Now that it is January we may be quick to want to overhaul all of our habits. While motivation to make positive change is great, we want to make sure that we’re setting ourselves up for success. There are tons of ways you can start to make positive changes on the blog, and this post will provide simple steps to get started.
Assess What Is & Isn’t Working
When we think about big lifestyle changes sometimes it come’s with completely abandoning our current habits and leaning into unrealistically high expectations. This leads to challenges with follow-through, and then ultimately poor confidence. Feeling like a failure after setting the goals too high.
Instead, assess your current lifestyle to start making realistic changes. Start with the positives! Are you:
- Sleeping 7-8 hours per night
- Drinking 8 cups of water
- Getting out for a walk most days
- Eating breakfast most mornings
- Stretching before bed
- Having fruit for dessert
These are all wins that we want to encourage ourselves to continue. Take notice of everywhere in your lifestyle where you feel proud.
Then, we can more gently notice the areas we can improve:
- Late snacking every night
- Multiple sugar-heavy foods daily
- Skipping breakfast everyday
- Routinely taking <3000 steps per day
- Skipping lunch and then overeating at dinner
- Etc.
When we boil down the specific areas where we are falling short on our fitness journey, then it is easier to identify actionable goals. Especially when we know our strengths. If we are eating a lot of sugar, but know we enjoy fruit, then we can switch out one sweet for some raspberries. If we are skipping lunch every day but have been enjoying salads more often, then how about making one for lunch. We have to make goals based on our skills and our challenges.
Not going from <3000 steps everyday to running a marathon tomorrow. And not going from our favorite fruits & whole grains to a no carb diet.
Add in Something Every Day
It doesn’t need to be a 12 mile run, but something that makes you feel proud. Some ideas for you:
- An extra cup of water
- A serving of a new vegetable
- A balanced breakfast
- A walk in the snow
- An afternoon nutritious snack
- An afternoon workout
- A new workout class
- Etc
If we focus on adding in just one thing per day then these habits will snowball into reaching our bigger goals over time.
Skip No Meals
I always here that in the pursuit of eating less, there is a lot of meal skipping. The logic makes sense, but your metabolism doesn’t like this. Not only is skipping meals a negative for your weight loss goals, but also for your mood and energy levels. The best thing you can do is fuel your body consistently. Ideally with balanced meals, but starting with regularly eating three intentional meals per day can make a big difference.
Stop skipping breakfast. For a simple option, keep a large tub of your favorite yogurt or cottage cheese in the fridge & simply top it with some fruit and/or granola. Stop skipping lunch. Yes skipping meals negatively impacts our metabolism, mood, and energy levels, but it also triggers overeating later in the day. Stop this obstacle now and you will feel a big difference.
Going forward
There are countless ways we can make a positive change this New Year, but you need to make the ones that are right for you. Struggling to figure out what that means for you? Schedule a free call and we will discover it together.
Happy 2026!
