Early Resolutions

The holiday parties are rolling out their red carpets, and you’re starting to feel like a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade from all the goodies you’ve eaten. Don’t wait until the belt buckle is quivering from the pressure. Make your New Year’s resolution now, and start that fitness program.

The average Joe Q. Public puts on five to eight pounds during the holiday season. Why not get motivated before the Baby New Year arrives and then just live life without worry once 2013 enters your life? You now have permission to advance to GO, collect your $200 and add some muscle tone … even if the calendar still says it’s 2012.

Call up the local health clubs and begin shopping for fitness deals. Explain your proactive situation and dicker with the sales reps if they tell you their hands are tied. The economy is in the toilet, so they should be eager for any sales.

Once you get your gym membership set up, it’s time to make a plan. Sit down and look over your calendar. Are there important meetings, seminars, or family obligations that will require your attendance? What are the best days to hit the gym? Are you a morning-workout type of guy or gal, or do you prefer afternoons? Discuss options with the significant other, the friends, or the work colleagues. Then schedule the days you plan to exercise, add them to the calendar and get the health train rolling out of the station.

Your body burns more calories when you have muscle tone, and it becomes a better and more efficient machine. Meet with a trainer for a session or two and have him or her prepare a workout routine for you. Most health clubs will give you one free session with a trainer. Tell the trainer you want to add muscle tone and then start hoisting those weights around.

Begin a walking, running, or biking program, too. These are all great means of decimating calories and can be best accomplished with a partner or an iPod chock full of melodies. This type of workout can burn several hundred calories each time you do it. The health club or the great outdoors can accommodate your need for your type of speed.

Stay faithful to the regimen you initiate. It does you no good if you miss most of your planned workouts. You should make almost all of your workouts between now and that first day in January if you want to keep the pounds from attaching to your waistline while having fa-la-la-la-la holiday fun.

Many people say it takes three weeks to break a bad habit and start a good one. Focus on making this next month an important health and fitness moment in your life. You will be ready to partake in all those seasonal festivities and be several high school musicals ahead of those January resolution-makers.

This wellness article is brought to you by that guy aboard the Polar Express in his marshmallow world. That guy on the nice list is Ron Blake, and you can fill his stocking with goodies at myblakefitness.com.

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