You wouldn’t start a cross-country road trip without making sure your vehicle was up for the challenge... First, you'd make sure the oil was changed, then that the alignment was right, and finally, the engine was running smoothly. Would you sail across the ocean without ensuring the boat was in top shape? Would you start a hike into the wilderness without knowledge of where you’re going or at least a map to guide you in the right direction?

Most would agree that all these scenarios would be foolish to do without proper preparation. Yet, we are about to make New Year’s Resolutions without a plan or any kind of assessment to know where we are starting from or a defined end of where we want to go. Research has shown that over 80% of people fail to stick to their New Year’s resolutions for longer than six weeks. These failures happen for a myriad of reasons: from lack of proper planning, to the wrong mindset of goals and expectations, to bodies failing to hold up with a new exercise regime generally resulting in pain and injuries. Let’s make this year different! Set yourself up for success so you can accomplish your goals and start this year Living Free!

First things first is having the right mindset and emotional motivation with your resolutions. Having unrealistic expectations, undefined goals, overthinking how arduous our resolutions will be, and leaving ourselves mental “get-out” clauses are all common reasons we fail. This is going to take some self-reflection, whether by yourself or with a coach/therapist, to find out what makes you tick. Is your motivation more intrinsic or extrinsic? This will come in handy when staying on course is difficult.

What has stopped you from accomplishing this goal before? Knowing where you have faltered before can let you plan for speed bumps or avoid them altogether. How can you make this resolution a priority? If it's not a priority, it will never get accomplished. All of these and more are questions to go over as you plan to make your resolutions. Our philosophy at Live Free is to break down your goals and focus on healthy habits. Let easy healthy habits be the snowballs that roll down the hill getting bigger, gaining momentum, and crushing your goals. With each new resolution, you want to ask yourself whether you have a dream or a goal, because there is a difference. A dream is just that: a dream. A goal is something attainable, something you have broken down and are working towards accomplishing.

Starting a new diet is almost universally chosen among New Year’s resolutions. While we are obviously big supporters of cleaning up any part of your diet, that can sometimes be trickier than it sounds without knowing what your body wants and doesn’t want. I wish I could sit here and tell you about the ultimate diet that will work for everyone (I would be making a lot more money if I could!). The truth is, proper nutrition is a lot more nuanced than that and has several individual factors:

Adherence

The same diet that might be easy for one person to adhere to, is almost impossible for the next.

Timing of Meals

The same intermittent fasting plan that one person finds great success with, will cause the next to be stressed with raised cortisol levels and limited weight loss.

Type of Diet

People have found success with the keto diet, vegetarian, paleo, vegan or even carnivore diet.

With such a vast difference in these types of diets, how do you know which one is best for you? There are some universal truths with nutrition that will help all people: eliminating sodas, sugars, toxic vegetable oils, gluten, and inflammatory grains will be a good starting point. After that, how do we optimize a healthy eating plan for each individual? We are fans of incorporating some sort of elimination diet (e.g Whole 30, autoimmune paleo): eliminating inflammatory foods for a period of time and then seeing how you respond by slowly adding some foods back into your diet.

A more precise option, now offered at Live Free is the FIT Test (Food Inflammation Test). The FIT Test will give you your own individual food sensitivities and sample meal plans based on your results. This can be vital information, as sometimes foods normally associated with a healthy diet could be causing sensitivities and inflammation in your body (Dr. Crystal took the test and found sensitivities with vanilla, peppermint, broccoli, and cauliflower; all foods that would probably never be taken out during an elimination diet unless she knew her specific needs). Whatever diet you decide to try, do so with your best foot forward and know which foods your body processes and which ones it doesn’t.

Finally, to the new exercise regime everyone wants to start at the New Year. A study in 2012 showed that over 73% of New Year’s resolution exercise plans were failed by February. A big chunk of this can be solved by not biting off more than you can chew. Starting with a goal of one hour at the gym every day is unsustainable for most people who are new to working out (the first day of muscle soreness will let you know what your body thinks of your new workout plan). Instead, start with those small healthy habits (e.g. “I am going to do 20 minutes of mobility every day”). Use a sustainable, healthy habit to make your body feel better, instead of running it into the ground. Remember we are staying on our resolutions this year, so we do not need to lose 20lbs just in January; we are setting up for long-term success.

The other most common mistake is not getting a movement assessment done to know where to start with your new workout program. At Live Free, we use the FMS (Functional Movement Screen) to get a baseline score of how an individual is moving. The FMS test is a standard used by several professional sports teams to assess their athletes and determine how to plan their training. The mantra of the FMS test is to first move well, and then move often. The problem is most people start with moving often—without moving well—leading to injury. Research on the FMS test has shown a correlation of increased probability of injuries and low FMS scores. here is nothing wrong with your bootcamps, HIIT training sessions, long runs, or group exercise classes (we all need to move more), but if you are not spending time working on an individualized program to help you move better, your plan will be short-lived. This year, let's first move well so that we can continue to move often.

A more detailed plan from the start can lead to better results on your New Year’s resolutions this year. For a limited time, we have a discount on a combo FIT and FMS test*, so you can put your best foot forward. You will get a detailed FIT report and FMS report giving you a blueprint for your New Year’s Resolutions! Let us help you, so this year can be the year you finally Live Free!

*Through 1/31/19, purchase any FIT test and receive a free FMS test!

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A Goal to Live Free