Are You Still Holding to Your New Year's Fitness Plan? Here's what I did.

Image via Calvin and Hobbes

Every year I encourage all of my clients to have New Year’s fitness resolutions. Most will have a goal of losing 10, 20, 50+ pounds. They should have this goal, however, regardless of the time of year. Resolutions should aim to improve on one or two aspects in your life to help achieve success. Take these resolutions and implement them into a plan that will allow you to achieve your fitness goal.

My New Year’s Approach
The Goal:
Lose 15lbs of body fat while maintaining or gaining some muscle.

The Resolutions:

• Minimize grains and eat more of a Paleo diet
• No beer for 4 months

Grains are naturally starchy and minimizing them will make your body more efficient with less calories needed. If I take the time to prepare vegetables in place of starchy carbs, losing body fat will occur much easier. Plus, I love vegetables, so this works great for me.

No beer for 4 months?! Well, I don’t need to explain why beer is counterproductive to body fat loss, but simply put it is an easy way to cut out a lot of empty calories. I don’t crave sweets, chocolate, chips, or junk food, but I do crave a good heavy microbrew. We’re talkin’ 225 cals per 12oz bottle on average. Drink 5 in a week and the result is in an extra 1125 calories! Notice I didn’t say “no alcohol for 4 months” because I don’t really care for wine and I care for liquor even less. Again, this resolution works well for me.

The Plan to lose 15 lbs of fat:

• Minimizing grain intake
• Not drinking beer for the first 4 months of the year
• Consuming 2500-2600 calories per day
• Lifting 4 times a week
• Running intervals or sprints 1-3 times a week
• Getting adequate rest (last year’s resolution much improved on)

Your New Year’s fitness resolutions should be a tool to help you reach your ultimate goal. Most people are looking for body fat loss to some degree. Keep to your resolutions and know there will be times you will slip up. Don’t give up on them just because you ate one cookie, one bag of chips, or even gorged on a whole pizza. Even if you stick to your resolution half the time, that is still a 50% improvement.  Over the course of a year that can make a big difference.

Located on 744 San Antonio Rd. Suite 2, Palo Alto, CA, 94303: Breakthrough Personal Training. Expert personal trainer serving the Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View, and Menlo Park area. Weight loss, optimal aesthetic results, injury prevention, post-rehabilitation, nutrition counseling, Downtown San Jose Bootcamp, and fitness services.