Create world Peace? Try to be a better person? Many people struggle to choose a New Year’s resolution, but if you’re one of over 90% of Americans, your New Year’s resolution was short and sweet – lose weight! The vast majority of these resolved individuals will not accomplish their goal in 2009. The idea seems pretty simple: just eat less, exercise more, and soon you’ll have lost those 20 pounds and be ready for the summer. It’s not quite that simple, though.
First things first. All of those high priced diet plans, fat burning medications, and crazy diets are not what’s going to help you accomplish your goal in 2009. Most of them don’t help and can often be dangerous. People will try to sell you every idea from only eating grapefruit to not eating any fruit to only drinking water to skipping food all together. None of these works. Most of them are actually bad for you.
When planning a diet for 2009, it’s important to remember: everything in moderation. Some people claim they are not going to eat desserts for all of the next year. After you find out you can’t follow this strict of a diet, you become discouraged and fall back into bad eating habits. It’s much better to design a balanced diet for your next year. Make sure you are getting five fruits and five vegetables a day. This helps your body work as well as it can, and also supplies a lot of needed nutrients. These are good calories and often will help you maintain a healthy diet to lose weight. Try slowly limiting how many desserts you have. Remember, if you happen to not follow your plan one day and you eat that extra piece of cake one time, it’s not going to ruin your diet. Many people fail their diets once and then just stop dieting. Eating healthy is a process that takes time and you won’t always be perfect. Just try to avoid too many fats and sugars and get your necessary food groups and you’ll be on the right track.
The other part of losing weight is exercise. Developing an exercise program is like making a good diet: ease into it. You don’t need to start running 20 miles tomorrow or lifting weights all day. Starting off slow, with just 15 or 30 minute walks, can be great for someone who doesn’t exercise now. With this little time commitment, big changes can be seen. Walking, jogging, and running are great ways to lose weight, stay in shape, and get energy. Also, there are a lot of community groups for these activities, so it’s easy to meet new people and participate in community events which make exercising a lot more fun. Don’t just walk or run though; cross training is very important. This means that if you’re running all the time, start lifting a few weights and swimming a little. Here at SMU we have great facilities so it’s easy to get started. By doing different activities, you work different muscles and keep yourself from getting bored. If you follow a healthy diet, but not a crazy one, and you start exercising just a little every day, you have a good chance of fulfilling that New Year’s resolution. Hopefully, when it comes time for your 2010 resolution, you will already be on such a good diet and exercise plan that you won’t even need to put weight loss as a resolution, which means you can focus a little more on the world peace one.
Matthew Gayer is a freshman biological sciences and political science double major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected]
