Healthy New Years Resolutions

New years resolutions bring a swarm of traffic to the gyms as people set intentions to lose weight and get healthier. You could argue that the summer bathing suit season is just as busy a time at the gym, but regardless of when you’ve made your resolutions to get fit and lose weight, it’s what you focus on that makes all the difference.

It was two new years resolutions that got me started on my journey of a 300 pound weight loss. The resolutions were to give up salt and to begin exercising. As part of my original weight loss story written years ago (and never quite completed), I posted a scanned image of my resolutions which were quite simple.

1. Lose weight by exercising
2. Give up salt

Focus On What You Want

Being absolutely clear with yourself and your brain is a critical part in getting that which you want. It’s fairly easy to set the resolution “to lose weight”, but being clear about how you’re going to lose weight is much more powerful. It’s the action steps that are going to take you there, so focus on them and you’ll get what you want.

The words we choose are powerful, so be clear about what you intend on doing.

“Exercise more” is general where “Walk 30 minutes a day, five days a week” is more action oriented
“Drink more water” is a good idea, where “I resolve to measure out four litres of water each morning and consume the entire amount over the course of the day before going to bed” is a lot more specific.

New Years Resolutions That Make Sense

I’m sure you’ve wanted to make changes to your lifestyle each year and have full intention of keeping them. With that in mind, would you be open to some new ways of thinking? Would you like some ideas for resolutions that make sense? Resolutions that you can take action on and get the results you’re looking for?

The list of new years resolutions that follow offer some ways of thinking …

Cardio Training Tip

Cut your cardio time in half or more simply by doing it immediately after weight training. Take a few amino acids if you are trying to build muscle, then hit the cardio. Cut your time in half - try that first.

During weight training you release fatty acids, and cardio immediately after weight training can burn them off as energy before being “recycled” into places you don’t want them to go.

How To Increase Water Absorption

For years we’ve been told to drink 8 glasses of water per day for optimum hydration, but that has since been proven to be an unreliable number. Natural health experts now recommend drinking half your body weight in ounces of water per day. If you’re 200 pounds, you should be drinking 100 ounces of water per day! That’s almost 3 litres or the better part of a gallon of water. I’ve told friends and clients for years that it’s not the amount of water you drink that matters, but rather the amount of water that actually makes it to your cells that matters.

What that means is that if the conditions are not right inside your body, any water you drink may simply pass right through.

What? Me? Dehydrated?

I make it a point to be very conscious about the amount of water I drink. Water is critical to so very many functions in the human body, and given the amount of training I do, I’m drinking even more water to account for water lost during sweat and other exertion. I’ve always thought that I’ve been very aware of how much I’ve been drinking, but a recent body composition analysis told me that I was dehydrated.

You’ve GOT to be kidding me. I tend to piss people off because I keep talking about water all the time and encouraging them to drink more, and now I’ve found that I’m not drinking enough water.

That got my attention very quickly.

I made some changes to my daily routine and actually began keeping accurate water logs. I also decided to look at some science behind water absorption and how to increase water absorption. I took a three fold approach:

1. Drink more water
2. Measure the amount of water I’m drinking
3. Increase water absorption

Increasing Water Absorption

So what are the right conditions then, and how do we improve them and increase the absorption rate of the water we’re drinking? Great question.

Without getting into a huge amount of detail about …

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