New Year's Eve is right around the corner, and the pressure is on to find the perfect resolution (and kiss) to bring in the new year. Every year, people start off with really generic resolutions like, "I want to lose weight," or, "I want to be happier," and fail because they aren't focused on a specific point. Here are some recommendations for getting focused.
Losing Weight
1. Cut Out Pop
Cutting out soda drinks is one of the easiest ways to lose weight and get healthy. When you cut out sugary drinks, you'll replace them with things like water, teas (as long as they're not sweet, they're exponentially better) and even juices (while they're not much less sugary, they contain vitamins and other positive health benefits). Drinking water instead will also naturally detox your body (forget all those fancy teas and expensive detox systems), keep you hydrated and prevent bloating when you eat something salty.
2. Exercise Four Times Per Week
Making sure you hit the gym is key to losing weight. To optimize your weight loss, you need to burn more calories than you take in. That doesn't mean that you need to stop eating and cut tons of calories, that means you need to get moving! The good news -- the higher your muscle-fat ratio, the more calories you burn by just sitting around. Working out just 30 minutes at a time for four days a week keeps you from sitting more than two days in a row and losing all of your progress, and tones you up!
3. Eat Vegetables With Every Meal
OK, breakfast doesn't have to count. Don't forget to make sure they aren't cooked in butter, fried or laced with salt because what's the point if they are?
4. Get More Sleep
Besides all the other reasons sleep rules, it actually helps regulate your metabolism and keeps you energized enough to exercise.
5. Stop Eating Out
Restaurants serve huge portions and serve endless refills of those sugary drinks you're trying to quit. Not to mention that even the salads at places like Applebee's still have an upwards of 1,200 calories (that's over half of what I eat in a day). Just steer clear.
Save Money
Whether you want to travel, you're saving for a big purchase or you're earmarking money for your future already, saving money is a mark of adulthood and responsibility, and you can totally do it working your part-time minimum wage job.
1. The 10 Percent Rule
The 10 percent rule is simple: 10 percent of any income whether it's from your job, allowance, birthdays or graduation goes into your savings account. It may not sound like much, but if you make $300 every two weeks, you'll save $780 in just one year.
2. $10 Per Week
If you can't swing 10 percent, make it a point to save just $10 per week. If you put it back every Sunday like it's a normal expense, you'll hardly miss it. It's like saying, "Instead of Wendy's, I'll eat at home." At the end of the year, you'll have $520 to show for it!
3. Eat Less Meat
It's extremely easy to eat a plant based diet, and it's much cheaper than buying meat for every meal.
Be Happier
This is a bit harder to give recommendations for, since everyone draws their happiness from different sources. However, there are a few things that everyone can do to ensure their happiness.
1. Schedule Your Time
Make your happiness a priority when you're scheduling out your day. This is definitely a resolution my fellow Type-A personalities will thrive on. If you schedule appointments with yourself, how can you possibly break them? Use this time however you want, but don't use it to fulfill other obligations. Make it at least an hour per day.
2. Stop Self Shaming
Make 2016 the year for loving yourself. Don't shame yourself. Don't stand and look at yourself before you shower pointing out imperfections like you're the only one who has them. Don't put on make-up because you think you're ugly. Don't call yourself stupid if you get a bad grade. Don't call yourself lazy when you're actually sleep deprived. You get the idea. Many are harder on themselves than they are on others. If you wouldn't say it to someone else, don't say it to yourself.
3. Read A Book A Week
Even if you don't like reading, it can be the greatest escape from anything you're dealing with, and it makes you more intelligent. If you dislike reading, it's because you haven't found what you like to read.
Have More Fun
1. Take Opportunities
When you can afford tickets to that concert, get them. When you have the weekend off, take a road trip to somewhere cool and stay in a cheap hotel. Live a life of adventures, and make it work by taking the opportunities you have.
2. Don't Stay In Because You're Alone
So you want to see that movie, but no one else is free? Go anyway. You want sushi, but everyone hates Japanese? Take a book and go. You want to go to the party downstairs, but your friend has to study? Text her every 30 minutes and go anyway.
These are just a few of the resolutions that can be modified to give you a better shot at success. Take your resolution and make it specific. Happy 2016, everyone!
