Fitness new years resolutions are something that everyone makes, yet so many people struggle to stick to. What is it about these resolutions that are so tough? People make spirited decisions that they really have no intention of sticking with. I am here to help you change that.
Let’s start with the origin of the new years resolution. Back in biblical times, people would start the new year off by making promises to God to pay their debts of sin. This changed over time and now we have the new years resolutions as we know them. New years resolutions are mostly a tradition in western societies now.
It is January 1st, and we made ourselves some promises. We are all jacked up about making our goals a reality. We have looked up fitness new years resolution tips on Google. Our emotions are feeling positive. But we can’t succeed on positivity alone. We need a plan.
Having a plan is one of the most important factors in sticking to a new years resolution for fitness. Let’s get started with our tips!
Tip #1: Know what your end goal is
Do you want to build muscle, or do you want to lose fat? Some people might just say they want to lose weight, or that they want to get jacked. These are broad goals, and we need to pinpoint down what your future state will look like.
If you want to put on muscle, you are going to need to do weight training, minimal cardio, and eat enough food to build muscle.
If you want to lose fat, you are going to need to do plenty of beginner HIIT workouts. You are also going to need to eat less calories than your body’s maintenance. And you are going to need to pepper in a little bit of weight training to strengthen your muscles.
For both of these goals, I recommend learning how to calculate your maintenance calories.
You absolutely have to commit to doing these, or you will not change your body for the better. Personally, I spent 7 years going to the gym before I made any real progress. I realized that I wasn’t eating enough food to build the muscles I was going for. I made big progress once I started doing that. You can read more tips for going from skinny to muscular.
If you don’t know exactly what to do in the gym, I recommend downloading our app All Workouts: Personal Trainer (iOS | Google Play). It has FREE workout plans that you can follow and hit your goals.
Tip #2: Make your goals measurable and realistic
As mentioned before, if your fitness new year resolutions are just to lose weight, you have less of a chance of sticking with it. This is where you need to be intentional AND realistic with what you plan on doing.
What do I mean by making your goals measurable and realistic? Are you overweight and want to lose fat, or underweight and want to gain muscle? Either way, a safe sustainable weight loss or weight gain goal is .5lb – 1lb per week. Anything more than that is not a sustainable goal.
So, a good goal to have would be to lose 12 pounds in 3 months. Or, to gain 3 pounds of muscle in one month. Both of these goals are measurable and realistic.
I will make one alteration for this however. If you are very overweight, you will probably lose more than one pound a week when you start working out and eating at a caloric deficit. This is the same for underweight people. If you eat at a caloric surplus, you may gain more than 1lb per week.
Do not let it discourage you if you are not losing or gaining as fast as mentioned, revisit our maintenance calorie calculation page.
A bonus tip that I have is to take a picture of yourself before you even start anything. You need this as motivation to help you reach your goals. When you see yourself in the mirror everyday, you don’t see the changes that you are making. But when you look at a picture of your previous self, that is all the motivation you need.
Tip #3: Commit to changing your habits
Habits are so important that I even wrote an article on how to make exercise a habit.
The most important thing here is to just start doing something. Start going to the gym. Start doing high intensity interval training at home. Do pushups in between meetings at work. Start running to your mailbox instead of walking.
I have a friend who made exercise a habit by going to his community gym for only 5 minutes per day. He would swing by on his way to work, do a couple quick workouts, and be on with his day.
Going to the gym became a habit, and eventually he started going for longer, and ended up getting in great shape.
The point here is to build the habit of doing exercise. If you were to do one big 4 hour workout every month, do you think you would hit your goals? What about if you worked out for 5 minutes per day for a year? Do you think you would be closer to your goals? Absolutely!
The point here is that you need to commit to a process. This is not a big event, it is the process you are creating for yourself. When you become the type of person that goes to the gym regularly, you become the type of person who hits their fitness new years resolutions.
I know some people don’t have access to a gym, or just don’t want to go to the gym. If you are one of these people, check out our recommended gym equipment for your home on Amazon.
Tip #4: Find someone to hold you accountable
This was the toughest part for me. I think it is possible to get in great shape without an accountability partner. But having one will really push you to the next level. For me, it was my roommates. I told them that if I did not workout at least 4 days per week, I could not watch TV on the weekends.
There are all sorts of people in your life that you can use as an accountability partner. Your spouse, a sibling, roommate, co-worker, neighbor. The list goes on, and you can make it happen.
If you do create the habit of going to the gym every day, I bet you can find someone at the gym to be your accountability partner.
The point here is that while you can do it on your own with the right plan, having an accountability partner really accelerates the process.
Main Point: Fitness new years resolutions are easy with the right mindset
Now that you know what to do and what to expect, do you think you can hit your new years body goals? Do not let the naysayers be the voice of reason in your head. You are 100% capable of hitting every fitness goal you have.
Don’t forget to make your goals measurable, and take a picture of yourself before you start anything. In fact, go take that picture right now. Don’t hold off for the perfect time. Now is the perfect time.
Get yourself into the habit of working out, and you will see that it’s not as terrible as you imagined. It will change your life for the better in so many ways.
Last but not least, the accountability partner. Find yourself one. If you can’t, you can still crush your goals. An important tip here is that if your accountability partner discourages you from hitting your goals, just ignore them. You can find another partner that will help you.
Let us know what your goals are, and if you found this article helpful for hitting your fitness new years resolutions.
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