Health Resolution ideas....

Today's Post:  Friday, 12-28-2012

Health and fat loss resolutions are some of the most common that people make this time of year.

But to get results and reach goals, after you set the goals, you need to take action.

And, for exercise and eating right, many people don’t have the background to make a list of things they can start doing to put their program in motion.  Or they find they can start but don’t keep exercising.

So, here are some ideas that work for people that solve these problems:

If you find even one idea here that works for you or helps you that’s great!

Or if you think of or find a method that these ideas makes you think of or look for, that’s great too!

1.  Exercise is the one best thing you can do for better health. 

Regular exercise slows aging and directly prevents heart disease.  It also helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of mental decline.  And regular vigorous exercise helps prevent type 2 diabetes.  Regular exercise helps improve the sex lives of both men and women.

Regular exercise slows aging!

Regular exercise, while eating right IS required, helps you lose fat faster and is essential to keeping it off after you lose it.

Even better, the longer you are a regular exerciser the better it gets at giving you all those good effects recent research found.

So, if your resolution is to begin to exercise in 2013, why not do it?

a) Maybe you never exercised before.

If so your first action is to find a way to learn to exercise and try it beginning in early January or tomorrow!

You can take a group martial arts class. 

You can join a gym with aerobics classes and go to one of their group classes.

You can hire a personal trainer to teach you.

You can buy many kinds of exercise videos to try at home.

b) Maybe you know how to exercise but never seem to keep doing it.

You can take a group martial arts class. 

You can buy many kinds of exercise videos to try at home.  If you find one you like or you like the music in the videos that can make it enjoyable enough to enable you to keep it up.  (It also can help to do this first thing in the morning if that works at all for you.  That helps you keep going and it helps you get fully awake faster!)

You can join a gym with aerobics classes and go to one of their group classes.

You can hire a personal trainer to help keep you going – besides getting their know how and encouragement.

I got lucky and found a group of men who did power lifting together because my friend was a member of their group.  I went with him and began to work out with them.  Before when I’d lifted weights on my own, I’d improve at first but then couldn’t keep improving.  Then I’d get frustrated and quit.  But when I joined this group, when that happened I went anyway because my friend was there and I’d gotten to know the other guys.  So I went and did what I could that day.  But then a wonderful thing happened, because I kept going every week, the progress I couldn’t reach before showed up!  In my poorest lift, I got to an almost respectable level.  And, in my two better lifts, I got pretty strong.

Similarly, for a while before she stopped for other reasons, my wife was in a class run by the personal trainer at a local gym.  She felt like going sometimes.  But often on the days she didn’t feel like it as much she went anyway because she realized the other women in the group would miss her and she would miss seeing them.

Or maybe you find you simply don’t have time in the evening to go exercise or you have so many demands on your time you find you keep missing sessions or you haven’t the money to do many of these things.

That happened to me once.  I had no time or money to go lift weights at the gym.  So I did nothing at all. My wife said I was silly not to find something I could actually do at home.  I realized I could take the one light dumbbell we had and do a set of exercises with it one hand at a time and do it first thing every morning. I also worked out some leg exercises I do at home.

At first, it wasn’t much.  But I added a used Nordic Track and did that.  Since then I’ve added a jump rope and a kettlebell and several heavier dumbbells. I also worked out some leg exercises I do at home.

 I still would do better to go to the gym for heavier weights too. (But when I did go to the gym too for a while I kept up my morning exercises and found when I had to miss going to the gym in the evening a time or two I lost no strength and could restart where I left off when I went back!)

BUT, given that’s it’s first thing in the morning and only takes 6 to 30 minutes depending on which day, I hardly ever miss a day and my arms and shoulders look decent and both my upper body and legs are clearly muscular and well exercised.

Thanks to my wife’s saying “Why not find something you CAN do and try that?” I’m dramatically healthier and stronger than I was or would have been.

That’s the key idea for you here.  Pick something to try and do it. 

If you find it works, keep doing it!  If it doesn’t, something you CAN do will work.  Try something else until you find what does work for you.

But to achieve your resolution or most or even part of it, pick something to try right away and do it!

2. Eating right and fat loss are often New Year’s resolutions.

It’s a two part process.

a) Find out what foods and drinks fatten you or harm you and stop ingesting them and cut back by over 90 % the ones that you still want to keep on an occasional basis.

Find out the many foods support your health without making you fat and find ways to eat them regularly and ways to fix them you enjoy eating.  And, eat MORE of them!

To find out what foods and drinks fatten you or harm you read our posts and browse previous posts.   If it’s packaged or sold at a fast food restaurant or advertised on TV, it likely will pay you to always avoid it.  Avoid all soft drinks!

b) For what to eat instead, check out the Sonoma Diet that we posted on yesterday or look up what’s in a Mediterranean Diet or the DASH II diet or look up the many Super Foods books.

(In the Super Foods books, the only things that I think don’t belong are whole grains and soy.  Everything else, and that’s a LOT of foods, is good for you and not likely to make you fat, particularly if you also exercise.)

Essentially health OK protein foods, health OK oils and fats, and low glycemic vegetables and fruit that are very high in nutrition are what to eat instead.

What kinds of wild caught fish or seafood do you like?  Find a recipe using cooked beans or lentils or black-eyed peas that you like.  Find a source online or at Whole Foods for beef or lamb fed only grass for occasional meat treat dinners.

If you aren’t allergic, try raw walnuts, pecans, or dry roasted almonds.  Try adding sliced avocados or guacamole to your salads.

Eat organic and only organic berries, apples, pears, peaches, plums, etc.

Eat organic green or nonstarchy vegetables of at least 3 kinds in at least two meals every day.  Cruciferous vegetables are often the best in many ways.  Try to eat one or more servings a day of a raw or steamed cruciferous vegetable.

Susan Powter once said, “If it doesn’t grow that way, don’t eat it.” and Michael Pollan said, “Eat real food, mostly plants, and not too much.”

The three key exceptions to that are extra virgin olive oil, cooked tomatoes or tomato or pasta sauce, and moderate amounts of red wine.

Make a list of those foods that you already like or eat.  Make a list of those foods to try out in January.  Then keep eating that way! And learning more foods you like that are actually good for you also helps.

Hope for you the things you try soon and in early 2013 work out well for you!