New Year’s Resolutions

I am a big believer in setting goals.  The start of a new year is a great time to re-evaluate where you are in many areas of your life and set some goals for improvement.  I hope you will set some health related goals for the new year among your other resolutions.  Here are some tips I have for making any goals, but they might especially apply to any diet or weight goals.

– Be specific.  Don’t set the goal to “eat more vegetables” or “exercise more”.  A nebulous goal makes it almost impossible to measure your success.  For example, my goal last year was to exercise at least four times each week.  It gave me a specific number to aim for, but also didn’t give me an excuse to sleep in every fifth day.

-Think through the execution of your goal.  Sometimes you will realize a goal is not possible because you aren’t willing to make the changes necessary.  Say you want to pack your own lunch for work every day.  Thinking this through, this requires buying extra food for those lunches as well as probably getting up 10-15 minutes earlier to make that lunch.  If those aren’t reasonable changes for you, don’t make the goal about packing lunch.

-Put your goals somewhere you will see them frequently.  I use a note on my phone for my daily to-do list.  I keep my goals at the top of that list.  It means I have to see them every time I open my list and helps me remember to put those items among my to-do’s.

-Re-evaluate frequently.  You may reach a goal faster and easier than you thought.  Great!  Challenge yourself to something new.  Maybe a goal is harder to attain than you anticipated.  This gives you a chance to think of new approaches.

-Call an audible.  This kind of goes with the last one.  Don’t be afraid to just say something isn’t going to work.  If you set the goal to go to the gym three times a week and you discover you hate the gym, call an audible.  It’s ok to give up on a goal that is dragging you down.  What isn’t ok is to just give up on yourself.  Take what you learn from the failed goal to create a new, better goal for yourself.

What are your diet or health related goals for 2015?  I’d love to hear them in the comments.

For more on “healthy” resolutions, read here.

Have any nutrition questions? Need help with meal planning or a special dietary need? Send your questions to me at kimberlykmarsh(at)gmail(dot)com, and I will will answer them in upcoming posts!