How to Begin Again: New Year’s Resolutions

“New year, new me!” If this is your mantra for New Year’s resolutions, we’d like to suggest another one: “Begin again.” Besides the fact that it will appeal to the Swifties out there, it’s a more forgiving approach to what can be a daunting prospect to many: getting active, perhaps after a period of inactivity due to life, injury, or illness, or perhaps for the first time. Either way, “Begin again” gives you the permission to let go of whatever has come before and just begin again. 

It’s easy to forget that there is no end-state to fitness, and relying on a mantra like “New year, new me!” can be discouraging if that “new me” isn’t showing up as quickly as you hoped they would. “Begin again” is something you can say to yourself at every workout, and it doesn’t hold you to some imaginary standard or future self, it encourages you to just begin from where you are right then.

So now that we’ve adjusted our mantra for New Year’s fitness resolutions, what are some other ways to help yourself stick to them? 

1. Set a Reasonable Goal
   If you’re beginning a new fitness routine from ground zero, setting a goal for yourself like working out 6 days a week is going to be really challenging, and while we love a challenge, when you’re trying to make sustainable changes, slow and steady really does “win the race.” There are a lot of logistical hurdles that come with establishing a new routine, so give yourself grace to figure those out in manageable chunks. Start with a goal like working out 1-2 days a week. Life is going to happen, appointments come up, kids get sick, the weather turns ugly—figure out how to work around all of those things just once or twice a week to start. Once you’re able to make those one or two workouts per week happen over several weeks, make a new goal: add a day. And so on and so forth until you’re meeting a consistent level of activity that allows you to live the life you want to live.
   
   
2. Consistency Over Intensity
   Piggybacking on setting reasonable goals, look to establish consistency rather than striving for intensity in your workouts. Social media and fitness industry messaging can make it seem like if you’re not at a 10 in all your workouts, you might as well not workout. To that we say, and we cannot stress this enough: FALSE!!! No! If you believe you have to exert yourself to the highest degree possible, first of all, workouts are going to sound absolutely dreadful and getting yourself to do them will be that much harder. And you will likely be extremely sore after such a workout, making it difficult to do anything for the next several days. Secondly, “intense” workouts can come with more accoutrements, expense, and logistics. If you decide the only way you can get a “good” workout is with an expensive class, you have to plan when you’re going, how long it’ll take to get there, whether you have time to shower before you have to carry on with your day, etc. Any workout is better than no workout at all, so if you only have time to take a walk around your block or workout with an app for 20 minutes in your bedroom, and you’re working out at a level 5 or 6 out of 10 for you, that is fine! If you can do that 20-minute workout at home two or three times a week, you will be doing yourself far more good than going to one insane spin class per month.
   
   
3. Start with Strength Training
   If you’re only going to add one workout to your routine, we recommend starting with strength training. You’re going to get the biggest bang for your buck with strength training. Especially when we’re talking about healthy aging, lean muscle mass decreases with age unless we do something about it. And you can do something about it: no matter what age you are, you can add 10% muscle mass with regular whole-body resistance training. It’s all “use it or lose it,” so if you want to be able to climb stairs and carry groceries when you’re 80, you need to climb stairs and carry heavy things to maintain those muscles and abilities when you’re younger. That’s why we created the Restart! app to focus on strength training first and to hit all the movement patterns necessary to the activities of daily living. And because the app allows you to start from exactly where you are, it makes strength training immediately accessible for anyone regardless of their prior activity level. Plus, you can do the workouts with no extra equipment, in your own home, and on your own time.

1. Drink Water
   Did you know that much of the water that our bodies retain is held in our muscles? That’s why older folks tend to get dehydrated more easily—their muscle mass has decreased and they aren’t able to hold onto as much water as someone with more muscle mass. Dehydration can wreak havoc on your systems, including your balance. Balance is so important as we age because a fall can be so devastating after age 65. So in addition to working on your balance with balance exercises, you want to ensure you’re properly hydrated, especially when you’re going to workout. If you have a hard time remembering to drink water, you can use this hack: at the beginning of the day, fill up as many glasses of water that you need to drink in a day and place them out on the counter. Then drink them over the course of the day! Try to drink more water at the beginning of the day rather than waiting to chug it all at the end, or you’ll probably have a hard time sleeping with frequent bathroom trips. And as sleep is foundational to health, you definitely don’t want to set yourself up for a sleepless night.
   
   
2. Make It Fun?
   Why the question mark? Well, to be honest, sometimes things aren’t that fun, but you do them anyway. Strength training is hard, and it should be in order to build strength. But even if the actual workout you’re doing isn’t exactly “fun”, there are things you can do to make working out more enjoyable for you. If you’re someone who gets excited about something new to wear, maybe getting a cool pair of shoes or a couple workout outfits that make you feel good and put you in the mindset of working out can make you more excited to get those workouts in. Or if you have a show you really love, perhaps you start only watching it while you workout. (Walking on a treadmill is perhaps a better activity for watching a show rather than an exercise that needs a bit more attention to form, etc.) You could also listen to a podcast, or create a playlist of music that pumps you up. Making your workouts social is another way to make it more fun. “Habit stacking” is a great way to find ways to link workouts to other things you enjoy. For example, if you already make it a priority to get outside in the sunshine for some portion of every day for your mental health, you can add a walk onto that habit and now you’re getting the benefits of two activities in one. 

1. Give Yourself Recovery Time
   Recovery days are just as important as workout days in a consistent fitness routine. Your body needs time to rest and recover before you’re ready to get back at it. So if a future you who works out seven days a week, 365 days a year sounds like a daunting impossibility, good news: that’s actually not even a good idea! Instead of killing yourself to get a workout in every single day, use recovery days to ensure you’re attending to all the other components of healthy living that will support your fitness routine. Make sure you’re sleeping enough, drinking enough water, and eating a balanced diet full of vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fats. Perfection is not the goal. If you can do the “right” things 80% of the time, you’re doing an amazing job and your mind and body will reap the benefits. Don’t let one “bad day” ruin your resolve. After all, if your mantra is “Begin again,” that’s all you have to do: just begin again. 

“New year, new me!” brings to mind a switch that you’re suddenly going to flip and BOOM! A brand new person will appear like magic! When we talk about making changes to your lifestyle, we like to think instead of a dial, like how you would adjust the volume on your car radio. Each time you do a workout, you’re looking for how you can turn the dial up just a smidge. It might be a fractional increase each time, you might even dial it back sometimes, but over time, that dial is going to keep moving up the volume scale. Your baseline will get higher and each time you’ll start from a slightly higher point on the dial than the last time. If you imagine that the dial gets a little sticky with disuse and needs to be adjusted in order to turn more smoothly, then you can see how consistently turning it will make it easier to move. That’s the momentum that you gain by keeping up with a consistent habit. 

So as we head into the second month of a new year and you’re checking in with your resolutions, if you’re feeling at all discouraged with where you’re at so far, we’d like to encourage you to let go of whatever fitness goal you might have started the new year with and “begin again” with a reasonable goal that prioritizes consistency over intensity, process over result, and turn your dial up slowly over time rather than flipping a switch. Cheers to a new year and the same old you, starting right from where you are, ready to begin again.

Try out the app now for free for three months! Then it’s just $24.99 per three months to keep up your new habit. Download it here.