Many of us are going to embark on 2008 by setting some sort of a New Year’s resolution, even if we tell ourselves we won’t. But many of us (myself included) have set those NY resolutions in the past and by the end of January have forgotten them, gotten discouraged, or “messed up”. So, how can we stick to those resolutions?

My Tips For a Successful New Year’s Resolution

1. Be realistic: if you have not worked out in months, what makes you think that you’re going to suddenly start working out every day?

2. Break your resolution into pieces: if you want to get more physically active over the next year, consider breaking your goals into months: For example: “for January, I am going to work out once to twice a week”; “for February, I am going to focus on strength training and see the physical trainer at the gym”. Increase these goals as the months go by.

3. Choose a resolution that you are motivated to achieve. Have fun with it!

4. Choose a resolution that it specific, not vague. For example, “this year I am going to lose weight” is vague, but to state “this year, I am going to try to lose 10 pounds by…” is a realistic goal that you can work towards.

5. Write down your resolutions and post them where you can see them (I have mine on the back of my bathroom closet door–I get in there daily and not everyone knows it’s there).

6. Get others motivated to set the same resolution with you. For instance, you and your neighbor decide that you are going to walk every Monday morning (and if you don’t feel motivated, chances are, she will and motivate you to keep your resolution).

7. Get others to support you, even if they don’t have the same resolution (in the case of trying to quit smoking). However, remind them that nagging is not the best motivation.

8. Make a plan to accomplish your resolution. If you want to spend more time with extended family, block out weekends andoccasions in which you will see them. Or, schedule weekly phone calls on your calendar to keep you connected. If your plan is to volunteer more, write down places you could volunteer and keep that list handy.

9. Plan a reward if you meet your resolution. For instance, plan a trip if you lose those 10 pounds, run a race, etc. Have this goal in mind before you set the resolution however.

10. Recognize that we all have good and bad days. So you screw up one day or even a week, but that doesn’t mean you’re done for the rest of the year (unless it’s already December 31st)!

Good luck in achieving your New Year’s resolutions, and Have a safe and Happy New Year!!

_{Photo Courtesy of Snowdeal}

That’s what Loralee from the “Fat March” said to motivate the rest of us.

“It’s about how much you eat.”

“You can do anything you set your mind to”

“believe in yourself”

There’s no magic to it. These participants went from not even being able to walk 1 mile to walking a marathon (26.2 miles) in one day!!!!

Finisher weights:

Men lost: 80 and 85 pounds
Women lost: 55, 50, 56 and 51 pounds

10 weeks, 575 miles

You don’t need to devote your life to full-time walking like the Fat March contestants to see a difference. Walk a few blocks after work or in the morning every day. Walk longer on weekends. See the neighborhood, go to the track, or walk in the mall without stopping to shop. You’ll be amazed at the improvement in your joints, breathing, appetite, stress and even sleep after walking every day. Eventually you can build up to more exercises like strength training and aerobics, but start with walking if you’re able!

Many of us are goal-oriented individuals. We want that feeling of accomplishment to feel good about ourselves. We have goals in our careers, finances, and home life. Let’s extend that to our physical selves.

With aerobic fitness workouts, we have measurable goals. For example, running an 8 minute mile (my own goal), beating a certain number of stairs per 30 minutes, or biking at a certain constant pace for 60 minutes. When the machine or our clocks tell us that we’ve met our goal, we can celebrate.

Strength training also provides many opportunities for meeting goals. We may not focus much on the time factor though. Rather, we can count number of repetitions of a certain weight. In college, when I first started strength training (I was a pretty overweight kid), I had a goal of bench pressing 225 lbs. I started with 135 lbs and worked until I could complete 30 repetitions of 135 lbs, with breaks. I continued stacking up the weights through the months until that one day I pushed up 225lbs. I felt amazing that day.

Although your goals may not match up with what others around you can accomplish, don’t be discouraged. Ultimately, your goal could be to out-bench, out-run, or out-anything that friend or stranger.

Set measurable, yet attainable goals in order to provide yourself the ability to feel an accomplishment. Without goals and without rewards, your fitness and strength training activities may feel rather pointless. Give yourself something to work towards so that you’re excited to go to the gym, the track, or the weight room!

This series is written by Mike. 

In Part Six: The First Mile, you began training for your first marathon by attempting your first mile. You may not have been able to finish that mile the first time, but hopefully you kept pushing yourself to complete it without walking.

My first mile

In April 2006, I ran my first mile in about 12 minutes after my fourth try, and I was dying afterwards. My best mile to-date happened in September at 8:58, and I was dying then too. However, you’re not training for speed with a marathon; you’re training for endurance.

What’s next?

Keep working on that mile. If you feel good after the first mile and want to try more, go for it! But keep working on your 1-mile time without pushing yourself too hard. You don’t want to get hurt!

One key warning: DON’T STOP TRAINING!!!

You may think “I can take a break for a week. The marathon is 8 months away”. However, give your body too much time to recover, and you’ll lose almost everything you’ve gained. This holds true for many experienced runners as well.

I didn’t run for about 3 weeks after the Marine Corp Marathon, and when I tried again, I had trouble finishing 3 miles in under 35 minutes. I constantly trained at 11 minute miles on our 3 mile run days. How pathetic. After 2 months without running, I have trouble doing a single mile on the treadmill!

Motivation

Go back to Part Five: Motivation to find out some methods to stay motivated. Just do anything you can to ensure you KEEP RUNNING.

Visit the Marathons for Beginners Collection page to see the rest of the series!

_{Image courtesy of [Daveybot]}

This series is written by Mike.

I realize I probably should have written this post as Part 1, but too late. Not long ago, I completed my first marathon, heck, my first race, ever. And I only started running 5 months earlier.

Beginner runners, if your motivation to run a marathon is to lose weight, then you need some new motivation. I thought I would drop a good 20 lbs, but I haven’t budged an inch on the scale since starting. My clothes fit better, and my friends, family and pastor have all complimented me, but I haven’t dropped any pounds, just fat. The weight “gain” came from two sources:

1. Muscle
2. All the extra calories I knew I could take in, I did

So why did I run it? I knew my wife needed me during her training, and if I was going to run with her to train, then why not do the whole thing. And I did. So, what’s your motivation?

You’ll need to figure out why you want to run a marathon to determine if that will get you through the toughest physical challenge you may face in your life, even if you’re pretty fit already.

My motivation was to just finish the marathon. My wife and I figured we could do it in 6 hours. We trained for that goal, not to finish faster, and we finished in 6 hours. Here’s our stats:

• We finished ahead of about 1500 other finishers
• We finished around 19500 out of 34000 total registered runners. Those other runners either couldn’t finish or didn’t show up.
• We “Beat the Bridge”. In the Marine Corp Marathon, if you don’t pass the 20 mile mark by a certain time, you’ll be bused across the bridge with the “Stragglers”.
• We finished together (well, close enough together).

I’ll put out there that the marathon was my worst run ever, starting with the first mile, while it was my wife’s best run ever. It took everything I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but my goals to Beat the Bridge and finish the race got me through the 26.2 miles.

What’s your motivation?

Update: Visit the Marathons for Beginners Collection page to see the rest of the series!