Should auld habits be forgot…

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/01/2021 (1742 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I love what a new year represents — a fresh start with a clean slate.

It forces us to sit down and reflect on our lives and paint a picture of the future we desire. Anything that sparks that reflection is worthy of our attention.

It’s also worth looking at New Year’s differently than in years past. Because many set the same goal every year and never accomplish it. The statistics are grim.

I want “New Year, New You” to be the spark that lights your fire, sure. But I also want you to understand why we so often miss the mark with resolutions.

Because the truth is, you woke up on Jan. 1 and everything, for a moment in time, felt new. But new has a short life span. New eventually gives way to the same realities you’ve dealt with in the previous year. The same struggles, the same obstacles. Those don’t go away.

So don’t expect the dopamine hit of “new” to be the catalyst for change. It’s just a fleeting spark to get you started. We need to see that big goal off in the horizon, but break it down into micro bite-sized processes of change.

There’s nothing more discouraging than being so fixated on the prize that you don’t notice progress being made along the journey.

“I only lost a few pounds and I was hoping for 20 by now!”

That mentality takes your progress and disguises your results as not good enough. A failure. In fact, it makes it easy when your comfort zone comes calling, and to revert back to old habits.

But to truly change, you can’t solely focus on the outcome, but rather the little steps that make the outcome possible.

Your New Year’s resolution is not to look like a fitness cover model in six weeks.

It’s to say yes to getting three workouts in a week.

It’s to say yes to tracking your calories 90 per cent of the time.

It’s to say yes to walking every day.

It’s saying yes to those things whether you feel like it or not that day.

Resolutions fail because we resolve to be the hero, but forget the hero’s journey necessary to get there.

In 2021, let’s remember those who accomplish their goals understand the ladder to success is climbed one day and step at a time. So no, I don’t believe in the “New Year, New You” resolution mentality.

But I do believe if you’re serious about change, the current version of you needs to get specific about your goals and boil it down to the simple actions you can take today.

When you’re always focused on the finish line, you lose sight of your progress yesterday, today and tomorrow.

What we should celebrate is the process, which makes all the difference.

It’s the little things that cause the big things, so start there. Of course, you must first believe it will work. If you’ve failed a lot at this stuff in the past, you’re going to have some mindset barriers to overcome.

But it boils down to working at the stuff I preach about often in this space. Manage calories. Eat more protein and vegetables. Move more. Strength train relative to your abilities. Have patience and dust yourself off when you fall off.

But you also must temper expectations and find a sustainable approach. Let me explain with an analogy that isn’t timely for Winnipeg winters but will make sense all the same.

How To Remove The Kinks From Your Weight Loss “Hose”

What if you could get better results with less effort? Does that sound crazy to you?

Hear me out real quick and you’ll see exactly what I mean. In reality, this idea hit me the other day when I saw an ad for one of those “never kinks” garden hoses. (Note to advertiser: Don’t show this in winter.)

Imagine you’re holding a garden hose that has a kink and the water pressure is a drip not a flow. You have two options, to crank up the water valve and force more water out, or remove the kink and let it flow smoothly.

Trying to stick to strict diet habits is like trying to force water through a kinked hose. You can do it with clenched teeth and willpower, but eventually it gets clogged and the whole thing blows up in your face.

Whereas, making your diet habits sustainable and easy is like removing that kink.

Most people assume that dieting should always be hard, but in reality when you create less friction you get better results. As humans we tend to be able to do things for longer and more consistently when they’re easier.

Because, the truth is, fat loss is a gradual process. Quick water loss on detoxes and fad diets gives off false perceptions about what’s possible. When you lose six pounds in a week, the majority of that is water and stored carbs, not stubborn body fat.

So the solution is to find a plan you can stick to so you actual lose body fat and keep it off…

If you can nail the basics for a long while, you’re going to change your identity, change your relationship with food and understand how it works at the most basic level, and get results that last.

For those who never make any permanent progress, it’s usually because they hit “Go” too hard out of the gates, hit a snag, see an ad for some magic pill and start over.

You probably just need to stick to something long enough for a change. When you commit, you’ll see progress because you’ll have no choice but to be patient. You’ll quit self-sabotaging. You won’t overreact after a holiday where you’re up a few pounds of water because you get how the body works.

You can’t leave things to chance and hope it works out. Your challenge is to set a fitness goal you will accomplish in 2020 and tell the world about it. And in so doing, you will demonstrate to yourself and to those around you that you are in it for real this time.

What does that goal look like? Well, that’s up to you. What do you most need to change? Losing 30 pounds? Adding 100 pounds to your squats? Getting your blood pressure or blood sugar down to the healthy range?

Any kind of fitness or health goal will do. But whatever it is, just make sure it is something specific — and something you are slightly skeptical about achieving.

The point of this exercise is public accountability. We just did a Zoom training with one of my “contracts for commitment” where we shared three goals for the year and had another person sign it.

This is why I encourage you to tell others about your goal. If it’s only shared in secret, it’s very easy to quit on yourself. When there’s someone involved who you don’t want to disappoint, you’re more likely to see it through. Just be selective with who you share it with. You don’t want it to be one of the crabs in the bucket who discourage and pull you down with them. In the end, who cares if you don’t quite reach your goal in the end? The fact you committed to try will get you a lot further along the racetrack than if you didn’t set a target in the first place.

Mitch Calvert is a Winnipeg-based fitness coach for men and women like his former self. Heavyset in his 20s, he lost 60 pounds and now helps clients find their spark and lose the weight for life. Visit mitchcalvert.com to grab yourself a free diet cheat sheet, sign up for his free Safe at Home virtual classes, or inquire about his new year’s virtual coaching challenge to help busy parents drop two pant sizes in the first few months of 2021.