Make 2013 Your Healthiest Year Ever! – Tips to follow your health goals

Make 2013 Your Healthiest Year Ever!

It’s 2013 and Less Fat More Muscle is pumped up for a terrific year. Less Fat More Muscle has set itself some health goals for 2013…and chief among them is making sure that you MAKE 2013 YOUR HEALTHIEST YEAR EVER.

If you can’t put your hand on your heart and say that 2012 was your healthiest year ever, don’t feel bad…you aren’t alone. Australian government statistics show that in 2007-2008, over 60% of Australian adults were either overweight or obese and 25% of Australian children were overweight.

Make 2013 Your Healthiest Year Ever by setting health goals

We all know that getting healthy and losing weight can be hard. It takes committment, dedication, consistency, and discipline. The fact is that most people just don’t succeed in improving their health. Research shows that 83% of people who go on weight loss diets regain everything they have lost (plus more) over the following two years.

So why bother with all this committment, dedication, and discipline…that sounds like a lot of hard work. The answer is simple…poor nutrition and fitness = poor health and reduced lifespan. Here’s some of the risks you face if you are overweight and sedentary (as determined by the US Centre for Disease Control):

  • Coronary heart disease
  • Type 2 diabetes
  • Increased risk of some cancers (including endometrial, breast, bowel)
  • Hypertension
  • Dyslipidemia (high cholesterol)
  • Stroke
  • Liver and gallbladder disease
  • Sleep apnea and respiratory problems
  • Osteoarthritis
  • Gynecological problems

So if 2012 wasn’t your healthiest year ever Less Fat More Muscle wants you to MAKE 2013 YOUR HEALTHIEST YEAR EVER

How to Make 2013 Your Healthiest Year Ever!

As always Less Fat More Muscle is here to help. We’ve put together a list of 10 simple tips and tricks to help make sure that you reach your health goals.

How to Make 2013 Your Healthiest Year Ever:

Set Some health Goals

    You will never achieve your healthiest year ever unless you set yourself some specific goals that will really test you. You’ll have to come up with these for yourself but pick some things that will challenge you (eg. lose 10kg of fat with no loss of lean muscle; run a 10km race; get your waist measurement to 34 inches).

Find Some Exercise You Enjoy

    This exercise regime is not just something you will be doing for the next 8-10 weeks. If you really want to be healthy you will need to do it for the rest of your life…so you’d better try out a few different activities and pick some that you enjoy.

Get an Exercise Buddy

    Having an exercise buddy can help make sure that you don’t pull out of exercise sessions because of work and family commitments. There’s also the competitive aspect of training with another person…it makes sure that you’re always pushing yourself hard.

Drink Less Alcohol

    You knew this one already…so do it!

Stop Smoking

    Ditto!

Lift Weights

      Increasing muscle mass is a key way of increasing your

Basal Metabolic Rate

    . Your exercise regime must include some type of strength training. Cardio alone won’t cut it.

Exercise Your Heart

      Your heart is a muscle too…so exercise it. We like

High Intensity Interval Training

    because (1) It works the heart through a range of intensities (2) It provides anaerobic as well as aerobic fitness (3) It takes less time.

Plan Your Meals

      It is impossible to out-exercise poor nutrition…so eating well is absolutely critical. The best way to make sure you consistently eat well is to plan in advance. Check out our article on

How to Stick to Your Eating Plan

    .

Reward Yourself

    When you stick to your exercise and eating plan consistently for a period of time, or when you achieve one of the goals that you’ve set for yourself…its reward time. You MUST reward yourself…but there is a rule for rewards. The reward cannot involve breaking your exercise and eating plan. What we mean is that if you just ran your first 5km run or you just stuck to your diet and exercise plan for a whole month…you can’t reward yourself by eating a whole pizza or taking the next week off exercise. You must find some other way to reward yourself that will reinforce your positive behaviours. For example, if you’ve picked cycling as one of your exercises and you just achieved a significant goal…go buy yourself a new bike…that way you’ll enjoy the exercise even more.

Be Consistent

    Remember – it is impossible to lose fat and get healthy in a single day. So you need to be consistent- that means eating well and exercsing 95% of the time. But the opposite is true too. It’s impossible to get fat and unhealthy just because you eat some unhealthy food every now and then. The secret is to be consistently good 95% of the time and making sure that the other 5% of the time you don’t go overboard.

There you have it…Less Fat More Muscle’s 10 tips to help Make 2012 Your Healthiest Year Ever! Think of us as your coach and cheersquad.