As we are now ending the first month in this new year, we’re all hearing the phrase, “new year, new me.” Once again, gyms everywhere are full with activity and excitement as everyone commits to achieving a popular goal—losing weight or becoming healthier.
Coming into this year after successfully losing weight last year, I have some tips to make sure you bang out your health goals.
Something that helps me stay motivated and continue sticking with my goals is finding a reason that goes beyond being able to walk up all the stairs in the University Centre (UC) without needing an inhaler.
For me, it was important to link my health goals to other aspects of my life, such as volunteering. I volunteer places where I am on my feet quite often, and lifting and carrying heavy things.. When I set my goal to get stronger and healthier, I made sure that it would positively impact how much more I would be able to contribute to my volunteering.
Another thing that helped me to stay motivated was to include my friends. When you have an accountability partner, it’s harder to back out of workouts together because there’s someone waiting for you or reminding you of the plans you set for that day. Having an accountability partner is also great, because for people with busy schedules, it is also time you can spend catching up with one another.
The third thing that helped me stick to my resolution was meal-prepping. Naturally, as students, we are busy, but adding work or even extra-curricular activities on top of schoolwork makes our load even heavier.
I found that my busy schedule, topped with keeping up with my studies, led to me making poorer choices for my diet. Meal-prepping allows me to eat healthy, even when my schedule is busy.
A few tips to help you get started with meal-prepping are getting containers that make it easy to portion food. Make enough food to last the week, and portion out what you need for the next day every night.
One food that is good to meal-prep are salads of any kind, because you can play around with the amount of protein or carbs you need for different days.
Last but not least: rest! Rest is important for your body to heal itself and get realigned for the next day. Being well-rested leads to better mood, focus, and food choices, as well as more weight loss. According to the CBC, around 20 per cent of Canadians get less than seven hours of sleep per night. Although there are many factors that go into resting well, such as quality of sleep, the amount of time it takes to fall asleep, and how many times you wake up during the night, the general consensus is that students do not get enough rest.
At the end of the day, healthy weight loss should be reflective of a healthy lifestyle. Make gradual changes until you find a pace that is comfortable for you!
