We have arrived at that time of year when everyone is overstuffed with holiday treats and finding themselves oddly craving vegetables in place of buckeyes. The extra holiday weight and excessive treats leads to people deciding that when the new year begins they are going to lose weight and get healthy. The active wear sales and deals on gym memberships makes a lot of people get into fitness at the beginning of the year, but when February hits, the gym crowd has noticeably thinned out. What makes people lose their drive? It's the way they think about and approach getting healthy.
People tend to jump into crazy diets when the new year hits that aren't maintainable by any means, and one of the most important things when it comes to fitness is finding a routine and way of eating that you can follow for the majority of the time. If you go from eating junk for a month to being strictly paleo, that's going to be a hard adjustment. Eating no carbs for a month is guaranteed to lead you to give up on your fitness goals and hate anything that has to do with getting healthy. You can start by eating healthy foods that you enjoy and exploring different recipes that appeal to you, all while enjoying your favorite treats in moderation. Making your meals for the week in advance makes it even easier to eat healthy and saves a lot of time. Don't think of food as the enemy like a lot of people do when they first start out, think of it as your fuel and a way of nourishing yourself. This mentality will make eating healthy a lot easier.
New people in the gym usually spend hours on the treadmill without exploring the other half of the gym, and while cardio is good for you and burns fat, it gets boring fast. And too much of it actually leads to muscle loss. I highly recommend starting off with weights and cardio. Once you get past feeling intimidated by those who have been lifting for a long time, lifting weights becomes a lot of fun. There's so many different ways to lift weights and it's easy to find a routine that you enjoy and won't get bored of. When I solely did cardio, I only worried about how many calories I burned. When I finally got into lifting, I started worrying about how much weight I could lift instead of my weight on the scale. Feeling yourself getting stronger is empowering and makes you want to keep up with your routine. When you stop obsessing over being skinny and start wanting to be healthy and strong, fitness becomes a lot easier.
Being healthy is not a quick fix, and as cliche as it sounds, it truly is a lifestyle. It's a way of life where your mental, physical, and emotional health are of the most importance. It's where you sweat and experience onset muscle soreness not because you want to lose weight, but because you want to do something good for yourself. People make this their new year's resolution out of hate for themselves and their bodies, when they will only succeed when they are doing it simply because they love and want to take care of themselves. That mental change has to happen before any physical changes will.
You don't have to wait for a new year to start taking care of yourself; you can start right now. You should want to start right now. Don't view being healthy as a burden and something that you'll pursue later, or else it's likely you never will. If you love yourself before and throughout the process, you will experience the results that you want. And you'll wonder why you didn't start earlier.
