People all over the world start the New Year with a resolution. The sad part is that probably only a few keep it till the next New Year. One of the biggest reasons for this is that most people have a long list of resolution and they end up achieving none.

1. By all means write the long list but the first tip is to prioritize and circle out one or two that are most serious and most urgent.
2. The second tip is to make a goal, e.g. - I want to do a 20 minutes walk ever day.
3. The third step is to define the time, e.g.- I want to try and walk every day for 3 months or for the next one year.
4. This must be put on record in black and white. Keep a planner on your desk or wall and mark off whether you have kept your commitment in the day or not.
5. Reward yourself and compete only with yourself. Its not how regular you are as compared to your spouse or brother or friend but how regular with yourself, e.g. 6 days out of 7 or 29 day out of 30 etc.

From the health point of view or for fitness the greatest commitment one has to make is to walk and drink plenty of water. Both these help to keep your basal metabolic rate up and they are actually the two biggest controlling factors in regulating your weight. A good metabolic rate and keeping your weight within limits in turn protects you against hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and various other diseases.

Try to make a commitment to walk 20-30 minutes daily and drink 2-3 liters water daily. Mark this off on your planner and start with trying to keep it going for one week ,three weeks, one month, 3 months and through the whole year. If you fail don’t give up just mark it and continue.

Reward yourself when you achieve your targets. However never let the reward be a food item. Let it be new shoes or socks or a track pant or sweat shirt, or movie, or a book etc.

The second thing to work on is your diet. One of the most negative things that people do thinking they are helping themselves to keep trim is to skip meals or compensate for some wrong food they have eaten. The result is that you lower your metabolism and this infact results in your body gaining weight very easily.

Try to make a resolution this New Year to eat every meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner, everyday and let it be balanced meals. Mark this too on your planner and reward yourself as you go along.

Slowly you will see that you don’t crave the wrong foods like fried snacks and sweets so much as before and you will develop self control when tempted to eat fatty food. Avoid these as far as possible and if you must eat it eat it as rarely as possible or in minimum quantities. If you do all the above and totally avoid fried and sweets for one month you could lose 2-3 kgs per month.

So plan, set goals and record your progress with your New Year resolutions!!!!!!!!