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Make 2015 the Year of Success

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Fitness Resolutions: Make 2015 the Year of Success

If you’ve ever vowed to lose weight or get in shape, you know it’s easier said than done. While 40 percent of Americans make a New Year’s Resolution, only eight percent actually stick with it, according to a recent story on Forbes.com. These statistics aren’t entirely shocking. After all, we are creatures of habit, and changing a learned behavior is hard work. Not all hope is lost though. Fitdigits’s iCardio app allows you to review your fitness progress over time and gives you the boost of confidence needed to stay motivated. Along with this helpful tool, learn how to stick to your New Year’s resolution by avoiding these common mistakes:

A Vague and Unrealistic Resolution
The most common resolutions are to lose weight and get in shape. Such goals are vague and undefined and leave you with little direction. When defining your resolutions, be as specific as possible so you know exactly where you want to end up. For instance, instead of planning to “exercise more,” set a precise target like training for an upcoming 5K. While goals should be clear cut, you also need to be realistic. Unreasonable resolutions will lead to frustration and failure.

No Plan
Just like driving without a road map, attempting to reach a fitness goal without a plan will lead you in the wrong direction. That’s why it’s important to devise a plan with a series of concrete steps needed to change your behavior and reach your goal. Such steps may include joining a gym, signing up for personal training sessions, skipping Friday night happy hour, or waking up an hour earlier to run before work. Then write out the individual steps so you can cross each one off as you complete it and feel accomplished.

No Progress Tracking
If your goal is not measurable, you can’t track your degree of success, and visualizing your progress is essential for staying motivated. When devising your resolution plan, include specific numbers like a target running pace or fat loss percentage. Then review your progress and note achievements along the way. Tools like Fitdigits’s iCardio app monitor important health metrics like heart rate, pace, distance, calories and more to help you realize the improvements in your health and fitness, while boosting the confidence needed to stick to your resolution.

Burnout
Creating new habits takes time and dedication, and many people expect it to happen overnight. Though enthusiasm for reaching your goal is essential, changing your entire routine overnight will inevitably make you feel burned out. While limiting the number of drinks you consume on a night out with friends is important, completely disconnecting from your social circle and hitting the gym for three hours every day will make you feel alienated. Since it’s a lot easier to commit to a small-level change than a complete life overhaul, commit to a small change until it becomes a new habit, and move on from there so you don’t burn out.

5 Ways to Make Your New Years Resolutions Stick

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Another year has passed us by, and with the beginning of 2013 comes an opportunity to start anew. Sure, you gained 7 pounds last year and saw a spike in blood pressure, but this year is different. Just like last year was different. And the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that…

So every year is going to be THE year to make a change. What can you do to make sure that this year is actually the year? Here are 5 tips to make your New Years Resolutions stick.

1. Start Slow
Often resolution makers start out the New Years by going to the gym 6 days a week or going on an extreme diet. However, that is not a good way to create long lasting change that will last all 365 days of the year and beyond. Start slow. In January, make it a goal to go to the gym twice a week, and slowly add more days as you go along. Try to make your new behavior a deep engrained habit, not just a fad.

2. Give Yourself Some Days Off
Give yourself a break every once in a while. For example, you are at a party and there are a lot of the four C’s: Cookies, Cake Ice Cream, and Candy. However, you swore to yourself you were going to cut down on sweets in 2013. Well, you said you would cut down on sweets, not eliminate them. So instead of abstaining in the early going, just have a cookie or two and use moderation. It is not realistic to operate at full throttle for the entire year.

3. Look For Easy Ways To Help Reach Your Goal
For a lot of people, losing weight is a constant struggle. So why not look for some shortcuts? There are some great ways to speed up your metabolism that do not require much extra effort, such as drinking green tea or putting hot sauce on your food. For more details, read here

4. Make Your Resolutions Public
Use the power of social media to embarrass yourself into reaching your goal. Post on Facebook or other social media your goals, and make it known to your friends and family what you have planned for 2013. Post constant updates, share your workouts, and reiterate to your friends that if you fall off the wagon to quickly point the finger of judgement in your direction. Nothing like being bullied into getting healthy!

5. Set Checkpoints
Make sure to have 2-12 checkpoints throughout the year as a means to stay on target. For example, if your goal is to lose ten pounds in 2013, check in at the end of February, and if you have lost at least 1.7 pounds you are right on track! This is a great way to make goals seem less daunting by segmenting them into nice, easily digestable chunks.

10 Ways to Find Time for Exercise

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There’s a lot of distractions that keep us from exercising. The number one excuse for not working out is lack of time. According to Jennipher Walters, Certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Instructor, there’s always someone busier than you who is working out right now. Her SparkPeople article offers some good suggestions on how to prioritize exercise:

Practical Tips to Fit Fitness into Your Busy Life

1. Wake up earlier.
2. Mix socializing with exercising.
3. Find an activity you love.
4. Cut down on TV and Internet.
5. Stop making excuses.

Here’s a tips that’s not listed: Set a goal. Burn an average of 400 calories everyday for a month. Or challenge a friend to a caloric burn contest – who can burn more calories in a month. Track your exercise and share your results using Fitdigits. If you need some new workout routines, try Fitdigits custom workouts (also called interval training).

Do you have some tips on how to stay motivated? Share your tips.

Read the full article 10 Ways to Find Time for Exercise by Jennipher Walters, Certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Instructor.