Many people aim to start out the New Year willing to get in better shape, eat better, go on diets, take vitamins and so on. This puts a lot of stress on people trying to maintain goals that are not realistic on day to day schedules.
If your goals including eating healthier or getting in better shape, good for you! Beginning it slowly, and reasonably, makes it doable. Eliminate one unhealthy snack a week, until you feel comfortable replacing it with something healthier, such as an apple, a small piece of dark chocolate or some seedless grapes. All of those with satisfy a sweet tooth craving. Ditch a doughnut or muffin from the coffee shop and replace it with a bowl of oatmeal. You can add a teaspoon of natural sugar to sweeten a bit and still get the health benefits of added fiber.
Ditch the fancy mocha caramel latte with whipped cream for a plain coffee with a teaspoon of sugar & 1 ounce of milk to eliminate hundreds of calories right there. Warning: you do not want to drink half your days calories! They are delicious and highly addictive. Go back to regular coffee and unsweetened or lightly sweetened tea. I learned to drink tea, even green tea without sugar and I now love it. Better yet, it saves me calories and I get the healthy anti-oxidant benefits of tea. The same goes for coffee. Just don't overdo it if the caffeine makes you jittery.
First you may wish to take a 10 minute walk once or twice a week. Doing something small in a smaller chunk of time is much easier to maintain than, say, a gym workout for 45 minutes. You need to build up to bigger goals, especially if you haven't been regularly active for some time. Once you master a short walk for 10 minutes twice a week for two or three weeks, you can increase it to 20, then 30, then three days a week. One thing I have learned: I will never regret it when I come back from a 30 minute walk in the park. I know I have done something good for myself and I feel good about it, both emotionally and physically.
Now start slowly and get going. If you drop 4 or 5 pounds by Valentine's Day, celebrate! But not with too much chocolate.
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