Our guide to achieving your 2023 health and fitness goals
A step-by-step guide to finding a long-lasting change - not just a quick fix
About this guide
The ideas in this guide are most well-known and battle-tested by me personally and thousands of women I have coached. This guide is in three parts and a summary. You can read it holistically or deep dive into each specific topic.
Introduction
‘Doing more exercise and improving your fitness is the most popular new years resolution. But research shows that you are at least 8 times out of 10, more likely to fall back into your old habits and patterns than you are to stick with new behavior. This guide is all about giving you the tools and inspiration, so these statistics won’t apply to you.
Changing your behavior is hard and getting into the workout routine requires discipline. But what can we do to make the change we seek easier?
January is the most popular month to start working out. But it’s only the first step in building new and healthier habits. The real change happens during the following months when you turn your new habits into long-lasting changes. What would a journey like this look like?
I do not have all the answers, but after ten years of working with thousands of women on improving their well-being, implementing a consistent workout routine, and creating a balanced approach to food and nutrition, here are the most practical insights I’ve learned so far.
Hi! I'm Sara, the founder of Withsara. I have been a fitness group instructor, Barre teacher and Yoga teacher for over 10 years. I am also a certified Nutritional Health Coach from IIN in New York, USA.
After giving birth to my two beautiful daughters, I have had to build up my body twice after my pregnancies. With my experience, I have created a workout that is a great combination of low impact, functional movement, pilates, barre, and yoga. It builds up deep core strength, creates sustainable and lasting change, relieves physical tension and mental stress, and gives you an overall healthier and happier body.
1. How to make working out a habit
Our mindset and daily habits can be our strongest force to carry on the journey of better health. It is not enough to have the intention of eating better and working out regularly. It is taking action on those great intentions and starting to make them a part of your day-to-day life that will bring you success.
But that takes work, a strong mindset, and consistency. The easy part is to have intentions, the complex part, and where you put the actual work in is to formulate a mental strategy on how to reach them. Great results do not happen overnight. They come from small changes that are applied consistently over time.
1. Habits - Start with a very small habit
It is all about starting small and creating small steps that will take you closer to your goals. Rather than planning on working out five times a week, go two times. Rather than planning a one-hour workout, do 15-20 minutes instead. Commit to a workout routine that is so easy that you can do it without motivation. Over time those small changes will add up and your willpower and motivation will increase, making it easier to stick to your workout routine for good.
2. Discipline - Easy to do, easy not to do
Here is where the mental strategy comes in. In order to be disciplined with your actions, you need to be focused and not let your head and thoughts take control. When the little things we do are looked at individually, we might not value their importance at that exact moment. But we should. The most important key to success is having the discipline to do what you know you should do even though you don’t feel like doing it.
3. Consistency - Your work stacks up
Consistency translates to results. In January to December timeframe, your small habit over the year grows larger, and those 20-minute workouts, two times per week, have stacked up to over 2000 minutes of training in that year. Not including added workouts due to your increased willpower and motivation. Consistency is a powerful tool. You do the same actions over and over again and you will, sooner than you think, start to see the benefits of your consistency.
2. Find a workout routine that you can stick to
It is very common to start the new year by exercising very frequently. Even though it can be good to kick start a new year with force, our goal with such efforts is to make working out a part of the routine. The risk is always that too much too quickly will be what causes you to feel overwhelmed and drop out. Let’s explore how you can pass that January hype, and continue onward with a reasonable workout schedule that can be sustained in the long run and become a part of your lifestyle
1. Aim to find a workout that you enjoy doing
It is a fact that if you enjoy your workouts, you are more likely to keep them up. It should be fun to work out, not an obligation. When it is an obligation the reason behind working out is not motivating and you might start looking at training as something negative. That will not help with keeping it up in the long run. When you have fun working out, you keep coming back to it and it will motivate you to work out.
