Fitness Tips - A New You

Not New Year’s Resolution By: Susan Gazerro

I didn’t want to write another article about a New Year’s resolution or about starting a workout plan or diet. I wanted to write something that would help to change your lifestyle. I wanted readers to want to be healthy, but to also understand why diets don’t work, and why it really needs to be a lifestyle change. So, 2023 isn’t about a New Year, it’s about a New You.

Diets all promise fast weight loss. However, they o en involve major changes like cu ing out food groups, eating fewer calories, and/or cu ing out all sugar, carbs, and alcohol. Fad diets come and go. e reason they go is because you can’t live with these changes forever. Eventually, you will go back to eating sugar, carbs, and drinking alcohol, etc. ere are those few diets where you take appetite suppressants or stop eating all carbs and sugar. Here’s what happens; you lose weight, of course you do, but as soon as you go back to normal eating, your body thinks it was in starvation mode so it now stores everything as fat and you end up gaining more weight than you had before you started the diet. don’t ever have to feel deprived. I love what I eat. I never feel like I’m missing out. I am also never the one saying, “I ate way too much yesterday and way too unhealthy so I need to starve myself today.”

Now, there are some healthy eating plans. (I don’t like the word diet). e eating plans I would recommend if you are trying to learn about healthy foods are:

e Mediterranean-style diet

e Dash (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension)

Flexitarian Eating Plan (plant based foods that make room for some animal foods)

I like these because they focus on eating lots of fruits and veggies, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. ey don’t promise fast weight loss, but they do promise life-long health and long term weight loss.

feel you are in a bad place right now. ink about life-long health and happiness.

ink about the reasons that you want to eat healthier. Is it to have more energy, lower your disease risk, lose weight, or feel healthier, overall?

Set realistic goals. Goals that are a ainable. Don’t say, “I’m going to cut out all sugar. I’m going to get up and run five miles. I’m not going to drink for a month. All of these goals sound great, but they are probably una ainable. Start by saying, “I will add a vegetable to my lunch and dinner daily. I will walk an extra mile today. I will drink less this week or weekend. Change your lifestyle. You can do this and you need to do this for you. Last month at the end of my article there was a quote: “Life doesn’t have a remote so get up and change it yourself. Change your life!”

Ask yourself what leads you to overeating? Are there certain times of the day or certain moods that you find yourself turning to food? Recognize what these are and take control. Yes, you do have control. is doesn’t mean you will be or have to be perfect. ere will always be a time you overeat or indulge in a dessert, and that’s okay, even healthy, but you just can’t do it every day.

Focus on your food while eating. Turn o the TV and put away devices at mealtime. Food is more satisfying when you pay a ention while you eat and when you eat slowly. It’s easier to notice when you’re full, too. Ask yourself, “Am I really still hungry or am I eating because it’s in front of me?”

Again, this is a new year. Make the year of you. You can do this. You and only you can make it happen. Don’t do it for anyone else. Do it because you want to be healthier. You want to feel and look your best. When you feel good physically, you feel great mentally. e holidays are behind us and today is a new day. Start by drinking extra water, today. e li le things you change or add to your new lifestyle will make a huge di erence. If you fall o the wagon one day, it’s only a wagon so get up and get right back on. is is your life. ere is so much we can’t control, but our weight, which a ects our health, we can control.

Happy & healthy 2023!

“We delight in the beauty of a bu erfly, but we never think about the changes it had to go through to be that beautiful”

I love this because it simply states everything has to go through something to come out be er or more beautiful.

It’s YOUR life no one else’s.