The holiday season left you with a fuller heart—and figure. You’ve drank and made merry with loved ones all month long, and there’s a good chance that your exercise routine and portion control practices fell along the wayside.
No need to beat yourself up about it. A new year means a fresh start and a chance to right your wrongs—and then some. If you’re feeling inspired to make healthier decisions in the new year but don’t know where to start, allow us to help.
Here are five new year’s resolutions to make for a healthier 2019, plus all of the ways our expert team at Elitra Health Center in Manhattan can help you along your journey.
Get a comprehensive physical
You can’t fix your problems if you don’t know exactly what you are working with, which is why getting a comprehensive physical at Elitra Health Center is a great way to start off the year.
The Elitra Exam is one of the most personalized physicals in the industry and will give you a total picture of your health in order to shape your year. We’ll walk you through a comprehensive lab analysis and blood profile, as well as a complete cardio-pulmonary evaluation, full body CT scan and ultrasounds. You’ll be screened for skin cancer and undergo cognitive, neurological, vision, and hearing assessments. We’ll also assess your family history to determine any lurking dangers.
You’ll leave our center with all of your results that day, as well as an appointment for an extended meeting to review all of the data. We’ll determine your required follow ups and schedule appointments with specialists for you, so your health won’t slip up as you get too busy to balance your calendar book.
You’ll be informed and motivated to make changes as you jump into the other portions of your resolutions, which we can also help with.
Eat a healthier diet
This resolution is purposefully broad—and it’s not focused on losing weight, like so many other resolution guides. We also aren’t telling you to cut out all your carbs or go paleo or keto or vegan—or whatever it may be.
Trying to stick to a strict diet isn’t a sustainable path to healthier living. Researchers have proven diets largely do not work. “You can initially lose 5 to 10 percent of your weight on any number of diets, but then the weight comes back,” said Traci Mann, UCLA associate professor of psychology. Mann’s study showed that at least one-third to two-thirds of dieters regain more weight than they lost within four or five years.
Instead, let our certified nutritionist at Elitra Health Center help you make more comprehensive changes to your diet. They’ll conduct food diary and stress/behavioral reviews to offer meal and snack solutions that make sense for you and your goals. We can plan out all of your food intake to keep you from slipping up, but also explain how those food changes will impact your blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, and more.
Because our team at Elitra Health Center believes that success lies in slight changes and wellness education to help you stick to your healthier diet instead of yo-yoing between weight changes.
Set reasonable fitness goals
How many people buy gym memberships and passes to yoga studios only to stop going and stop putting in the work by the time February rolls around? One study found that half of Planet Fitness members don’t ever even go to their gyms, and 14 percent of new gym goers drop out by February.
We absolutely encourage you to go to gyms and fitness studios, but we want you to keep the long-term goal in mind. That’s why we recommend a personal consultation with our exercise physiologist. They can develop a personalized fitness plan that you can do at home—long after January ends.
They’ll demonstrate the exercises with you and can serve as your personal coach when you have questions or lagging motivation in the months to come. You don’t have to make a huge life change to reap the benefits of exercise. Twenty minutes walking around the block or five minutes doing reps in your living room can make all of the difference.
Change your sleep schedule
A good night’s sleep impacts every moment of our waking lives. Getting less than seven hours of sleep per night can undo the impact of dieting, according to research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. In the study, dieters who were sleep-deprived saw a 55 percent reduction in fat loss than their counterparts. Research has also shown that sleep-deprived people eat an additional 385 calories per day.
There’s a good chance you’ll practicing poor sleep hygiene, and it’s impacting your ability to get a restful eight hours.
Here are just a few ways you can curb this issue:
- Keep technology out the bedroom. Your brain perceives the light from screens as daylight.
- Follow a bedtime routine and set a time to go to sleep to give your body cues that the day has ended.
- Sleep in a room cooled to low- to mid-60 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Watch what you eat before the hours leading up to bedtime.
- Don’t work or eat in bed.
Quit one vice
You probably won’t succeed at becoming the world’s healthiest human in just a month or two. But you can break a bad habit in that time period. Identify something in your life that you know is unhealthy for you and make a commitment to quitting.
This could be smoking, which is one of the main risk factors for heart disease. You could quit binge drinking, which causes heart failure, weight gain, and a suite of other problems. It could be something as simple as not allowing yourself to eat after 8 p.m., or you can take it to a deeper level and quit sinking energy in toxic relationships.
All of these resolutions would be great starts to a healthier you. If you do slip up and fall off the wagon though, don’t worry. Our team at Elitra Health Center is here to help you get back on and keep traveling toward your healthiest and happiest self.