Are you planning on losing weight for your New Year’s resolution?

Today and tomorrow we’ll be sharing a few tips to help you achieve your goals. Having a little bit of time in advance to think about what you can do to meet your goals will help you to be prepared for success.

• Be honest with yourself when you set your goals. Make sure your goals are realistic, measurable and achievable. This means that you should set milestones along the way that will keep you motivated so that you can be rewarded for your progress.
  • For example, a measurable and achievable goal is to lose one pound a week. You can weigh yourself at the end of the week to see if you met your goal and you can be motivated on a regular basis by seeing the results.

• Share goals with friends and family. Having people you care about supporting you in your efforts will help you accomplish your weight loss and healthy eating goals. It will also hold you accountable – who wants to tell their mom, husband, wife, or best friend that you are giving up on your goals?

• Make small changes. If you try to change too much too soon you can get discouraged, so start by making one small change a week.
  • For instance, a change may be that you will choose fruit for dessert rather than ice cream. Or a change may be that you’ll start replacing full fat dairy products with reduced-fat ones.

• Keep a food journal. This can be especially helpful in the beginning and it helps to hold you accountable. Plus, it helps you to find patterns in your eating that can reveal to you why you eat when you’re not hungry or why you overeat.
  • Research show that people who write down what they eat lose twice as much weight! So get writing—woohoo!

• Eat consciously. Why are you eating? Is it because you are hungry? Or are you just bored or sad? If you’re not hungry, find something else to do besides eat.

Take some time to figure out what changes you will make in order to see your goal. And check back in with us tomorrow for some more tips. What are some changes that you may make to help you to reach your goal?