| "New Year, New You!" | |
Step 3: Set those Mini Goals!
It's January 22nd, which means we're entering the third week of the "New Year, New You!" series! I’d like to again congratulate you on joining me for our weight loss journey together. As you can tell, we are taking this a little bit at a time. You won’t find any extreme dieting tactics here. Our focus will be making small changes that you can stick with and finding problem areas (and their solutions).
A word of advice: If you are tempted to start a fad diet at the moment simply because you feel you are "resolved" to lose weight and will lose your momentum if you don’t do it now … I’d urge you to take a moment and reflect. Remember, fad diets may work, but the weight lost on them comes back and sometimes more. Long-term success is brought on by permanent, effective lifestyle changes and increased physical activity. Hang in there and keep the big picture in mind.
Let’s reflect on step one of "New Year, New You!". Have you decided why you want to lose weight? If you’re losing weight because your mom’s been on your back about it, or, your husband insists you get back to your wedding dress size, I hate to say this, but it’s true: You’re probably not going to stick with it. Commit to yourself that all this hard work is going to be for your benefit, not to please others. Otherwise, you’ll give up. When push comes to shove, you'll be the only one you will want to follow through for!
Secondly, you must believe that it’s going to pay off. You need to make up your mind now that giving up your old habits is going to be worth it. You've heard the saying, "Being thin feels better than _____ (fill in the blank with your favorite fattening food) tastes."? Well, like many of you, I have always found that statement to be inspiring, but hard to put into practice. Very hard.
When you start making big changes, it's going to take a lot effort. There are going to be days when you want to go back to your old eating habits. There will be mornings when you want to stay in bed an extra ½ hour so much you could cry. You’d rather take a beating then leg it into the Y an hour before work, right? So, you’ve got to develop your motivational skills now so you’ll have them when you need them.
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