The only trick I know that will work

Today is January 22. Six percent of year 2010 (3 weeks) is almost gone that you can't take back. Are you on track achieving 6% of your goals for this year?

I have a great opportunity giving a Fitness and Wellness Seminar a few days ago. The title of my talk is "New Year, New Body, New You! - 7 Steps to Jump-Start Your New Year's Resolutions." It certainly attracted many people who wanted to lose weight and get fit. In fact, "lose weight" and "get fit" are two of the top 10 most popular New Year's resolutions of all times.

The #1 Challenge

At the very beginning of the seminar, I asked the audience to write down and share their expectations coming to this seminar and their #1 challenge that stops them from achieving their goals (lose weight and get fit) in the past. Here are some of the challenges in random order:

Late night eating
Junk food snacking
Lack of time
Lack of discipline
Just being lazy, lack of motivation
Age
Genetics
Information (lack thereof or too much)
Lack of accountability

Does any of these sound similar to you? You're not alone. They share many of the same challenges as you may have.

The numbers won't lie

According to a University of Scranton study on New Year's resolutions, a quarter of people who resolve to lose weight and change their eating habits on January 1st will go back to their old ways within a week!

So if you're still on doing something, you're better than 25% of other people. Give yourself a pat on the back. But don't get too complacent too soon. The study showed the following statistics past various milestones for the percent of people still on track.

Past the first week: 75%
Past two weeks 71%
Past one month: 64%
After 6 months: 46%

As time goes along, more and more people are falling off the "lose-weight-get-fit" bandwagon.

WHY??

Information is useful, or is it?

In the seminar, I shared my experiences, explained the Vicious Yo-Yo Diet Cycle and other pitfalls, presented my step-by-step strategies, provided tips to help them overcome their challenges. Some audience chimed in their answers. There were several great discussions as well.

Judging from the audience, I have this sense of feeling that 'lack of informatoin' or 'more new information' is NOT what stops people. It is the 'doing' part that keeps them from achieving the results. Far too many people spend time in searching, planning and getting ready. They never get to implement and actually take actions doing them.

In this age of information explosion and overload, I think we have more than enough information or too much information to keep us moving forward. Too much information can be too confusing to choose from.

Information without digestion is useless. Knowledge without actions is not power and won't give you results.

Your new resolution: 100 workouts, 100 reps!

The only 'trick' I know that will work is control what you can do and do what you can control.

If you understand this simple yet powerful concept, most of the #1 challenges listed above are no longer there. Agree?

As I said it all the time, everywhere, "losing 20 pounds' is not a healthy goal. It's an 'outcome' goal at most. It's a symptom from the outside. There's no power, compassion, desire or any emotion attached to that statement. Even if you get it, you'll lose it again. Fixing the symptom doesn't address the root causes. It will show up and repeat itself over and over again.

When you set a 'outcome' goal, you have to immediately set 'action' goal to support it. It's easy to say "I want to lose 20 pounds." What course of actions and corrections do you plan to take?

I issue a new resolution for you: 100 workouts, 100 reps! Pull out your calendar. Plan and mark 100 workouts for the year. That's just 2 workouts a week, not so much a demand, huh?! Choose 3 exercises in each workout. Perform 10 to 15 reps in each exercise and repeat for a total of 3 sets.

Sounds simple, right?!

One of the pitfalls most fitness and nutrition program fails is that people push too hard, too soon in the beginning and then quit the first sign of obstacle.

Keep it simple. Pick up the weights and start moving!