New Year's Resolution: Weight Loss in 2015

Illustrator indicating new year resolutions about diet

Is your New Year’s Resolution for 2015 to finally lose those pesky extra 20, 30 or even 100 pounds in 2015? Or maybe you are just looking for a way to lean out your body by trimming off those remaining 10 lbs and building some muscle. If your resolution revolves around weight loss we can help. Below are some great tips for losing weight in 2015 and keeping it off.

Change Your Lifestyle, Not Just Your Diet.

While losing weight is one of the top New Year’s Resolutions every year, don’t make yours centered just around losing weight. The people who have proven most successful at losing weight and keeping it off do not focus on a short-term diet program; instead, they focus on making a lifestyle change. Small daily habit changes combined with a well-balanced diet and practiced consistently can help you achieve long-term weight loss success. Take small strides such as parking further from the front door of your office, use the stairs instead of the elevator, take a daily multivitamin or add 1 cup of vegetables to every meal. Sure, the right diet program is about 80% of your weight loss success but unless you plan on starting all over again in 2013, you need a diet program that you can live with for the rest of your life.

Move More.

According to the CDC, American adults 18 to 64 need at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity weekly to maintain weight. Additionally, adults should participate in strength training workouts that work for all muscle groups two days a week. But if you want to lose weight, you may need 60 to 90 minutes of moderate activity five days weekly that add up to 450 minutes weekly.

As of 2009, 35 percent of U.S. adults claim to participate in regular physical activity during their free time but 33 percent say they get no physical activity. How do you stack up?
In a study published in the January 2008 issue of “Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise,” only 3 to 5 percent of adults get even 30 minutes of exercise daily. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, not only do you need to change your diet but you also need to incorporate some movement into your daily routine. And walking to and from the fridge doesn’t count.

Get Mentally Healthy.

If you’ve ever watched The Biggest Loser you know that another major factor in long-term weight loss success is being in a healthy mental state. For any of us who constantly battle weight loss ups and downs, we know it takes more than just sheer willpower to stick to a diet. That’s the easy part. Changing our mental outlook and eliminating the demons that keep helping us pack the pounds back on is a lot harder.

In The Four-Day Win, Martha Beck talks about psychological changes that you can make to achieve thinner peace. Beck not only pinpoints the thoughts and behaviors you have adopted that continually make you pack the pounds on (or back on in some of our cases) but small actions that you can make into a habit to break these negative thoughts and behaviors (even the ones you are doing subconsciously). One such negative behavior Beck discusses dichotomous thinking. Does your diet roller coaster include insanely strict liquid diets followed by periods of extreme binging? Odds are, you may be a dichotomous thinker – an extremist. Beck also challenges you to really examine your emotions – especially those that you have when you make poor eating choices.

Getting into a healthy mental state helps us to stop overriding our true physical and emotional feelings and get the tools we need to generate a lasting sense of comfort that comes from within and ultimately leads to a happy, healthier and leaner life.

Embrace a Healthy Diet Program.

Nutrition is 80% of the battle. Finding a healthy diet program that not only helps you in the short-term with your initial weight loss but also helps provide you with the tools for successful long-term weight loss maintenance is essential. Why deprive yourself for months on some extremist diet only to regain your weight, if not more, a couple of months later. You need a diet that teaches you how and when to combine all the food groups for a nutritionally balanced diet that still helps you shed those unwanted pounds; and, in a lot of cases, also those medications for diseases like diabetes and hypertension.