New year Resolutions and How To Keep Them

Now that the Holiday season is over, it is time to embark upon a new year. New Years means new goals, and hopefully new goals mean new achievements. For many, the dawn of the new year involves a resolution of some sort– a change in oneself to improve quality of life or to work at removing a bad habit.

Of all of America’s traditions of gorging ourselves with food every few months and training ourselves to like and expect an unhealthy way of living, the New Years resolution may be the one redeeming factor in terms of physical and mental health. This plan to make a positive change whenever a new year begins is a great tradition! It provides everyone with the opportunity to better themselves in all ways. Some people choose to stop eating candy, others choose to drop a bad habit, and some decide to start a new, good habit.

There are many ways to approach the New Years resolution, MANY of which provide a massive potential for improving health and augmenting one’s beauty and wellness.  However, the New Years resolution, although intended to be treated as a year-long commitment, is frequently only celebrated for a few days before being forgotten or abandoned. Just as it is important to make a healthy promise to yourself, it is equally important to keep it. Although this blog may not be directly related to Eros Beauty and Wellness or any sort of medical/cosmetic procedure, it is still important to me because it can be an important step in keeping you and your loved ones healthy.

Although I do love helping people achieve their best selves through amazing procedures such as Fillers, Botox®, and Laser, my first priority is my patients’ health. So I would like you to take this year as an opportunity to make a change in your life to improve or maintain your health. If you are feeling uninspired or are having trouble coming up with the right way to kick off your year, here are some extremely effective suggestions that you may want to

consider:

  • Dropping grain from your diet (bread, pasta, breaded food, white rice)
  • Waking up and going to bed earlier
  • Picking up a fun exercise routine with a buddy
  • Downloading a fitness/calorie-counting app and tracking your meals daily
  • Tracking your steps daily with an app and aiming to hit 15,000
  • Taking stairs whenever you see them instead of elevators and escalators
  • Saying no to desserts
  • Stop having second portions, even if you think you are still hungry
  • Eating at least 3 green things per day (green food coloring does not count!)
  • Limiting going out to eat to twice a month (saves money too!)
  • Investing in a new pair of sunglasses or a nice hat for sun protection
  • Wearing sunscreen every day

Do any of these fit your fancy? Little things can make a big difference when it comes to our bodies, so doing something as minor as wearing sunscreen or dropping something from your diet can have enormous outcomes. Now that you have an idea of where to begin your New Years resolution, it is time to discuss how to go about keeping it.

This is a simple matter, really. All you have to do is commit. For some, commitment comes easily, for others, it feels gruellingly painful to subject oneself to any sort of limitation. However, when it comes down to it, there is no other way around it. You have to make a promise (…a resolution…) to yourself that you will do whatever you can to stay on track. After all, it is for your own benefit! This can be very difficult, especially when your resolution involves a change in diet or exercise habits, two of the most effective resolution options. Here are some ways that you can help yourself to keep your New Years resolution so that you can come up with something less difficult next year:

  • Set a clear finish line. Although health is a lifelong endeavor, dieting and strict exercise regimes don’t have to be. If you are doing something particularly challenging for new years, set a final goal to achieve. If you are moving forward blindly, it will be much more difficult to find stay inspired than it would be if you set a reasonable goal. Maybe you want to lose 15 pounds. Maybe you want to lose an inch off of your waist. Maybe you want to stop craving sweets. Whatever the end goal is, giving yourself a feasible finish line will give you the strength to reach it.
  • Get a family member or friend on board! Having someone else invest themselves in your success is a great way to ensure that you will stay on track. We all tend to perform better when someone is counting on us and when we have someone to cheer us on from the sidelines. Let someone know what you are doing and have them keep an eye on your progress.
  • Have a family member or friend join you! Even better, have someone commit to your resolution with you. Now, instead of having only moral support, you have a workout buddy and someone against whom you can compete. A little competition can make you strive to reach your goal even harder.
  • Make a chart. Whether it is a gigantic poster-board that you paste to your wall, a sign you hang on the ceiling above your bed, or a document on your laptop, having some sort of record to track your progress or write notes in is a very convenient and rewarding way to stay focused.
  • Make it a habit. Making something a habit, in my experience, takes about two weeks. If you can eat a certain way for two weeks without breaking, you can do it forever. Hit that two week mark and you are golden!
  • Set a reminder on your phone.
  • Set checkpoints for yourselves with rewards. Rewarding yourself for your hard work is important. If your resolution is to eat healthily, do that for two weeks and reward yourself with a cheat meal of your choice at the end of the two weeks. Continue this and make it a habit by establishing cheat meals to look forward to every other weekend. Invite some friends to grab a burger with you. It doesn’t have to be difficult to keep a resolution. Hopefully these suggestions have given you the inspiration and strength to pursue a change in your life. If you don’t think you need to change anything in particular, try to convince a friend who does. Do it with them and make a game out of it. New Years resolutions should be fun and rewarding, so make the decision to keep yours and do some good this year.

Happy New Years!

Dr. Christine Eros, a Board-Certified Family Physician with a background from UCSD, has offered aesthetic services since 2007. At Eros Beauty and Wellness in Point Loma Plaza, she provides treatments like Botox®, Restylane®, Radiesse®, Fillers, Laser Hair Removal, Liquid Facelift, Kybella®, Skin Rejuvenation, EmsculptNEO, and more. With personalized care, Dr. Eros helps clients enhance their natural beauty and overall well-being.