Set Goals for a New, Healthier You

Whether you're trying to tone up, get in shape, or lose 50 pounds, you have to make a goal. This is important because it will affect your short and long term success. Don't make general goals like 'work out every day', and don't make goals that you can't possibly achieve, like 'lose 3 pounds a week' - you'll be setting yourself up for failure. Studies show that when you set unrealistic goals and fail, it is detrimental to your longer term success. 

Instead, focus on reasonable goals that you can achieve, even if you miss a day. For example, "Eat 12 healthy meals this week", "work out a minimum of 3 hours this week", and so on. When you fail these goals, it's only a single week's goal, and you can still motivate yourself to keep going because you can still do better and pass next week's goal.

Take Small Steps

While setting goals is important, don’t get too carried away. Making too many changes at once can leave you feeling overwhelmed and unmotivated. Instead, focus on one or two big goals. Take small steps towards them, and reward yourself at least once a week for following through 80% or more. Willpower is an exhaustible resource, if you're forcing yourself to use it constantly, you will fail.

Work on Building Healthy Habits

Habits are what keep people going, and you can build them in just two to three weeks. The easiest way to build a habit is to do the same thing, every day, at the same time, in the same place. Once you build a habit, like brushing your teeth, you'll automatically do it without thinking. Here are a few healthy habits you can use to help boost your weight loss:

Get plenty of healthy sleep. Decide on a bedtime, and wake up at a similar time every day. Studies show that getting enough sleep could boost weight loss.

Drink plenty of pure water. For most adults this is at least 2 litres of water per day to increase weight loss. Keep a water bottle with you at all times, preferably metal and reusable.

Build healthy eating habits. Drink water before you go out. Eat something healthy an hour before going to a restaurant or choose healthy options like salad, cut back on dining out, and learn more healthy cooking options.

Exercise

While your diet affects about 80% of weight loss, exercise does affect the other 20%. Keep this in mind, and try to exercise for at least 30 minutes per day.

Light exercises like walking are good for your cardiovascular system, but if you want to lose weight, you'll have to lift weights, or do an intensive cardio workout like running or boxing. But be careful. Intensive exercise can make you hungry - causing you to justify 'treating yourself', which can often result in you failing your diet. On a side note, try to get out of the gym and into the sunshine. Exercising in the open helps you get your daily intake of vitamin D3 which helps support healthy bones and improve mood.