The new year is coming and the number one thing on your mind is how to achieve your weight loss New Years resolution.
It may be a cliche thing with the whole “new year new me” phrase and waiting until the new year to make some changes to your fitness and health, yet let’s face it, it is what people do.
I can sit here as a coach and scream from the top of my lungs all day that you don’t have to wait until January 1st to start making change.
The fact still remains something about the turn of a new year lights a spark in people to make a change and I don’t think that is a bad thing.
It is a bad thing if you use it as an excuse to totally binge in December or you quit a week into your resolution.
Yet it is never a bad thing to want to make a change no matter what time of year it is or what the initial motivation is.
This article I am going to lay out 5 important things you need to be looking at if you want to know how to achieve your weight loss new years resolution.
Each one has their own intricate part to it so be sure to read and understand them fully.
Let’s get you to not only make this change, but keep it forever.
How To Achieve Your Weight Loss New Years Resolution
5 Keys To Success
A lot of people make new years resolutions, that normally isn’t the hard part. The hard part is sticking to and keeping those resolutions.
It is great to have this motivation and drive to change but it has to be a change that lasts. People make fun of people for making new years resolutions, which truthfully I never understood because why put someone down for wanting to change?
Yet the fact remains most people think it is almost a joke because you see someone make a resolution to eat healthier and exercise, yet that same weekend they are drunk off eggnog and stuffing their face with pizza from their last Christmas party.
These 5 things I am about to give to you are things that can make sure you not only make a change but keep it forever.
- Set Realistic Expectations
- Have A Plan
- Make A List Of Things You Want To Include
- Create A Consistency Calendar
- Get Accountability
Let’s dive into each one of them right now.
Set Realistic Expectations
One of, if not the biggest mistake I see people make when talking about how to achieve your weight loss new years resolution is you don’t have realistic expectations.
Why are realistic expectations important when it comes to achieving a goal and seeing change? Let me tell you.
Let’s stay on the topic of weight loss.
Clearly you want to lose weight if you are reading this article. Let’s say you go into your weight loss journey thinking every single day you wake up you expect to see the scale go down. That is your expectation.
When that clearly does not happen because your weight is going to fluctuate up and down for so many reasons , when day 3 rolls around and your weight goes up you are going to freak the f*ck out.
You are going to get incredibly emotional and frustrated. The first thought that comes into your head is you are doing something wrong. You are going to look for reasons why you should quit and eventually you will quit. All because your expectation was you should or would lose weight every single day.
You may have actually already experienced this so this may be all too familiar to you.
Yet if you would have had realistic expectations from the beginning knowing that your weight will fluctuate and that is normal, when the scale went up on the third day you would not have flipped out and quit because you know it’s normal.
You were prepared for it mentally which allowed you to remain consistent, stick to your plan, and see progress long term.
This is one quick example of why having realistic expectations is so important.
I am going to break things down into two categories for expectations, goals and mindset.
Goals
If you want to know how to achieve your weight loss new years resolution, the first step is having realistic goals.
You are not going to lose 20 lbs in January. You are going going to lose 100 lbs by March. Sorry, it is not going to happen.
Not because you can’t, but because that isn’t healthy or sustainable. You will have to eat next to nothing, do hours of cardio, and hate your life. It is not fun.
Plus let’s say 3 weeks in you are “only” down 5 lbs, which by the way would be absolutely incredible progress.
If your expectation was to lose 20 lbs but you are only down 5 you are going to get wildly upset, unmotivated, and once again end up quitting.
All because you thought you were going to lose 20lbs in a month. Stop it. It is not smart and you are setting yourself up for failure.
If you want a weight loss number to aim for, aim for .5-1.5 lb per week on average of weight loss.
Notice I said on average. One week you may lose 2lbs and the next you may lose none. Over a span of two weeks your average weight loss is still 1lb per week, which is amazing progress.
Yet more importantly than a weight loss goal per week or per month is having a consistency goal. That will guarantee your weight loss much more.
We will talk about this a bit later on.
Mindset
Another key to success with your new years resolution is getting your mind right first.
You are heading into the new year therefore you are super motivated to make a change. That is probably why you are reading this article.
Yet what happens two weeks from now when you got no sleep because your kid kept you up, work is crazy busy, and all you want to do is lay on the couch watching Netflix and eating cookies?
You have to realize that you will not be motivated every single day. Sure you are right now but this feeling is going fade and get tested as each day passes.
Yet here is the thing, that is not a bad thing. That doesn’t mean you are doing anything wrong. It does not mean you are lazy or “unmotivated”.