2. List down why you want to work out
Working out is so much more than just becoming fit. It is one of the most important factors of staying healthy both physically and mentally. It improves our focus, sleep, mood and energy. It can reduce pain and stiffness in the body and keep joints and muscles mobile and healthy. What are you after? Whatever it is, make sure you list it down to inspire you to continue to work out and make it a part of your life.
3. Follow a plan or a schedule
This is perhaps the single most important step in a journey towards any health and fitness goal. Having a workout plan creates accountability towards yourself and provides you with structure so that you aren't wondering what to do next. It can be a system you keep in your mind, but for the best result, have something written down. How many workouts do you think you can do during the week? What type of workout, and the time do you have for each one? On Withsara we offer our members their Weekly Schedule to solve exactly this problem. We plan the week for you with the freshest workouts on Withsara, so you only have to show up, work out, and reap the rewards. This is now the most popular feature on Withsara.
3. Implement a balanced diet
What we eat affects our health and energy. Therefore you need to focus on food as your fuel. What is the best fuel for your body? Food that is low in nutrition might give you quick energy but we also need to build our body up for the long run. We need to nourish the body in a way that it will benefit from it. What does that look like?
1. Diets and restrictions might not be the way
Diets and restricting certain food can be mentally overwhelming and not good for us in the long run. The ideology behind a diet is usually to go all in, and completely change your habits in one sweep. As mentioned above, such drastic measures are usually not the best option for us. The advice I give to women is to develop a balanced approach to food and nutrition. That means finding balanced eating habits that serve our body and mind and avoiding obsession over a certain diet. When focusing on balanced eating habits you try to eat a healthy and clean diet most of the time, but allow yourself little treats in between. It is very hard to be on a 100% healthy diet all the time. Go easy on yourself and aim to nourish the body and mind in the best way possible with good choices. For further reading on food, checkout out our favorite nutritional tips on our blog.
2. Eating clean (most of the time)
There is so much information out there about diets, what is best for us and how to eat. It's a jungle of information and it may be confusing to make "correct" nutritional decisions. But my principles are not that complicated. Try to keep it simple and focus on eating a clean diet that makes you feel good and energetic. Whether you are vegetarian, vegan, or eat meat, just focus on picking the best options for you. Below are three practices that you can start with to implement good eating habits.
Limiting processed food is something to think of, the more ingredients a food includes the more you should limit the intake. Added salt, sugar, and vegetable oils are ingredients to limit. But like with everything just aim to make the best choice for you here.
Adding more plants does not mean becoming vegan or vegetarian. It means that you include more plant-based food in your life, such as greens, whole grains, nuts, legumes, and beans.
Variety in your choices, be creative with your diet, eat colorful dishes, and add different kinds of good fat, protein, and carbohydrates into your meals.
3. Allow changes to happen over time
Like with other habits, changing your eating habits is a lifestyle change that affects different parts of your life. Adjusting to these changes and seeing the full result takes time. Give yourself that time, and do not expect things to happen straight away. Bring in one change at a time, find your rhythm, and get used to it before you change another thing. For example, start by limiting processed foods on weekdays, or drinking 2 liters of water each day. No drastic change, just a little adjustment.
4. Conclusion
There is no better feeling than being in a good workout routine, eating good food most of the time, and experiencing progress toward your well-being. The most efficient way to reach a healthy balance in your diet and workout plan is to have clear goals and understand what steps are needed to accomplish them over time and stay consistent.
The guide to reaching your health and fitness goals in 2023 is all about improving your habits and creating a long-lasting change towards better health, physically and mentally. Think further than January and use the first month of the year to create a sustainable routine. Eat good and clean food most of the time, add variety to your dish, and never feel guilty for having a treat every now and then or missing a workout. Just always do your best and be gentle with yourself. Work out regularly and consistently throughout the year, with a plan that you can follow, and exercises you enjoy.
Let the new year inspire you to find a sustainable routine that will improve your well-being and make you feel great throughout the year and years to come.
