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365 New Year's Days

Happy New Year!

If you're considering starting the cheap man's plan, there's often no better day than today. All the major calorie buster holidays are behind you, and you'll have fewer interruptions in your new routine of counting calories and walking off pounds.

The keys to success with any plan are really motivation, consistency and perseverance. If you have those, you will succeed. If you aren't really motivated, you should work on that first by creating your list of benefits of losing weight and find a motivational quote to keep telling yourself. They both help a great deal.

However, there is really no better motivator than success and no bigger discourager than failure. That's why I really recommend starting when you have the fewest upcoming interruptions in your new routine. This way, you'll set yourself up for success early by putting a pound or two on the scoreboard by week's end and use that as a motivational springboard into week two. If you have a big out of town wedding coming up this weekend, maybe wait until the following Monday.

Any day can be New Year's Day in terms of starting out your new plan. The key is picking a day that doesn't fall right before a gastronomical mine field of a social or travel schedule. If you already have several weeks of weight loss behind you before you have to manage a major routine disruptor, you'll be much better attitudinally equipped to deal with some unavoidable scheduling setbacks.

Just remember that your weight will fluctuate a lot, so don't come home from that disruptor thinking that you flushed away three weeks of progress on the scale in one weekend. That's not your true weight, and it will normalize again after a couple of days. Remember, I woke up one day 6 pounds heavier than I did the day before 1 Christmas party. Just laugh it off and keep plugging away. Excess body fat is no match for the consistent long-term application of your plan, and it cannot escape the math of your calorie log.

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