How to keep New Year's resolutions? Nicola Vachová will tell you!

With the arrival of the New Year comes the annual resolutions concerning (not only) sport and healthy eating. At the beginning of January, the number of visitors to fitness centres regularly increases. Enthusiastic individuals usually start exercising with great enthusiasm and in most cases the initial enthusiasm quickly fades and we go back to our old ways - no exercise and snacking from the canteen. Why is this and is there any guide or way to maintain New Year's habits? Here are a few important points in my opinion:

No need to be tied to a specific date

If we decide to change or improve our lifestyle, let's start working on it now. There is no magic day of the year that will hopefully help us improve our fitness or improve our diet. What is important is our own decision and goal to start working on ourselves. If there are no health restrictions or any other compelling reason why we can't start sport today, then pack your sportswear along with a towel and hurrah for training. If we keep waiting for a date, a new week, a Monday, or when there is simply "more time", we are likely to delay the start until we have put the idea of sport out of our minds altogether. It doesn't always have to be this way, of course, and if someone sticks to their resolution for the long term, they have my high praise.

Let's set small, realistic goals

They'll help us stay on track for results. It's like running a relay race. First we have to make a few passes before we cross the finish line. Small goals are much easier to accomplish, and we won't be so disappointed and then fail if we don't lose that crazy 10 pounds that plagues us so much in the first month of the diet. Having goals is very important and the idea of achieving them drives us ever forward. But it's also important to realize that we didn't gain those 10 kilos in 4 weeks, but it took several months or even years of gradual weight loss, so we can't expect to lose them in just 4 weeks of dieting. This notion is often associated with a mindlessly set and unnecessarily large calorie deficit, which often leads to failure, and subsequent overeating. Thus we find ourselves in a vicious circle of constant cruel diets along with nightly visits to the fridge, starting over and over again with no possibility of achieving results. Therefore, an adequately set diet to meet the goal is another important point in our journey to a new, better self.

Extreme

Whether in food or training, there is something that we are probably very happy to get rid of sooner or later. Motivation is an integral part of the whole process and it is very important to know why and for what goal, we started. This doesn't mean that from the 1st of January we will only eat meat and vegetables or white yoghurt 3 times a day and train 7 times a week. Most likely, we will last only a few days or maybe weeks with such a hard regime and it will bring us only one thing - fatigue, bad mood, exhaustion, hunger and immense cravings for anything (sweet, salty, fatty).

So one day it will tell us enough and we will eat whatever comes to hand. Quite possibly, then the regrets will set in and we will try to sweat out the energy intake from the chocolate table with a gruelling run on the treadmill. And as a bonus we will "punish" ourselves with a cucumber for dinner for the next 3 days. I wouldn't be surprised if the failure comes even sooner than after 3 days of starvation and we are again standing in front of an open fridge. Welcome to the vicious circle... That's why we need to set up our eating and training plan so that it is sustainable, manageable and we can still enjoy results months after the initial start.

Want to get in shape or change your lifestyle? Order a customized diet or workout from Supertrener.cz

So what is the conclusion? The date is not important. What matters is the goal and the desire to work on yourself. It doesn't matter if we start on New Year's Day, after Easter or on a completely ordinary day. The important thing is to start, to take small steps that will eventually lead us to great progress. To enjoy the journey we have decided to take, to improve our fitness, our strength and also our health. To learn new, healthy recipes and to find a balance in food. To create a path that is sustainable for us, without unnecessary failures, fluctuations and yo-yo effects.

For more interesting news from the world of fitness, nutrition, tips on exercise, workouts and more, follow our instagrams nikci_fit and supertrener.cz.