It simply means you are a human being. I am not motivated every single day to get up and workout or eat right.
Hell I wasn’t motivated to write this article before I started writing it.
The thing you have to realize is you will not be motivated every single day and that is okay. You still have to do what you are supposed to do even when you don’t feel like it.
Now that you have this expectation, when a day comes that you would much rather stay in bed than workout or eat out instead of cooking dinner because you aren’t motivated to stick to your plan, you will remember reading this.
You will know that it is okay to be unmotivated and there is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is you not doing what you are supposed to doe just because you aren’t motivated to do it.
You cannot let your emotions dictate your actions. Keep pushing through even when you don’t want to and that is how you will create change.
Have A Plan
Thanks Eric, you are a real genius. Have a plan? Really?
Hear me out first. I cannot tell you how many people dm on instagram or tik tok on a regular basis saying “ I want to lose 30lbs!”.
My response is “great! How will you do that?!”.
I would say 8/10 times they have no clue how they will achieve this goal, they just have the goal.
Most people don’t ever get past the goal part. I mentioned earlier making the resolution is not the hard part most anyone can do that.
The hard part is not only sticking to the resolution but the only way you stick to that resolution is if you have a clearly drawn out plan of how you will achieve the goal.
How many calories will you eat? What will your workouts be? Who will you go to if you have questions during your plan?
I use this all the time with my online coaching clients and that is the metaphor of peeling back the onion.
One of my clients will say “ I need to increase my steps!”.
My answer to them is “Great, how?”.
Having the goal of increasing steps is a great one but how will you achieve that goal?
We take “I need to increase my steps” to “at 6am before work I will take my dog on a 5 minute walk, at 12:15pm after I eat my lunch I will work in a 30 minute walk, then after my workout at night I will take a 10 minute cool down walk”.
Now that is having a plan. That is how to achieve your weight loss new years resolution right there.
There is something important I want to touch on so you don’t miss it.
Setting Small, Attainable goals
In the plan above you saw how I would take one of my clients through creating a plan for their goals.
I want you to notice how I didn’t tell them “you have to go do an hour and a half on the treadmill every single day”.
First off what if they don’t have a treadmill? What if they live 15 minutes from the gym to get to a treadmill? That hour and a half session just turned into a two hour session including drive time.
That is not easy attainable nor is that something you can remain consistent with for a long period of time.
Yet taking a 5 minute walk in the morning is usually pretty attainable and something you can stick with for a long period of time wouldn’t you say?
Take a 30 minute walk at lunchtime is normally pretty attainable (it doesn’t have to be 30 minutes exact it could be 15 minutes).
Taking some time to cool down and walk after your workout is also fairly attainable and something most people enjoy doing anyway.
Point being we set small, attainable goals in our plan.
If you want to achieve your goals you need to set small and attainable ones. This will create consistency and momentum.
I would much rather you walk for 5 minutes 7 days a week than walk for 35 minutes one day a week.
Why? It is the same time period either way right?
Yes but doing something “smaller” 7 days a week builds greater consistency and habit making than doing something one time a week.
Too many people go into these resolutions trying to workout 7 days a week or cut out all of your sugar in your diet and quit frankly it is stupid.
It is not setting you up for success.
Focus on making and hitting smaller attainable goals in your plan and do that with 90% consistency. Watch at the results you see.
Make A List Of Things You Want To Include
If you google “how to achieve your weight loss new years resolution” the first hit that pops up is someone telling you to make a list of the things you want to cut out.
That is the sole reason I am including this in my 5 keys because that could not be more stupid.
At first glance you are thinking “well why? That sounds pretty normal to me”.
I agree, yet let me break it down for you.
Once you start making a list of the foods you “can’t” have or things you “can’t” do, you have already lost.
We are humans. The minute something is “off limits” or we can’t have it we automatically start wanting it that much more.
It is like when you tell your kid don’t touch anything in the store, they immediately start touching everything.
Therefore making a list of the things you want to cut out is already setting yourself up for failure.
You will not win this way.
What can you do instead?
Well the exact opposite, make a list of what you want to include in your resolution.
When you start cutting things out you are already in a subtraction or restriction mindset.
No one likes feeling restricted.
Rather when you add things in you go into an addition or abundance mindset. We as humans love that.
Let’s say you want to cut out eating sweets at night.
Instead of saying you are going to cut out eating sweets, start saying you are going to include 2 servings of vegetables at nighttime (notice the small and attainable goal by the way 😉 ).
What this does is if you have two huge servings of say spinach, broccoli, asparagus, or a salad, I can pretty much guarantee you aren’t going to be craving a bunch of sweets at night anymore.
