We’ve crossed the finish line of another year! Now it’s time for fresh beginnings and New Year’s resolutions. A popular goal that many of us have is to lose weight. That in itself is a daunting task for those who aren’t active — it means suddenly changing your diet and exhausting yourself more than you’re used to.
While eating healthy food and exercising are the sure-fire ways to lose weight, a lot of us end up giving up within the first few weeks because the change is too abrupt. For those of us who don’t exercise regularly, here are some ways to ease yourself into a slightly healthier lifestyle — if we can’t lose that weight right away, we can maintain it!
1. Take walks. Yes, this is a challenge in itself when school has transportation and it’s chilly in January. However, 20 minutes with your legs can go a long way. Don’t want to walk all the time? Walk the first half to campus and reward yourself with a shuttle ride back to your dorm. If you commute to campus from home, another way to get those 20 minutes is during lunch or between classes — you can walk to the nearest convenience store and get yourself a small reward. Find friends who are running errands and tag along for the mileage.
Image courtesy of Kara Robson.
2. Eat fast food in moderation. Come on, you know this one. You can’t live on McDonalds and Wendys forever. If you have no other choice, keep it to one or two meals a week, but otherwise, try to plan meals from home or peruse whatever is on the campus menu that day.
Image courtesy of Kara Robson.
3. Drink water AND eat breakfast. We are 75 percent water. We sweat it, we pee it. Don’t go a day without at least a bottle of water. Invest in a water pitcher at home and reward yourself with a different drink at lunch. If you don’t already, also invest in breakfast. Mathematically, skipping a meal altogether would allow you to allocate those calories to a bigger lunch and dinner, but in reality that is not the case. Something small like yogurt, cereal, or muffins can make a big difference in keeping your energy levels high all day.
Image courtesy of Kara Robson.
4. Limit your snacking and desserting. This one will also take some self-restraint. A good way to pace yourself is when you go to get groceries, only buy half the snacks you usually would. If you’ve got ice cream or cake waiting for you in the fridge, try to ration it for a month as opposed to a week if you had a piece every day.
Image courtesy of Kara Robson.
5. Join an exercise class with friends. If you’re an introverted person, voluntarily stepping out of your box for new things like this is nearly impossible to do on your own. However, recreational classes like yoga, jazzercise, zumba, or kickboxing is just as effective in keeping you fit as spending time at the gym on a treadmill. If you’re anxious to take it by yourself, go with friends who are also interested in the idea and tag along. You never know what you might enjoy.
Image courtesy of Kara Robson.
Nothing beats scheduled exercising when it comes to losing weight, but when it comes to New Year’s resolutions we all know we’ll need to take baby steps or end up abandoning the idea all together. Any small progressive change can bring you closer to your resolution. By the end of 2016, losing weight won’t just be a fantasy — it will be an achievement.