5 Tips to Stick to Your Health Resolutions Way Past January
How to Keep Your Health and Fitness Resolutions Past January
Most people abandon their health and fitness resolutions by January. This results from an attempt to embody unsustainable ideals driven by the “New Year” mantras.
But you can avoid the breakdown by making your resolutions more realistic and easy to accomplish. If you’ve already set all your goals and resolutions, it’s essential to re-examine them to ensure sustainability.
Commit to Non-Disruptive Habits
It’s common for people to make resolutions that may require significant changes to their current habits. For example, waking up early for daily workouts may seem like an easy task. But when you’ve been waking up at 8 am, adjusting to 6 am might not be practical. And while it’s possible, you should be quite mindful of the difficulties in light of current habits.
Instead of knowingly disrupting your lifestyle, you can leverage your healthy habits and enhance any unhealthy habits. Similarly, you can use habit stacking to integrate non-disruptive changes in your life. For example, you can commit to combining activities like:
- Do a few pushups right before getting into the shower
- Perform squats for 2 minutes as you brush
Identify the Things You’re Doing Right
Most people tend to focus their resolutions on areas they’re going wrong. But when you focus on areas you’re already excelling in, the change can help you achieve more and make the habit sustainable. For example, if you have a strong habit of jogging every morning, you can choose to extend the time rather than add another strenuous exercise. While the changes are small, they can add up over time.
The same goes for your eating habits. If you already drink a significant amount of water, you can try to increase the amounts to meet the recommended amounts. Similarly, you can swap your intake of unhealthy beverages and instead drink more water.
Track Your Health and Fitness Activities
Things can slide when you don’t have enough accountability. But whenever you develop a way of tracking your activities, it gives the feeling of personal responsibility and accountability, which makes your mind believe someone is always watching. Whether you like to use a notebook or a smartphone app, tracking your activities is crucial.
Accountability is vital to ensuring you stick to your resolutions and make them sustainable. And that’s why using fitness trackers is a reliable way of staying on track. According to studies, people who use activity trackers can walk for an extra mile compared to those who don’t track their activities.
Besides, fitness trackers push you to achieve more once you start noticing progress. As such, it’s best to use a fitness tracker that provides insights and prompts.
Invest In Healthy Changes
When you invest in a healthy resolution, the financial commitment can help make the changes more sustainable. But like most resolutions, the changes can only be worth it when they blend with your lifestyle, and they are not too demanding.
It’s important to realize that buying exercise equipment doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be enthusiastic about using it. For instance, you may have a cardio machine, but it becomes too demanding to integrate into your lifestyle after some time.
Typically, it would help if you only went for equipment that enhances the activities that are already ingrained in your daily routine. This way, the changes will be easier to sustain since they improve on activities you are already used to.
Track Your Sleep
When health and fitness are priorities, sleep should be as well. During sleep, our body focuses on recovery, which is why sleep takes up nearly one-third of our lives. Sleep moderates our appetite and lack of has been associated with increased appetite and calorie intake. Adequate amounts of sleep will vary by person, keeping track of your hours and how you feel the following day will help you determine how much sleep is right for you. If you find your energy levels are low and you are suffering from continued fatigue, the cause may be related to adrenal dysfunction.
Final Words
Regardless of your resolutions, slow and steady is better than diving in fast. And as long as your New Year resolutions are compatible with your lifestyle, it’s easy to enjoy long-lasting results. Most importantly, keep moving and press ahead until it becomes your second nature.