Tips to make your New Year’s resolutions stick
By Jordyn Kleinwolterink, Hegg Wellness Center Manager
A new year, for many, brings forth new beginnings, new habits, and new lifestyles. While having goals and aspirations for new healthy habits is awesome, the important part of all of it is to assure that you can maintain those goals and make them long-lasting habits. As we know, simply creating a habit for a month isn’t going to have a whole lot of long term dividends, and while it is better than not doing it at all, it’s important to find ways to sustain these good habits so that it is a part of your lifestyle.
The New Year comes at just the right time for many people to find their motivation – it comes at a time when people usually eat a lot of food and treats over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve parties. Among the busyness of Christmas parties and get-togethers, it also becomes hard to prioritize exercise. Suddenly, that number on the scale is a bit higher than you’d like, and that leads to thinking about what you can do to get that number back down. January 1 comes around, and suddenly people are motivated to lose weight, exercise, and eat healthier. By far, the most popular New Year’s resolution is exercise. The gym is easily its busiest during the first few weeks of January, when everyone is hyper-motivated to shed weight and start getting a good routine to live healthier. However, that motivation can often wear off and people get sick of doing the same exercise routine over and over.
On average, about 85% of New Year’s resolutions disappear before the end of January. That means that only 15% of New Year’s resolutions are maintained beyond the month of January. So how can we, as a community, be a part of the 15% that keeps at their New Year’s resolutions? If your New Year’s resolution is indeed exercise and weight loss, here are some tips to keep going beyond January!
- Find a workout partner who is going to keep you accountable and assure that you are working out.
- Give new classes a try! Many people find new-found motivation through classes, because they know there are a group of other people who are in the same boat as them and holding them accountable.
- Switch up your workout routine! Find different things to do in your workout so you don’t get bored with doing the same thing over and over again.
- Make a cool playlist to listen to while you work out! Music makes time go by faster.
- Can’t get over gym fear and want to be done? Set up a personal training session with me to help you get comfortable with the gym, or even do your workout in our group fitness room where there is more privacy!
At Hegg Wellness, we are proud to offer a fitness center that offers state of the art equipment and gives our community a tremendous opportunity to reach their goals while doing so at an affordable price. We also want to provide all the resources possible to help you in your exercise journey! If you are looking for some added motivation or a way to get back in the gym, call the Hegg Wellness Center at 712-476-8081 and I would love to help you!