Make it Work!

Time for New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions! Since you’re here, you prob­a­bly made some fitness-based res­o­lu­tions. We think that’s fan­tas­tic and we want to help you stick with them!

Here are some tips to help you stay on track:

1. Don’t rely on your level of moti­va­tion or emo­tions. Just do it!

EXPLANATION:

Action is gen­er­ally the pre­req­ui­site for moti­va­tion, not the other way around. If you think you need to wait for some inspi­ra­tion before you start your new exer­cise rou­tine and/or nutri­tional plan, you could be wait­ing for a long time.  Many sources sug­gest that new habits take a min­i­mum of three con­sis­tent weeks to form, and some­times longer.

2. Aim low to begin with.

EXPLANATION:

Many New Year’s res­o­lu­tions aim to change way too much, way too soon – and are soon com­pletely aban­doned due to unre­al­is­tic com­mit­ments and goals, as well as due to insuf­fi­cient ‘how-to’ infor­ma­tion. Instead of declar­ing that your goal is to lose 40 pounds, or to triple your strength – start with a tar­get that’s more rea­son­able, like los­ing 3 to 5 pounds in the first month, or per­haps lift­ing weights that are 10 to 20% heav­ier than nor­mal, then pro­ceed from there.

3. If you can’t resist temp­ta­tion, take it out of the kitchen!

EXPLANATION:

Even ath­letes are human beings, and are influ­enced by the five senses – touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight! Prac­ti­cal Fit­ness Tips rec­om­mends remov­ing all ‘bad temp­ta­tions’ from your home – or, if liv­ing with oth­ers, at least remov­ing as much as pos­si­ble from sight. This includes all junk foods, sug­ary snacks, choco­late, alco­hol, ice cream and other sim­i­lar items.

Obvi­ously, if you know in advance that you will be enter­tain­ing guests on a cer­tain evening, there is noth­ing wrong with pur­chas­ing a few items on that day – and a quan­tity suit­able for that evening only – no pur­chas­ing ‘Buy 3, Get 1 Free’ items! If you have noth­ing to ‘tempt’ you in the house in the first place, you can save your­self hun­dreds of calo­ries per week.

4. Don’t be a perfectionist.

EXPLANATION:

Don’t beat your­self up over the occa­sional slip – whether it involved miss­ing a few too many work­outs, or ‘giv­ing in’ to your diet on a Fri­day night while out with friends. An ‘all-or-nothing’ approach can be deter­mi­nan­tal, as life doesn’t gen­er­ally fol­low a con­sis­tent and pre­dictable path – includ­ing in the New Year. Expect to slip-up from time to time, and when it hap­pens, just get right back on track imme­di­ately after­wards. If it makes you feel bet­ter, if you ate or drank too much at a par­tic­u­lar meal (or entire week­end!), sim­ply increase the inten­sity level of exer­cise and con­sume slightly fewer calo­ries dur­ing the next few days – no prob­lem! Focus on your weekly calo­rie con­sump­tion, not just daily.

5. Tell your fam­ily, friends and colleagues.

EXPLANATION:

Speak­ing of ‘giv­ing in’ on a Fri­day night, one way to min­imise such occur­rences is to share your goals with every­body you know. A room­mate or fam­ily mem­ber will be less likely to offer you a slice of cake if they know you’re try­ing hard to reduce your calo­rie intake!

Find some­body with a sim­i­lar goal, and keep one another account­able by check­ing in with each other reg­u­larly to make sure you’re both on-track.

How do you plan to stick to your res­o­lu­tions? Share your advice here!

Source: Adapted from Prac­ti­cal Fit­ness Tips.

Second Annual BC4C Holiday Challenge!

Dare your­self to join the Hol­i­day Chal­lenge and see what you can accom­plish in 3 months!

Why should I chal­lenge myself over the hol­i­days? To beat the old adage, “The hol­i­days are the one time a year when I can really let myself go.”

Every­one knows that the hol­i­days are one of the busiest times of the year. Par­ties, food, the approach­ing win­ter, vaca­tions, cold weather… all of these force us out of our com­fort zones and our reg­u­lar habits. Every­one assumes that you can either get in bet­ter shape or enjoy the hol­i­days and eat every­thing in sight. Either deprive your­self of all the great hol­i­day foods or gain weight. Either/or. Either/or. Sound famil­iar? It is our default behav­ior to set the “goal” of gain­ing weight and get­ting in worse shape over the hol­i­days. It is sub­con­scious because it is expected. It is the default behav­ior, so why change it?

Because you have been work­ing hard over the last few months and we don’t want to see you lose it over the win­ter! Why not set a goal to get in bet­ter shape over the hol­i­days? What if you decided it wasn’t an either/or propo­si­tion and you could enjoy the hol­i­days while get­ting in bet­ter shape?

Life is not an either/or choice – it is a bal­ance. As of this week, you still have to make it through 3 major hol­i­days until the end of the year. Get a jump start on your New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions and start work­ing on them now. You will be amazed at what you can accom­plish in 3 months with a ded­i­cated sup­port team encour­ag­ing (and some­times just remind­ing you) of what you dared your­self to do.

Learn more about the Hol­i­day Chal­lenge and sign up by Fri­day! Down­load the offi­cial rules and sign-up sheet »

Spotlight on You!

So, here we are, mid-January. The time of the month when the New Year’s res­o­lu­tions start to fall by the way­side. But not by you, right? You’ve kept your focus, even in the midst of the Snowpocalypse.

In honor of your hard work, we are shin­ing our spot­light on you today.

We want to hear from you! Tell us what you plan to achieve in 2011.

For exam­ple:

• Do you plan to learn any­thing new? About exer­cis­ing? About nutri­tion? About yourself?
• What fit­ness accomplishment(s) to you plan to tackle this year?
• Do you have any diet chal­lenges you plan to beat?
• What are you look­ing for­ward to doing most this year?

We look for­ward to fin­ish­ing out an out­stand­ing Jan­u­ary with you, and hope to see your shin­ing face all year long. Stay strong!

Give us your feed­back by click­ing the “Com­ments” link above!

IMAGE CREDIT: Uni­ver­sity of Louisville

All Your Resolutions in One

What are your New Year’s Resolutions?

1. Get in shape?
2. Eat bet­ter?
3. Give back to the community?
4. Meet new people?
5. Get up earlier?

Now you can accom­plish all of your goals with just one small change… join BC4C! Take a peek at BC4C in action below, and then SIGN UP. We start a new month tomorrow!