Create a Detailed Weight Loss Plan for the New Year

Since things we do over and over become habitual actions, it is easy to see how important it is to repeat your daily regime. That way your new habits require less energy expenditure and very little thinking. Moreover, any resolution you make regardless of the time of year should reflect exactly what you want to accomplish. Goals setting should be specific to the individual and not influenced by his or her friends and family. Experts say that to make successful changes to your behavior, you must want things to be different, create a realistic action plan, and stick with your plan to break an old habit by replacing it with a better one. Most resolutions fail because the individual set a tentative goal to lose weight and exercise more. It is the most common New Year’s resolution as well as the most common failure. So, create a detailed plan and stick to it.

• Eat More Fiber to Feel Full - Consume more fiber. This will help you feel full longer after meals or snacks. Foods high in fiber include lentils, lima beans, artichokes, green peas, and broccoli.
• Include Good Fats - As strange as it might sound, you can lose fat by eating fat if you consume good fats in the right amounts. Dietary fat provides key benefits regardless of your weight loss goals.
• Limit Liquid Sugar Intake - A good rule of thumb is to keep your drinks simple. Naturally, water is the best drink at mealtime, but green tea is particularly high in antioxidants and has zero calories.
• Identify Culprits for Overeating - Food cravings can lead to an overindulgence of food, usually the overeating of carbohydrate and fat-rich foods that often prove to be harmful for the person’s health.
• Avoid Foods with Added Sugars - Consuming too many foods and beverages with added sugars makes it difficult to achieve a healthy eating pattern and provide no essential nutrients.
• Include Extra Protein in Diet - A higher protein intake can boost your metabolism and reduce appetite. Include sensible portions of lean protein like fish, lean meats, poultry, nuts, and beans for more balanced menus.

When you force yourself to engage in change, you are unlikely to stick with it. Simply stating your New Year’s resolution is to lose weight does not create a viable action plan. Most resolutions are too vague to be sustainable. Probably the fastest way to ensure your New Year’s resolution will fail is to set goals that are nearly impossible to achieve. Avoid lofty goals that sound dramatic and focus on smaller achievable goals that might sound boring to others. Creating an action for the first few weeks of your weight loss journey will take a lot of the guesswork out launching a successful endeavor. Then, repeat the process to keep your resolution on track for the next few weeks. When you share your goals with the important people in your world, it is much easier to recruit supporters. In fact, when friends and family believe you are serious, they are more apt to keep you accountable by asking how you are doing.