Week-by-Week Diet and Exercise Plan for New Year's Weight-Loss Resolutions

Starting a new diet that requires you to cut out all of your favorite foods while incorporating unfamiliar foods into your diet can be overwhelming, which can lead to failure. Starting a new exercise regimen when you aren't used to doing much activity beyond everyday chores can also be overwhelming. When you complicate this by committing to a new diet and exercise routine as part of a New Year's resolution, then failure is almost expected. So, if you are considering making a New Year's weight-loss resolution, but you are worried about your resolve to lose weight fading throughout the next 12 months, then you should consider taking it a week at a time.

Instead of overhauling your whole entire diet at once, try changing it one week at a time over the course of the whole year.

Start by taking a calendar or day planner and writing one food that you will give up at the start of each week, never to return in excessive quantities ever again. Then choose a food to replace your old vice. When choosing a food from your diet to give up, start off small and gradually move up to those items that will be harder to give up. By making small changes every week you will stay focused on your New Year's weight-loss resolution, as well as increase your chances of making it a successful resolution.

At the beginning of each week when you are deciding what changes to make to you diet, also decide on an exercise that you can do at least 3-4 times a week as part of your New Year's weight loss resolution. You don't need to choose exercises that require you to purchase exercise tapes, you can choose exercises that can be done in a short amount of time without any equipment purchases. Try going on walks, dancing around a room, or playing on a playground. All of these exercise will get your heart rate up, which is key for weight loss. By changing your exercise every week you'll find that you don't get bored with exercise like you would if you were to do the same thing for a whole year. Keeping yourself from getting bored will help you to keep your New Year's weight-loss resolution by staying motivated more easily.

Visualizing the progress that you have made toward your New Year's weight loss resolution. Keeping a journal detailing the changes that you have made to your diet and the exercise routines that you have tried out is a great way to keep yourself from giving up on your resolution. Record what diet changes have been easy, and maybe even enjoyable, as well as ways that you made it through those more difficult diet changes. Record your feelings on each exercise that you have tried, so that if you liked a particular one a lot, you can try it during another week a few months down the road. You can also record any successes or slip-ups you have had while trying to maintain your New Year's weight-loss resolution.

Taking your New Year's weight-loss resolution one week at a time will help you to keep from getting overwhelmed.