Weight Loss Resolutions: Why Are They Popular And Why Do They Often Fail?

Unrealistic Goals, No Wiggle Room

In an ideal situation, what will you weigh at the end of the year? For most of us who want to lose weight, if we do attach a specific goal to our resolution, we immediately jump to the end goal. Imagine for a second that end goal is losing two hundred pounds. Though it is a nice goal, trying to lose two hundred pounds in a year is quite unrealistic for most of us. With the rigid expectation of reaching this exact goal, can we possibly fail at attaining this resolution? If you’re anything like us, getting behind early on or making other mistakes resulting in setbacks can make us abandon the resolution completely. Without flexibility and realism attached to our weight loss resolutions, they are doomed to fail!

But let’s say you have set realistic and specific expectations for your weight loss resolution. What are the other reasons individuals often fail? What do you need to watch out for?

Choosing An Unenjoyable Exercise

How you go about trying to lose weight has much more of an impact on your chances of success than you might think. When in doubt, we often turn to typical exercise choices like going for a run on a treadmill or outside, lifting weights, or using other equipment typically found at traditional gyms. But exercise is not a one activity fits all situation! If you don’t enjoy what exercise you chose, your motivation to actually do it is going to drop. No matter how effective this exercise might be, if you don’t actually do it, you are not going to get anywhere in your weight loss goal. Even completing the less effective exercises that burn fewer calories is better when you have the motivation to do them.

Speaking of motivation, did you know it plays yet another role in why we often fail at keeping weight loss resolutions?