8 tips to start the new year
Happy New Year! Wishing you and all your loved ones all the happiness and health in the world!
To start the year off I thought I’d share a couple of tips to help make your life easier as we roll deeper into the year. Alright here we go:
1) When it comes to losing weight, diet is key. If you’re putting way too much effort into workouts and not really taking care of your diet while your main goal is to lose weight, you’re gonna be in for some deep disappointment as time passes. Workout is hard work and great for health, but it’s not the key thing that helps you lose weight. You could work out 7 days a week for an hour each day and still gain weight if your diet isn’t on point.
Consistently eating less than your body expends is what helps you lose weight sustainably. Being in a consistent calorie deficit.
2) Don’t aim for fast results. Take a long term approach. Aim to change habits rather than aiming for the number on the scale go down asap. If you’re using your weight to track your progress, remember to use your weekly average as a representation of your progress and not your daily weight. Daily weight fluctuates all the time even if you’re doing everything perfectly, it’s normal and not within your control. Weekly averages is a way more realistic way to track your progress.
3) Don’t waste your time & money with detoxes and cleanses.
4) Don’t go too hard. Don’t push yourself for 6-7 days at the gym a week plus hitting a quota of kilometers for your runs. All you’re doing when you go super hard is quickening the time you’ll end up giving up. It can be tempting to go as hard as possible on the first week of a new year, but all that’s doing is making you burn out even quicker. Focus on doing things you can see yourself still doing at the end of 2023. Only go harder when it starts to feel easy. Slow and steady wins the race. The goal is to lose weight and keep it off. Not lose a lot then gain it all back. Losing 6kg and keeping it off at the end of the year is way way better than losing 20kg in 3 months but gaining it all back where at the end of the year you’re the same weight as you were in the beginning of the year.
5) Don’t give yourself a time limit. Whether a weight goal, health goal, muscle goal, just chase it giving yourself all the time you need. A time limit is often what makes people quit, cos when the time limit hits and you’re nowhere close to where you want to be there’s a high chance you just give up altogether whereas without a time limit you could have ended up reaching that goal eventually even if it took super long.
6) Stop labeling foods as “good” or “bad”. Food is food. There are foods that are high in nutrients, there are foods that are low in nutrients. High doesn’t mean good, low doesn’t mean bad. Weight loss can be achieved regardless of you eating “good” or “bad” foods. Even for health, “bad” foods are totally fine in moderation to still have amazing health.
7) Hungry does not mean fat loss, full does not mean fat gain. Hungry or full is just a feeling and does not represent your progress. In a fat loss journey there will be the feeling of hunger, it’s normal. Starving all the time though is a red flag. It’s totally fine full and satisfied regularly in your meals. Play with the types of food you eat regularly to deal with hunger, along with making sure you’re getting enough sleep.
8) Don’t believe everything you see on the internet or social media. Look into the source of the information before you believe in it, or at least choose specific people to listen to after having looked into their background. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. Don’t get caught. Choose carefully who you believe in.
With that said, I wish you all the best kicking off this year! Remember the key to this journey is to not give up. It’s not about perfection. Mess up as many times as you want/need, but DO NOT give up!
Happy new year, let’s go! You got this.
—Po