To continue from the last post here are the 5 other tips to help you achieve your health New Year’s Resolution:
6. Ignore advice from unhealthy family and friends
Just as you should avoid seeking diet and nutritional advice from an unhealthy, overweight physician, you should also avoid taking this kind of advice from unhealthy, overweight family members and friends. All of us have friends and family members who have some preposterous dietary and workout advice to share with us. In fact, I recently heard a friend of mine tell some people that he was eating 1,200 calories a day in an effort to lose weight. I cringed when I heard the advice he was giving.
First of all, you can never give a blanket statement about the amount of calories another person should eat as each person’s gender, body composition, metabolism and activity level must be accounted for when calculating caloric requirements. Second, the type of calories a person consumes matters. If you ate only fast food you would probably consume all 1,200 calories in one meal.
However, if you ate fresh fruits and vegetables it is likely that you could eat all day and still not eat all 1,200 calories. Lastly, if the person receiving the diet advice was a 200 pound man, limiting his diet to 1,200 calories for an extended period of time would cause his body to cannibalize itself (body eats its own muscle and organs in order to create energy).[1]
A word to the wise, if your dietary and workout advice giving friend or family member looks like a future participant in the “Biggest Loser” rather than someone with only one chin and a belly that is not a Dunlap (a stomach that done lapped over their belt) – ignore them unless you want to look like them. You have the choice to decide what and whom you want to look like.
There is a saying that birds of a feather flock together. Will you be in the flock of the overweight birds who cannot get off the ground or will you be in the flock of the healthy birds who soar like eagles. The advice you take and the choice you make is yours.
7. Find a model for what you want to look like
Sometimes making a change in your life begins with visualization. Start the year off by visualizing yourself with the physical look you desire. Find a picture of someone who has the body you would die to have. Find a photo of the woman in the swimsuit or the man in the swimming trunks you would like to wear. Maybe you want to wear the orange swimsuit Halle Berry wore in “Die Another Day”. Maybe you want to wear the swim trunks Daniel Craig wore in “Casino Royale”.
Whatever look you desire, find it and visualize yourself each and every day with that look. Cut out several photos of that person and place the photos everywhere possible. Make the photo your computer’s screen saver. Place the photo on your bathroom mirror, on your refrigerator, on your car’s dashboard and in your purse or wallet. The key is to have a photo available to remind you to stay on course 24/7.
8. Set really worthwhile goals
In the words of Nike, “Just do it!” Resist the temptation to tell yourself that you can’t do something. You can do whatever you put your mind to. Or is that just a cliché you use when it comes to telling your children what it takes for them to be a success?
Aim high! Parents always set higher than minimal standards for their children but so frequently set only minimal standards for themselves. Parents don’t tell their children to go to high school (minimal standard), parents tell their children to graduate from college.
Be the model you want your children to be and be more than minimal. Don’t be afraid to set the goal to be in the best shape of your life, to compete in a fitness/bodybuilding completion, to be able to climb a mountain, to run in a marathon, or to be a swimsuit model. Make your time on this earth noteworthy, do something significant!
9. Limit the time to achieve your goal to a maximum of 90 days
Set goals that conclude or have incremental landmarks which are to be reached in ninety days or less. We have become such a microwave immediate gratification society that anything longer than ninety days seems like a long time. So save yourself some frustration and decrease the likelihood that you will quit before reaching your resolution by at a minimum accessing where you are every ninety days or less.
Keep in mind that life is a journey not a destination. As such, your goals should be viewed the very same way as a journey. Imagine for a moment driving across country. Each major city, each time you filled the gas tank and every state along your journey would be considered a landmark, a sign that you were progressing. Each ninety day increment of your momentous resolution should be seen similarly – as progress. You will always find life’s journey more manageable when you keep this in mind.
10. Stop lying to yourself
Let’s keep it real, you know when you are overweight. When you stare in the mirror and your stomach stares back, you are overweight. When you start describing yourself as big-boned and you have never seen a human skeleton with big bones, you are overweight. When you are out of breath after having to take the stairs – three floors or less – to go to your office, you are out of shape. When your waist is more than half your age plus ten (men) and half your age plus (five) women, you are out of shape. When you wave good-bye and the skin near your triceps waves too, you are out of shape.
Expect from yourself the same that you expect of your child. If your child was failing a class would you tell them that they were not really failing and that their grade was really an “A”? I’m sure the answer is no. Then don’t tell yourself that your diet and health are acceptable when your diet and your health are clearly failing.