The Warm-up

Do not start your New Year’s resolution in the first month. In fact, New Year’s resolutions are by tradition meant to fail. It’s like a horror movie, where you’re on a race to make it to 30 days, or else you-know-what happens. How many people have you known who have started a New Year’s resolution. Or even said they’d start Monday. Within the first week you stop hearing from them. So from now on, you call it a Life Mission. And every mission has big bosses you need to fight off to stay alive.

The first month of your mission should be considered a warm-up. A training ground used to measure yourself up against your challenges. Your stomach. Your brain. Your joints. Your muscles. And your excuses. Your challenges are your damn self. You’re the only one who can determine your outcome.

So for the first month, do a little bit at a time. Measure yourself up against what needs to be done and see how much you can tolerate. New habits take a long time to solidify, so be easy on yourself, but also remember to not give up. Don’t be frustrated with yourself. Self-Awareness is the key to succeeding in any new self-improving ventures.

Routine is the Key

The goal is to slowly improve over time. Set yourself a time budget. In months or years, not days and weeks. You can lose weight (burn fat) in a couple of months, but it may not be your target weight. This may sound boring, but building a routine is the way to win at this game. If you deviate from your routine too much and too often and it will wreak havoc on your plans. And learn tricks to try to solidify your routine.

Encourage your colleagues at work to bring their lunch so you don’t get sucked into buying lunch at a restaurant. So yeah, make it a habit to bring your lunch to work; it’ll save you money, too. Have a hardy breakfast before heading in to work so you don’t end up buying a muffin and coffee on the way in; this one’s for me.

Start going to bed a bit earlier than usual. Maybe read a book while in bed until you fall asleep. You’ll feel much the next day. Make sure you don’t exercise or eat too close to bed so you’ll have a more restful sleep. May sure your windows are blacked out. Buy a blackout eye mask if you need it, they work wonders.

Make your meals simple. No extravagant sauces and spices. Over time you can deviate with added spices and such as you learn what’s good for your diet. For breakfast I either have oatmeal, eggs or protein waffles. Lunch is usually chicken or turkey with pasta or rice with veggies. Dinner is usually beef or salmon with rice and veggies. Over time I’ve learned to deviate from this with low calorie tomato sauces, and I don’t need a lot to make things taste great.

Setup your life so it’s more conducive to your goals, and not try to fit your goals to match your lifestyle.