Resolve to do the doable, forget the rest

It’s so stunningly predictable as to have become cliche: Fitness-center parking lots are packed in early January, with nary a vacant space to be had. By March? No problem, there’s plenty of room.

And there’s a pretty strong parallel between our fitness habits and our dietary ones. As soon as the holidays end we’re rarin’ to finally lose that persistent five pounds with lots of fruits and vegetables. But by the time the Easter Bunny comes hop hop hoppin’ along, chocolate eggs don’t seem like a bad idea at all.

Why does our road, so carefully paved with the best of intentions, inevitably wind up leading us to hell? Is there any way to set dietary and exercise resolutions and actually keep them after the Christmas tree has been mulched? Yes, said Mary Wilson, a registered dietitian and extension nutrition specialist with University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.

“What I would say to folks is to try to pick something realistic,” Wilson said. “It’s so disheartening for people. They’ll pick some kind of goal that’s very hard to retain. Therefore, they make next-to-no progress on it throughout the year.

“Pick something that’s doable for you. Those small steps that people make can make a big difference.”

One thing to remember, Wilson said, is that goals are very individual.

“What might be considered a reasonable goal for me might not be reasonable for somebody else,” she said. “I try to look, when I’m first counseling people, at those changes they can make easily that are not some huge sacrifice, but they definitely make a difference.”

One example, she said, would be switching from whole milk to 1 percent or 2 percent milk, which delivers virtually the same nutrition but much less fat. Doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice, right?

“But that’s a deal-breaker for some people,” Wilson said. “Or going to light mayonnaise from regular mayonnaise.”

The key is to find those things that aren’t deal-breakers but that would give you a nutritional boost, and incorporate them into your daily life.

For someone with an overdeveloped sweet tooth, Wilson would advise keeping fewer sweets in the house.

“If I buy it, I know I’m going to eat it,” she said.

And she added the same theory carries over into exercise: Be realistic, and know that baby steps are better than no steps at all.

“So many times at the gym, people can’t keep to this very strict regimen that they think they have to do in order to be successful,” she said. “They set unrealistic goals for themselves: work out seven days a week, or every workday.”

And all of that is compounded by what Wilson calls a lack of resiliency.

“The first time they miss, it kind of throws them off,” she said. “The first time they have that birthday cake, they just throw everything out and think, ‘I can’t achieve that.’

“You’re going to have abnormal days. I try to get people to think about just trying to rebound. Say, ‘OK, that was enjoyable’; enjoy it and don’t feel guilty about it, and then try to get back in the routine of eating healthier or whatever they’ve decided to do. That will help us achieve long-term successes rather than say it’s an all-or-nothing venture. We’re never successful if we say, ‘I have to do it this way or I can’t do it at all.’ I’ve never seen that work.”

Just keeping a food diary, writing down everything you eat, can help improve your diet, Wilson said.

“We know from research that about 80 percent of the people who write down what they eat lose weight,” she said. “People will modify their behavior because they don’t want to write it down. It keeps their food consumption mindful.”

And don’t, she said, get caught in the trap of trying to meet somebody else’s goals.

“With exercise, try to do something,” she said, “rather than this goal that the government puts forward of 150 minutes of exercise a week. That’s a tall order for most people. If you’re not used to exercising, you see that as an impossibility and then you’re doing nothing.”

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.