You Broke Your New Year Resolutions, What Now?

Now the new year is several weeks old, it is likely most, of not all new year resolutions have been broken.

If that means you have been setting fitness goals for the new year, with all sorts of pledges to get fit, eat better and get out there pounding the streets, the chances are they will have already bitten the dust. After all, dark days, cold, wet weather and lockdown are not great motivators.

However, that doesn’t mean you should abandon the ideas you had in January. What you really need to do is consider your quest for fitness to be a long-term goal of constant improvement, not about achieving perfection on day one.

If you feel this way now, you are not alone - and this will be even more true when January rolls over into February. By then, CNN has noted, 80 per cent of people will have given up on their new year fitness goals. While that figure applies to the US, it is hardly likely to be different in the UK, with similar levels of poor fitness and the northern hemisphere winter to contend with.

The CNN guide offers a range of ways to keep going - and this might also include tips that could help you start again if you have given up.

Examples of this include:

· Doing more of things you already do well

· Making smaller, ‘non-disruptive’ changes, like putting lower-fat milk in hot drinks

· Maintaining a record of steps taken to improve fitness

This more incremental approach can then be supplemented by specific efforts at different times of the year. For instance, you could book an 8-week personal trainer programme to give yourself a major step forward.

Remember too that the steps you take early in the year might be faltering, but this will always be the hardest part. Once you have made some progress and you can get outside more in better weather, maintaining your early gains with more established good habits will be much easier.

To book an 8 week personal trainer programme, click here