So you have had a great Christmas and eaten what you want, drank what you want and lay about doing nothing. You are feeling really bloated and you have set your new years resolutions. Am I right?
The first one that will spring to mind for most people will be to lose weight!!
Around 33% of people will make the new years resolution to lose weight, around another 32% will say that they want to eat healthier and around 38% will say that they want to exercise more!!
Can you see a wee trend here?
Now what happens, is that the general public are now flooded with images/articles/offers and information about people losing weight, going to the gym and eating healthily. But did you know that most people who make a new years resolutions to lose weight FAIL!!!
Companies pray on how delicate we feel after Christmas and know that they can reel people in when they are at their weakest.
However, only 8% of people achieve their new years resolutions and a whopping 80% of people have given up by the 2nd week of February!!
This is not good!
We are setting ourselves up for failure! This is not good for our mental health and it is not good for our physical health either.
How is it a good thing to start a new healthy eating regime on a day like the 1st January?
Think about how you are feeling on the 1st January – you are most likely exhausted from celebrating New Years Eve, you may even be a wee bit hungover. You start the new year by having a lie in and then not eating properly on the first day of the year. If you are a little bit delicate after the celebrations, the chance are that you may make food choices that you wouldn’t normally make – a take away for example. Failure straight away!!
The other thing to take into consideration as well, is the fact that you most likely have lots of food left over from the Christmas celebrations – boxes of Celebrations/Heros, boxes of biscuits, cheese and crackers etc. You may have been given chocolates for Christmas and you haven’t finished them. Are you going to be ok with them sitting in the cupboard – calling your name every time you open the cupboard door? Again we are making things very difficult on ourselves.
Then what we do is we make a snap decision to go on another diet and that this year it is going to be different!!
But will it??
If you keep doing the same thing each year you really should ask yourself – is it really working?
If you go on a diet every single January, you are a in fact a yo-yo dieter!! This should not being happening.
Dieting is actually really bad for your health. Most people who diet end up gaining the weight that they lost and sometimes a wee bit extra for good measure.
What I encourage you to do is to decide to change your life from yo-yo dieting, to one where you are living a healthy lifestyle continually.
Does this mean that you can’t enjoy life?
Most certainly not!! Living a healthy lifestyle is not just about the food that we eat. When you start the journey towards living a healthy lifestyle, YES, you will have to give up the unhealthy things that got you to where you are today. However, when you understand what a healthy lifestyle can do for you and what your body requires, you will not want to eat those types of foods on a regular basis.
Create a Healthy Lifestyle for your longterm benefit.
A healthy lifestyle is all about moderation. I most certainly enjoyed my Christmas holidays – I didn’t over indulge but I had a little of what I fancied. It was fabulous! I also went to the gym on a couple of occasions (cue people rolling their eyes) because this is part of my life! It felt fabulous too.
Have a look at my post here to see some of the photos from our Christmas. Most of the food you will see have been homemade. I even made shortbread for Santa Claus as well! It was delicious and much nicer than the store bought ones
When you live a healthy lifestyle you can do this – enjoy Christmas (without guilt) and go straight back to living a healthy lifestyle like before.
This is true freedom! And no silly no years resolutions -just because society says this is when you should change your life!
Take control of your health and this time next year you wont be worrying about what you ate at Christmas time either.
Give me a shout if you would like to discuss your options. Oh and watch out for a new blog post that is coming soon on the pros and cons of the most common diet options out there. You don’t want to miss that one.
Yours in Health and Happiness
Leave a Reply