Q1 check-in...

Show of hands, how many of you joined a gym at the beginning of the year? Show of hands, how many of you are still a member of the gym? Show of hands, how many of you still go to the gym?

“In a survey conducted by NPR and The Marist Poll in November and December, 44 percent of 1,075 American adults said they were likely to make a New Year’s resolution. Among them, 13 percent set out to exercise more, making it the most common resolution. Related ambitions to lose weight and eat better ranked third and fourth, respectively. Together, they’re goals for almost a third of all resolution makers.” — Linda Poon, Bloomberg Studies show that as early as a mid-January after the New Year’s rush to join a gym, people will stop going. These same studies showed that by April people were more likely to eat fast food than visit the gym.

So this begs the question, How are you doing on your fitness/wellness/health resolution? To use me as an example, my goal is 2 fitness classes a week and 2 fitness walks. There has been only a handful of weeks in the first quarter where I met this. As part of this, I want to pay more attention to what I eat. So I readjusted my goal to lose 2 lbs. a week for the next 8 weeks. Standing on the scale will let me know if I am doing this or not doing it. And Fitness classes and walks and what I eat are important to this. In fact, every week, I lose 2 lbs. is a small win that will add up to a big victory.

So how do you check in on your resolution? You ask yourself some probing questions and do self-reflection. “I am a firm believer that it’s never too late to make a resolution reset. If you struggle daily to meet your goal, it might be time to ask yourself—without judgment, please!—whether you were right to make that resolution in the first place. There is no shame at all in either adjusting a resolution (would exercising twice weekly be more accessible to you than three times?) or setting it aside altogether. It can also be helpful to dig deeper than the “doing” part of a resolution, into the reason you set your sights on it in the first place. If eating more vegetables isn’t working for you, for example, maybe you could step back to the larger goal of eating more healthy foods and approach that from a different perspective like fewer processed foods or more lean proteins like fish and tofu.” — Holy Lebowitz Rossi, Guideposts

So ask questions like these…

1.    Did I set a realistic goal?

2.   If not should I adjust the goal or not do it?

3.    If I adjust the goal, what will it look like?

4.   Will the adjustment still get me to my desired end result?

5.    If not, am I willing to adjust the end result?

6.   If not, what must I do to change the goal to reach my end result?

7.    Do I feel the changes I have made are doable?

With these questions, you should be able to sort out if you will lose 25lbs. this year or have to reduce it to 20, eat healthier for lunch and dinner or just dinner and know how many gym visits a week is just right.