You’re in control and knowledge is power so just be aware of what you’re consuming if you want to stay on track!

Merry Christmas 🎄

Xx