Disclaimer: This article may hurt your feelings, and that’s okay. Let me be brutally honest: You’re not going to lose weight in the new year if you’re betting on your New Year’s Resolution. It’s just won’t happen that way. There’s a good chance you will be setting some goals this year; and there’s a pretty good chance that goal might find its place vocalized on the social web. That means your friends and family will see the decision you’ve made to do ‘x’ this year.
That also means this New Year’s Resolution of yours is backed by a legion of accountability partners–everyone who has seen your status or gleaned it from your lips is your accountability partner whether you asked them to be or not. But you won’t lose weight, because losing weight and hitting your health goals at the dawn of a new year is hard, and I don’t think you’re equipped to do it.
So prove me wrong
Most people this year won’t do a damn thing about their resolutions. Pardon my coarseness, but it’s true. You don’t have to believe me; you can believe the cadre of companies and celebrities that fan the flame for resolutions on Twitter: Now these are just the top two results, but you can see shortly before the New Year, everyone is hopping on the train.
In the mess of them all, surely one of the most legendary goals is to “lose weight.” Others opt for doing a digital detox, some for finding their loved ones, and others pursuing health altogether.
The question clearly isn’t “should I or will I have a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight,” but rather…
Why is this the year I lose weight?
Why will you achieve your goals this year and not last year? What is so different about 2018 that will make you suddenly successful?
I believe in you, so let’s sift through a couple “not-to’s” when it comes to losing weight, because setting the resolution alone won’t do a damn thing.
1. Don’t tell anyone about your fantasy
I don’t say this because your opinion doesn’t matter: it kind of does. I say this because I worry you’re doing it to get likes on a status, or so that–if you fail–you at least would have announced your weight loss goals. Nobody has to know your goal, because the only person that needs to know it is you: not your family, your friends, or anyone who might see a New Year’s Resolution status. Let them care about the social glamor while you focus on your goals. Don’t let social media be your peril. If you want to lose weight, you know what to do it and mostly how to do it. Let your motivation and desire to change be your fuel. Other people won’t lose weight for you: that’s on you.
2. Stop idolizing food
When people look at a culture from the outside in, they look at the most rampant, widespread patterns of the people across the giant spectrum of behaviors. If you’re foreign to North America, you’ve seen it too. It’s called gluttony, and it’s glossed over as a petty sin, as it were.
You will never lose weight if you can’t get over your fascination with food. It doesn’t matter if you take a weight loss stick every morning to curb your appetite, your love for food has to die this year for you to lose weight for good.
3. Learn the art of addition
Did you know little things add up? Just like the wrinkles on your face with age and the fat on your body from extra calories, good patterns add up too.
Those hasty ten jumping jacks or push-ups; the walk around the office on break; the extra two glasses of water you drink per day: all of that adds up, and in the long run it’s going to demolish your body fat.
Good habits don’t just add up: they begin to multiply.
4. Be your own harshest critic
I believe strongly in not giving yourself any room to complain or make excuses. You can make excuses if you want, but you can also gain weight this year. That’s your choice.
If you want to lose weight this new year, stop giving yourself breaks or cheat days. You’re just making it worse. Winners don’t take breaks; they don’t get cheat days; they don’t get to tell success to wait for them while they catch a breath.
You have to be the meter for your success, and if that means a slow-and-steady climb up the hill, great! But if you’re one to lie down on the lea when the climb gets too steep and you begin to sweat, just roll back down. You won’t make it.
5. Refuse to be a hypocrite this year
Before you know it, 2019 is coming. Do you know what that means?
Everyone will ask you whether you succeeded or failed in your weight loss resolution; and chances are, if they don’t, they likely don’t bring it up because they didn’t meet theirs either.
I want you to tell them you beat the hell out of your New Year’s Resolution–that you lost all the weight and more that you planned to, and you’re now an impregnable health machine and will never gain weight again. But will that happen this year? Don’t relegate your goal to next year. Do it this year.
The hindrance to your New Year’s weight loss resolution is no other than the person in the mirror.
Now these are just the top two results, but you can see shortly before the New Year, everyone is hopping on the train.
In the mess of them all, surely one of the most legendary goals is to “lose weight.” Others opt for doing a digital detox, some for finding their loved ones, and others pursuing health altogether.
The question clearly isn’t “should I or will I have a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight,” but rather…
Nobody has to know your goal, because the only person that needs to know it is you: not your family, your friends, or anyone who might see a New Year’s Resolution status. Let them care about the social glamor while you focus on your goals. Don’t let social media be your peril. If you want to lose weight, you know what to do it and mostly how to do it. Let your motivation and desire to change be your fuel. Other people won’t lose weight for you: that’s on you.