By Everything Lifestyle Staff

New Year, New You

7 Easy but Effective Fitness Resolutions

Jan 7, 2025 | 6:06 AM

With these small tweaks to your daily routine, you’ll be exercising more without much effort.

When the new year rolls around, many people vow to make major changes to how they live their lives. Many of these resolutions revolve around improving health, with exercising more being one of the top promises we make to ourselves. The problem is that when we decide to make big changes at once, we set ourselves up for failure. So this year, why not do things differently?

Instead of starting the year off with a lofty goal that may be hard to achieve, how about making some smaller and easier changes you can actually stick with? These resolutions are attainable and can make a big difference to your health.

Here are 7 easy but effective resolutions to make this year:

1. Sit less each day. Most of us sit way too much, even if we get in a daily sweat sesh. Vow to get up and move more throughout the day. Set a goal of getting up for 5 minutes every hour to stand, stretch or walk around.
2. Take a daily walk. You don’t need to commit to walking for a certain amount of time or mileage. Just take a walk at least once a day, no matter where you go or how long you do it for. Before you know it, you’ll likely be walking longer than you did when you started.
3. Do something fun. Exercise doesn’t have to be a chore—and it shouldn’t be. Instead, find something you love to do. Whether you enjoy dancing, hiking or exploring a new part of town, you’re more likely to exercise when you are having fun.
4. Try something new. Tired of the same old routine? Add a new twist to your workouts by trying something you’ve never done before. Try a new class at the gym or ask a friend if you can join them with a workout they do.
5. Add it all up. Don’t think you need to carve out an hour each day to work out in order for it to be effective. Any activity you do throughout the day is good for you, so sneak in a few minutes whenever you can to be more active—it all adds up over the course of the day.
6. Make a plan. Your health is as much a priority as anything else that fills your day, so give it the recognition it deserves. Schedule time on your calendar. Decide how you will fit in some exercise if you are away. Writing out a fitness plan makes it more likely you’ll stick to it.
7. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. You don’t have to be in the perfect setting or have the ideal equipment to make things happen. Can’t join a gym or don’t want to? Work out in your living room. Don’t have free weights? Use a few heavy cans from your pantry. Weather isn’t great? Switch to an indoor workout. The point is that doing something, even if it’s not perfect, is better than doing nothing.

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_{Medical Review: Andrew Overman, DPT, MS, COMT, CSCS}