Local experts weigh in on how to make New Year’s resolutions stick

Robert Fisher photo Kettle balls in various sizes at Bernie’s Body Blast in St. Stephen.

ST. STEPHEN – At the end of the year, many reflect on what has been and look forward to what is to come.

Maybe that involves including a resolution to make a brand new you. For, maybe, a week. Or two. A couple months if you’re lucky.

We have all done it. New Year’s resolutions. It seems almost a rite of passage. Nearly as regular as the twice-yearly equinoxes.

What is almost always a rite of passage as well is that within a short time into the new year, we begin to ignore the resolutions. There are many reasons that can happen. According to a couple local experts, often we bite off more than we can chew and don’t make the goals we set truly attainable. The result? We get discouraged by the lack of progress and give up.

Jesse Dunfield, nutrition and wellness coach at Simply for Life in St. Stephen, says setting goals in small increments can make a big difference in how we approach the objective and make it more likely we achieve it. He also spoke about setting goals with a clear ‘why’ in mind.

“People forget why they’re doing it,” he said, adding if the why is strong enough, it’s easy to stick to the plan. Losing sight of the why is often what gets people off track.

Dunfield noted there are many reasons people come into his shop looking for help with their health and well-being.

“Keeping that why in the forefront is the most important thing,” he reiterated.

He does feel that sometimes people think too big and are too optimistic about what they want to do.

“Make it manageable,” he said, about breaking it down into smaller goals along the way. He used the example of weight loss. Rather than think about the ultimate goal of losing 40 pounds, he suggests breaking it down into smaller five-pound increments. Make the first one, reassess, set a goal for the next five.

“Focusing on that 40 pounds can seem overwhelming,” but breaking it down into more achievable sub-goals makes it more attainable.

Bernadette (Bernie) Cunningham, a certified trainer and owner of Bernie’s Body Blast in St. Stephen, agrees that making goals manageable is key.

“Make a goal at 80 per cent of what you want to achieve,” she said, because no one can hit 100 per cent everyday.

She also says being aware of all the factors that can impact your goal and how to develop contingencies or workarounds to help you continue on that journey is important.

Rather than looking at, say, a day when you can’t get outside to walk or run because of weather or a heavy task load at work, as a failure, she says, “give yourself grace for when things do get in the way.” Realize what happened and what needs to be done to get back on track.

She doesn’t like to focus on something like weight loss though. She notes that weight is something that can vary and that never moves in a linear progression. Instead, she prefers to look at it in reverse and suggests not gaining weight may be the better objective and that progress can be measured in other ways, like better-fitting clothes or increased endurance during activity.

Both agree that celebrating success along the way is key.

“We don’t want to be living a life of deprivation,” said Dunfield. “Make sure you’re giving yourself the rewards for putting in all that hard work along the way.”

Cunnhingham says being your own biggest fan is important. She also said having a good support network is crucial. Those are the people who will pick you up when you’re down.

“We need to find cheerleaders who are going to celebrate our successes and the best way to find those people is to be that person for others,” she said.

Both Dunfield and Cunningham recognize the importance of sleep and managing stress as important in overall health and well-being.

“If moving is a piece of (your goals), if you’re not getting your sleep, your movement is going to be so much harder,” said Cunningham.

She refers to it as working for micro-improvements in each area you want to address rather than trying to fix everything all at once. She also stressed the idea that overall health and fitness is more than just weight. People may get discouraged stepping on a scale and see no change in the number but they may be much healthier and fitter because of the other things they’ve been doing and that using other metrics is important in gauging overall success.

“Finding out what you really want and why is a healthier goal,” she said.

Stress and managing stress gets into the issue of mental health, which is tied to physical health.

“The one that often gets overlooked is stress,” said Dunfield.

“Mental health is huge. It’s very connected to how we move,” Cunningham said.

“You really have to look at the mind-body connection,” Dunfield noted. “You have to be in the right frame of mind, which comes back to the why.

“The two things are completely interconnected. Mental health is just as important as physical health.”

robertfisher@stcroixcourier.ca

Robert Fisher

Fisher is a writer/author, photographer and filmmaker. Itinerant observer of life. His dog, Lincoln, is a travel companion and has been coast-to-coast with him four times.