SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to Practically Fit, Real Fitness Over 40. I'm Jen Chamberlain.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

And I'm Alex Johnson.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

And today we're going to talk about New Year's resolutions. It's the perfect topic for this week because it's December 28th and you may be contemplating a New Year's resolution focused on fitness for 2023. I bet you are. A lot of you anyway. So should you make New Year's fitness resolutions? Should you join a gym? If you do decide to go the resolution route, what are some strategies that might help you be successful? We're going to talk about all of that today, right, Alex?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah. So should people make resolutions? No. No, no. I'm just no, so you know, I it's my preference not to go that route, but we're going to talk about it today. And if you are going that route, we have some ideas. But New Year's is just not my thing. It's it's not my favorite time of year, I would say. Like I don't like New Year's parties. I don't like, you know, you know what really drives me crazy about New Year's parties are those glasses that people wear. And like now that's like has the year on it. It's just I'm probably uh like offending our listeners now because somebody's going to say, Oh, I wear those glasses. It's just yeah, sorry, I apologize. It's just, it's my hot take on New Year's. I do, I do enjoy like a bottle of champagne because it's very rare to drink it. So like I'll probably have some champagne. Uh, but I don't does anyone actually eat black-eyed peas? I do.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I love black-eyed peas. You do, but I don't eat them on New Year's. I don't know. You don't do it on anytime.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Okay, so you're not like following the tradition.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

They're just I wonder if that's is that a thing anymore. Um but yeah, I really I don't enjoy New Year's last resolutions. Um, the concept, this it's just like this concept of, oh wow, the calendar's flipped over to a new day, a new month, a new year, and all of a sudden something's gonna change for me and I can make it change. Like, it hasn't changed before. Why don't you focus on like you don't need to all of a sudden have this arbitrary date where you're going to change something? Like, if you want to change something, change it now or change it later. But the the the idea of the calendar being a driver of great change in your life, something about that has always bothered me. And I I guess I didn't really understand why I felt this way um until recently, um, you know, kind of squaring that thought up with what we've talked a bit about on the podcast and in the newsletter on Substack about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. So we'll talk about some of that today because I think that's helped me realize why I feel this way about New Year's resolutions. Um But Jen, how about you? How do you feel about New Year's?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

You know, I really wish that I disagreed so we could have like a really fun, healthy debate, but I also hate New Year's and New Year's resolutions.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Uh for Sorry, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

I know we're such downers on this topic, but uh for different some of the same reasons, some different ones. Uh I have to say, champagne gives me the worst hangovers, so I try to avoid it, even on New Year's. But um mostly it's this idea, like you said, of you know, the calendar flips and everything being new. So I I think if you're gonna make a change in your life, you should do it right now. Whenever you think about it, is when you should get started because that's when you're motivated, that's when you have that intrinsic motivation. If you're just kind of like trying to gin up some enthusiasm because it's a new calendar year, I I just fear it's not gonna stick, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

So we feel the exact same way about that. So we'll dig more into this here uh on the podcast today. Um let's dive into the topic. Let's just talk about the concept of New Year's resolutions. The data's pretty clear on this. So um, and and many people choose to focus their resolutions on fitness, right, Jen?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Right. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So there's a survey we found of 1500 Americans, we found this on the Statista website about their New Year's resolutions in 2022. And what do you guess is on the top of the list, Alex?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Is it something to do with health, exercise, fitness?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

All of the above. Yeah. So living healthier, living healthier is the tw top answer, 23%, which I found that kind of vague. I mean, a lot of things could go into that bucket. That's right. The second one, also kind of vague personal improvement or happiness. Um boy, happiness.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

I resolve to be happier in the new year.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

And you know, I think that's almost a self-defeating thing because then you have this high expectation. And if you're not happy, then what? You know, I mean, you can't be happy all the time.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

It's not easy to resolve to be happy.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Number three was losing weight at 20%. I was surprised. I actually thought this would be number one. Um, it just seems like you hear about it so much, but I guess, you know, a little more specific than living healthier. And then at number four, career job goals, 16%. Um, some others, financial goals, improving relationships, only 11% for that one.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Don't half of marriages end in divorce. I think we need to bump that number up.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

