How To Keep Your Fitness Resolution

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It is that time of the year. At gyms across the country, the “resolutionaries” are making their presence known…for the next few weeks anyhow.

If this is the year when you really want to work on a “new you,” remember that there is no such thing as a “new you.” At best, we can only hope for a better version of ourselves. Total transformations are rare; incremental long-term change is more realistic.

How can we best keep our resolutions? As I have blogged in the past, we should focus less on a weight we want to get to or a size we want to fit into. The emphasis should be on building a healthy lifestyle. When we focus on lifestyle, we are more likely to make a sustained change than simply starting a diet…and falling off of it in a week.

Another way to stick to the resolution to get healthier is to surround oneself with others who can give us positive encouragement or who are on the same journey as we are. That is why joining a gym is so popular…but it is important to take advantage of the professionals there to help build a program that is safe, effective and keeps us motivated. It is easy to give up if we feel we are in this alone.

Try to keep goals as specific as possible so that there is a way to measure success. “I will go to the gym” is not as effective as “I will go to the gym 3 times a week,” which is not as effective as “I will go to the gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday before I go to work.” Create simple rules that are easy to stick by that are specific as well like: “no eating after dinner,” or “limit desserts to Friday and Saturday dinner only, ” etc. When we keep our goals fuzzy we have no way to really see if we are making headway. Even if we may not see the results in terms of weight loss, when we keep our gaols specific we will see that we are building a healthy lifestyle–which is the best for our health in the long run.

Finally, look back at past attempts to get healthy. Why did they fail? What were the obstacles? Take some time and strategize how to overcome them. If we realize that we are too tired to work out in the evening, figure out a better time to do it. If we always feel like we are in it by ourselves, find a friend or family member to engage in the journey too. We should not expect to do the same things that failed before over and over again and get different results. Plan ahead for success.

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and fit 2020!

Turning Dreams into Reality

Torah portion, Miketz, it is Pharaoh himself who dreams; Joseph’s interpretation of those dreams and his knowing what to do with those interpretations catapult him to the second highest office in all of Egypt.
Herein lies an important distinction. It is one thing to dream (or to be a dreamer). It is another thing to be able to interpret or understand what the dream means (like, I shouldn’t have had a burrito before I went to bed!). It is quite another thing to take that interpretation and convert it into a plan of action–which is exactly what Joseph did. Dreams without a strategy remain just that: dreams.

This is a timely message for us as we approach the new secular year. Many of us make New Year’s Resolutions which are, in a way, dreams that we have for the new year. Making a resolution, however, without a concrete way to make it all happen is an exercise in futility and/or folly. If we think about the resolutions that we have made in the past, how many of them went unfulfilled simply because we did not really think through how to make them a reality? This is true whether the resolution has to do with study, work, relationships or physical fitness. No plan equals no success.

This is a concept that Joseph understood well. He was a dreamer and he understood others’ dreams too. What set him apart was what he did next. As we begin 2020, we should ask ourselves as well…what must we do next to make our dreams a reality?

How to Keep the Weight Off

This time of the year, many people are thinking about New Year’s Resolutions and a popular one is to lose weight. Just ask anyone who is a regular gym-goer and they can tell you that the first few weeks of January are always the busiest; fitness facilities are loaded with what I call “resolutionaries.”

Of course, a better way to look at this is to go beyond the mere number on the scale. While weight as a number is a data point, our fitness level depends on other factors as well: endurance, strength, power, cardiovascular health, etc. A better resolution might be to “become more fit” or “pursue a healthier lifestyle.” What both of those mean is up to individual interpretation, so it is important to come up with goals that are beyond merely a number on a scale such as “I want to be able to run a mile without stopping” or “I will do 30 minutes of cardio 3 times per week” or “I will begin training regularly with a Personal Trainer.”

Numerous studies have pointed out that we should take a more holistic approach rather than simply focusing on the readout on the scale. In fact, when we focus more on overall health we actually have greater success at weight loss and especially keeping the weight off.

Research shows that those who put an end to their sedentary lifestyle and become more active will do a better job of losing weight and keeping it off compared to those who simply diet. Studies show that dieting can take the pounds off but unless we engage in a healthy lifestyle that includes diet, exercise and other healthy habits (not smoking, getting enough rest, etc.) , there is a higher chance that the pounds will return.

There is no easy fix to getting healthier. Diet alone or exercise alone won’t cut it for the long term. It is all about a lifestyle that promotes healthy habits. A lifestyle isn’t just something that lasts for a month or six months or a year until we achieve our goal weight; a lifestyle is about what we do from this point forward.

As the New Year approaches consider not only the changes you want to see right now, but also how to make them last for a long and healthy lifetime!

Asking “Why?”

I’m not usually big on New Year’s Resolutions–either for the secular or Jewish New Year–but for the Jewish Year 5780 (which commences in just a few hours), I have resolved to ask “Why?”

I have found that many times in life I have jumped to conclusions about why someone feels the way they do or acts the way they do. I often think that I know what their motivations are. I make assumptions about who they are, their background, their situation, or even their hopes and dreams. Often this is based on the political party they support, the TV News channel they watch, or their views on issues in the US and in Israel. I think we all do that.

Sometimes we nail it, but other times we are not exactly right or completely wrong. How will we ever know if we don’t ask?

This year I am resolving to as “why?” a whole lot more. Instead of thinking that someone is a jerk, or an idiot, or uncaring, I will ask “why do you feel that way?” “Why did you do that?” “Why do you support this?” “Why do you oppose that?”

In the end, it may turn out that I do not like their motivation or their explanation. I might still disagree with that person on an issue. Even so, it least I will have a better understanding of where they are coming from and what makes them tick.

Even better, instead of just dismissing a person out of hand or giving them a round of applause and a bunch of “you rocks,” I will let them know that I am truly interested in them. I think we need more of this in the fractious society in which we live. We all need to stop judging books by their covers and start asking “why?”

Want to know more about why I chose this as my resolution? Perhaps you can ask me why.