If you still have them that is fine too because they aren’t off limits and you didn’t cut them out, you simply added something else in.
Through the process of adding in vegetables it will automatically force you to cut back on the eating of the sweets at night.
If you want to stop snacking during work, add in one protein shake at lunch time.
The protein will fill you up and cause you to eat less. Again, not because you cut out snacking but because you added in the protein shake.
Start including more things that can benefit you and watch how the things that aren’t benefitting you magically become less and less apparent.
Create A Consistency Calendar
Full disclosure before I dive into this point, I got this idea from a mentor and friend of mine Jordan Syatt. He is the first person I saw talk about creating a consistency calendar. You can check out his website here.
With that being said this is one of the best things I believe can help people truly make a change in their life.
I talked earlier about setting a weight loss goal per week or per month and how that wasn’t really the most optimal way of going about it.
I am going to explain why.
You can’t control the scale. The scale is going to fluctuate, sometimes even when you are perfect it won’t go down, it will go up when you have more salt, many different reasons.
What can you control? Your actions. How consistent you are to your plan.
I would much rather make a goal of and focus on hitting your calories and workouts with 90% consistency as opposed to just looking at losing 1lb per week.
Why? Number one you are going to see better results. I can assure you if you are 90%+ consistent to your plan your are going to see all of the weight loss results you could ever want.
Not from magic but simply because you are actually following your plan.
Number two is for what I just mentioned, you can control how consistent you are. It takes your mind off of the scale and puts it on something that is in your total control.
What the consistency calendar is is simply that, tracking your consistency.
Go get a calendar. Yes a real physical calendar not on your phone.
For everyday you hit your calories and workout give yourself a green check mark.
For everyday you do not hit your calories give yourself a black O.
Don’t complicate it, keep it simple.
What this does is day by day, week by week, it keeps you accountable first and foremost.
Second there is something about giving yourself that green check mark in the morning when you hit your calories that is so damn satisfying knowing that you hit your goals.
Third it allows you to see if you are being consistent or not over a span of weeks and a month.
If you are seeing more black O’s than green check marks, well then you can’t really be surprised or upset if and when you aren’t seeing progress.
If you are seeing a sea of green check marks, not only will that motivate the hell out of you, but I can assure you that is going to lead to you seeing all of the weight loss progress you could ever want.
This works incredibly well for my online coaching clients and when it comes to how to achieve your weight loss new years resolution I know it can for you as well.
Get Accountability
There is no doubt that when you are accountable to someone else besides yourself it guarantees success that much more.
One of the things I love the most about being a coach is that I can be that accountability for people.
I have seen first hand how holding people accountable, checking in with them, answering their questions and being in their corner can literally change someones life.
It is one thing to maybe eat a few bites here and there that you don’t track because no one will know anyway.
It’s a lot easier to maybe skip a set or workout here and there if no one else is going to know besides you.
It is another ballgame when someone else is involved in your goals.
Not only involved, but invested.
When I coach my clients I actually give a f*ck about them.
I care if they succeed or not. I am into what they ate that day or how their workout went so I am their biggest cheerleader.
Not just to cheer them on with the rah rah stuff but because I actually love this fitness world and seeing people make change in their life.
Having someone like that in your corner can and does make the world of a difference to be there for support, guidance, and questions you may have.
Now does it have to be me or a coach? No it does not. I am bit biased because I see peoples lives change everyday so of course I am going to say hire a coach but accountability can come from anywhere.
It can come from a group of people at the gym, your best friend, you posting on social media.
I recently did an 8 week mini cut where I lost 23 lbs and one of my forms of accountability was posting my weight every single morning on my instagram story .
There are many forms of accountability but the fact remains that external accountability is the glue that keeps fitness goals together.
Find yourself some form of accountability and watch how much of a game changer it can be for you.
If you want to look into working with me as your coach, I will link my application form HERE. Feel free to fill it out so we can see if we may be a good fit together.
How To Achieve Your Weight Loss New Year’s Resolution : Final Word
I truly hoped this article helped you get more confident in how to achiever your weight loss new years resolution.
This article was to not only give you actionable things you can like create a consistency calendar or to set small and attainable goals.
It was also to ensure you have the right mindset going into this journey because this is just as much of a mental game as a physical one.
I am excited for you because I know you have the tools in your tool belt now to crush your goals.
If you need any help from me don’t hesitate to shoot me an email at coacheric@ericrobertsfitness.com.
Other than that, Happy New Years, and we will look to talk soon.
-E