I agree, I agree, I agree. Um, and then we start going down and we get to more health-related ones. So exercising at 7%, stopping smoking at five, reducing drinking at two. So a lot of health-related resolutions in the survey. And then I love this uh none was only three percent. So, Alex, you and I are in the three percent who don't make New Year's resolutions.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Yeah, well, out of this survey, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah, and and uh I like that reducing drinking is only two percent. It's like it's as vague. I'm gonna live healthier, but I really don't want to stop doing that.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

It's so, so small, exactly. Um yeah, we're gonna do a future podcast on dry January and all of that, so we can wrap that into there. But um, including living healthier, losing weight, exercising, at 57% of these goals are health or fitness related. So it's really the lion's share of people's resolutions. That's including the smoking, reducing drinking goal. So various studies have shown that that's what people primarily focus on uh around health and fitness this time of year.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, absolutely. And so one thing that I will say is a pet peeve of mine is the concept of okay, in relation to the New Year's resolution around fitness, I'm going to start my gym membership in January. And this isn't, I'm gonna get on. So I saw multiple sources that said that 12% of all gym signups happen in January. I actually thought the number would be higher, but I guess that's still a relatively high amount. Uh, and I wrote about this phenomenon on the practically fit substack a few weeks ago. Again, practically dot fit cheat plug. I thought this was a good article. Uh and uh so I had quoted this 2019 Bloomberg article and it talked about uh company Foursquares analysis, uh, you know, they track location tracking, I guess, um, of gym attendance. And so they can see that uh weekly gym attendance begins as early as the second day of the new year, and by January 8th, Americans were making nearly 4% more visits than on average. From there, attendance dips back down toward the full year average the following week, but generally remain steadily above it through mid-March. So if you look at this data, and I saw some other similar data points, uh, many of the new members of these gyms stop going by March. Uh so my I'm just curious if you're doing the the new year, new gym membership thing, uh, are you doing month to month or are you doing the annual? Because I would I would advise the month to month on this. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh in another data point um that was mentioned in this article, Google searches for exercise and weight loss peak in January. So um again, going back to your your theory about weight loss being one of the top goals. Uh I when I was writing about this on Practically Fit, it was in the guise of advocating for home gyms and and building out your home gym. Uh so the the the post that I did was called 18 Reasons Why You Should Um Skip the Gym membership in uh in the new year. Uh so it's advocating for a home gym, but really these are all reasons uh about you know, or things that I find annoying about commercial gyms. So it's kind of a funny post. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. I mean, I was talking about things like locker room conversationalists. Uh it so as an introvert, I really don't want to talk to you at the locker room in the gym uh while we're changing or after showering. Um, I especially don't like the naked locker room conversationalists. I that's a thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah, so uh I have to I have to agree with you on the um locker room conversations. I've had this happen to me too, where uh at this one particular gym I used to go to, there was a woman who would have conversations with me, trying to have an in-depth conversation completely naked. And I'm nothing, I'm not a prude, nothing against nudity, but it's just awkward, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah, yeah. And bonus points if there's some sort of like lathering with cream going on or lotion or like powdering, because that happens too. Yeah. Yeah. So there's 18 different things I called out that I find annoying about gym and almost all uh gym, you know, commercial gyms, and almost all of them around people's behavior. Um but one thing I looked at in that article, uh just kind of a side note, which is really cool, was um the Bloomberg article had talked about Google searches for exercise and weight loss peaking in January. So I actually did a Google search trend back to 2017 and looked at gym membership versus home gym. And I put a little chart on the practically fit post. And it's really interesting because you can see every January interest in both of these spikes. And so heading into the pandemic, every year gym membership was slightly above home gym. Then in the pandemic, you see um home gym searches surge to the top of the trend index and gym memberships plummet. Now, last January, the big box gym uh, which is the blue line on this chart, if you go check it out, it rebounds. But home gyms are still above and kind of tracking ahead of gym membership. So as an advocate for the home gym and working out at home, I believe you can do everything you need to do at home and you can avoid all this annoying behavior. I was happy to see that uh the search data shows that people seem to still be more interested in home gyms than these big commercial gym memberships. So uh go check it out on practically. But I thought that was kind of interesting wrinkle to throw in in relation to if you're thinking about this in the new year, if you're thinking about the gym membership, I would advocate that you consider working out at home and kind of building that out. It also saves you money over time.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you, Alex. Does it have to be very expensive to build a whole home gym? Do you need uh, you know, like really expensive equipment?

