5 Weight Loss Resolutions for Summer
Weight-loss experts want you to make these 5 resolutions this year:
1. Find your ‘happy’ weight.
Obesity medical doctor and researcher Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, tells BODYROCK that setting a goal weight is a pretty common resolution. But instead of choosing a number, she says to find the weight that makes you the happiest and healthiest.
Dr. Stanford says, "If you ask any of my patients, they will tell you that I never set them a weight goal based purely on a number." "My goal is to get them to the weight that makes them happy and keeps them healthy."
Even though many doctors and nurses still use body mass index (BMI) as a measure of health, she says you shouldn't use it as a guide. She says that BMI is different for each person and doesn't give a full picture of your health.
Dr. Stanford says that the best way to find the healthiest weight for your body is to work with a doctor or other health care professional. This method takes into account things like your height, muscle mass, and any health problems you may already have to help you tailor your weight loss plan to your needs. Long-term, your happy weight is much more stable than a number you might make up in your head.
When considering your ‘happy’ weight, think about a time when you felt comfortable in your clothes. What weight range were you when you last felt this way?
2. Make more meals at home than you eat out. 
For many people, cooking every meal of the day is not a realistic goal, and the point of making a resolution is to pick something that you can do. Bonnie Taub-Dix, RD, is a registered dietitian. She highly recommends that you cook more meals at home than you order or eat out.
If you eat out a lot, you might start by challenging yourself to prep one of your main meals at home each day rather than hitting your favourite food delivery app.
Eating your own meals has the potential to save you hundreds (if not thousands) of extra calories every day. This one resolution has the power to transform your body and your health (while keeping more lettuce in your wallet). Restaurants add massive amounts of calories, sugars, sauces and oils to almost everything, and if you are constantly sourcing your food from other peoples kitchens, you have zero control (or even knowledge) about this excess - and week on week it’s making you fatter.
When you cook at home, you can choose foods that are both healthy and tasty for you and your family. Plus, it lets you learn new things about cooking and spend more time with people you care about.
"Making homemade meals with friends or family gives you more than just a meal. It helps you learn valuable cooking skills and connect with others," says Taub-Dix.
Our BodyRock Meal Plans are designed to make home food prep fast, easy and delicious. Our Meal Plans come with grocery lists that support a range of healthy recipes that can be made in as little as 10 minutes. Our meals have been designed to deliver balanced nutrition, while also helping you lose extra padding and body fat. Our Meal Plans also seamlessly support our daily home workout programs (today’s workout is included below), so if you are following both, you have a complete solution for your fitness and diet. Bringing diet & exercise together is the fastest way to transform your body and your health that there is.
Our Meal Plan is active in over 15,000 households in the US and Canada alone, and has helped families and individuals get their food choices aligned with their goals. Let us do the same for you.
3. Don't feel bad about eating your favourite foods.
Taub-Dix says that no matter how you want to lose weight, you should be able to eat your favourite foods without feeling guilty. She suggests that as a Summer resolution, you make it a point to really enjoy the food you eat, even if you think of it as "bad" or "cheat" food.
So, how can you eat your favourite indulgent foods without feeling bad about it? Taub-Dix says you should try to eat with your whole body, including your mind, your mouth, your eyes, your nose, and (most importantly) your stomach. Focus on your food with all your senses to really enjoy the experience of eating.
"Savoring the food you eat will make the meal more memorable and give you a feeling of comfort," she says.
Intermittent Fasting is a perfect way to move away from food guilt. Fasting shifts the focus from what you are eating to when you are eating. There is zero requirement for counting calories, and there are no food restrictions. Our ‘Shred Fast’ Fasting Plan has been described as ‘a breath of fresh air’ because it turns the traditional diet on it’s head. You can check out our Fasting Plan here.
4. Move your body every day (in some way).
Even the most dedicated gym-goers find it hard to keep their promise to go to the gym and work out every day - especially in the summer months when the last place anyone wants to be is inside a Planet Fitness. Instead, Taub-Dix and Dr. Stanford say that you should try to move your body every day.
New research has shown that just 10 minutes of consistent exercise per day coupled with a Meal Plan, is enough to get people into the best shapes of their lives.
That’s why we created our new BodyRock 12 Minute HIIT workout series. HIIT when combined with strength exercises, has been scientifically proven up the wazoo to be the most effective workout format for losing excess body fat and general athletic conditioning. We’ve included today’s workout, so that you can give it a go. The great thing about this daily series, is that it can be done anywhere - the living room, backyard, cottage, on vacation. We use very little (if any) gear, and every single exercise has a beginner variation. Simply follow along with the coach and push to your max effort.
For a limited time, we are offering a full year of unlimited access to our fitness streaming platform BodyRockPlus.com for just $69 with code: NY22. Every membership helps to support our community and is the best way to support what we do here at BodyRock.
5. Make a routine for going to bed and getting enough sleep.
Dr. Stanford says that you should include sleep in your Summer resolutions because your sleep has a bigger effect on your weight-loss goals and overall health than you might think.
A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in October 2010 found that not getting enough sleep can make it significantly harder to lose weight. Your hunger hormones get higher when you don't get enough sleep, which makes you feel less full after you eat.
Dr. Stanford says that a good place to start is to set a reasonable bedtime every night. Everyone has different sleep needs, but seven to nine hours a night is best for your health as a whole.
Things will come up, of course, that will keep you from reaching this goal every night. Instead, try to go to bed at the time you want to at least five or six nights a week.
Sleep sounds like basic self-care, but it’s impact on weight loss cannot be understated. Another recent set of studies showed that women that got enough sleep, consumed up to 500 fewer calories each day - in almost all cases this was enough to put them into a calorie deficit - which meant that they started to lose weight simply by getting enough sleep each night.
Another sobering study found that 60% of women that didn’t get enough sleep didn’t exercise the next day. Sleep might not sound sexy when it comes to weight loss, but it has a massive impact. This is a friendly reminder to get your sleep!
Our new workout is designed for YOU.
I hope that you guys found something in this article that sparked some inspiration to make some changes in your life. If you’ve missed our most recent posts, we are working hard to bring you guys the best workouts online - but what has changed is that we have made them much more accessible to all fitness levels. You shouldn’t have to be already fit to workout - not when as a society we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic. When 70% of people are overweight or obese, there needs to a daily workout program that doesn’t leave the vast majority of us behind. So that’s what we are working on here. A daily workout that will help people get in the best shape of their lives - not by spending hours in the gym each day - but by getting control of our diets in a common sense way and by consistently training for 12 minutes each day.
I hope you will join us for this journey. Over 100 new BodyRockers have started with us so far - we’d love for you to be one of them. Keep checking in each day for your workout, and let’s make this happen.
Best,
Freddy