SPEAKER_01 11:01

No, there's different there's different ways you can do it. And so if you and in fact, if you go out to that post, I have a link back to a post I did long before we started the podcast. And it's got my kind of like multiple levels of a home gym. So you can go really basic or you can build it out depending on how much money you want to spend. But you can start pretty easy. Uh, and you know, depending on what you're trying to do, whether it's like bodyweight acts exercises, yoga, things like that. I mean, you can you can start really in an inexpensive manner and and save a lot of money. So nice. Yeah, check check all that out. So now we've talked about that, the whole gym membership thing, because I just I think it's fascinating. Uh, let's talk about whether or not New Year's resolutions actually work. So, Jen, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

You may be very surprised by this, but they are actually not that effective. What?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

And there have been numerous studies that have looked at this because you know we love a good research study. So, for example, here's one titled The Resolution Solution Longitudinal Examination of New Year's Change Attempts. Gotta gotta love those research titles. Yeah. This study looked at New Year's resolutions for 200 people over a two-year period. So not a huge sample, but decent sized. Um 77% maintained their pledges for one week, but only 19% for two years. Of those that made it the full time, about half of them had a slip-up. So it kind of you know goes to what we're talking about. They are not often that effective. We saw some other statistics that were a little bit harder to verify. For example, one statistic claimed that 41% of Americans will make resolutions, but only 9% will be successful in keeping them. I've I think I've heard that one sort of bounced around a little bit. But whatever the case, it just doesn't seem like a very high success rate. So, Alex, you said people shouldn't set goals, but you know, some people will anyway, and we'll encourage them. So, what are some potential ways people can give themselves a better chance of succeeding if they do want to set a New Year's resolution?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, so it was really interesting to read up on this and see a lot of the different strategies are out that are out there. And so I've picked the ones that I think would be most effective kind of from my own personal philosophy. There's different ways you can approach this. So that's that's my caveat going into this. Uh, but I have four things here that I want to highlight. So the first one is to take some time to reflect and set very thoughtful goals. So again, I want to go back to that concept we mentioned last week of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation. If you didn't hear the episode, extrinsic motivation is uh something like I'm doing this to make my body look good. I want to make my abs look shredded. I'm doing this because my friend Tammy's doing it. Uh that so these external motivators. What you really want to think about is your intrinsic motivation instead. So I'm doing this to maintain a healthy heart. I'm doing this for my kids, so I'm around when they're older. I'm doing this because I genuinely enjoy the way I feel during or active after this activity. Whether you enjoy pushing yourself up a hill, running or on a bike or lifting weights, or you like the endorphin rush afterward, right? Yeah. So that's one important part as you reflect on your resolution. Uh the second thing that I found interesting in this same topic was there was a study out of Sweden that looked at resolutions. And they actually saw a little bit more success on the New Year's resolutions in this study. Uh, and what they found was the people in their study who were more successful were using what are called approach-oriented goals instead of avoidance-oriented goals. So I didn't know what this was and read up a bit on it. And it's a really interesting uh way of looking at goals. So when you're when you're setting your resolutions, you may tend to do these avoidance-oriented goals. And those are just like what they sound like avoiding something. I don't want to gain more weight. I'm going to stop eating, drinking X, Y, Z thing that I think is bad for me, like avoiding doing something. So flip that on its head. An approach-oriented goal is going with the positive. I'm going to work in a new exercise activity. I'm going to walk uh, you know, 15 to 20 minutes a day. I'm going to eat healthier. I'm going to add in new vegetables to my diet. So these are approach-oriented goals. And I would encourage you to look um more into this uh online. Just go out and Google and search up approach-oriented goals. There's a lot written about it. And this could really help you if you're trying to make a New Year's resolution associated with fitness health or diet.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense to me. And when I think about this in practice, also I think one of the things that we went into with resolutions is this kind of all or nothing thinking, which I can even be prone to myself, you know, where you think, oh, well, if I slipped up, forget it. I've blown my resolution. What does it matter now? Right. So when you have a negative, um, I guess an avoidance-oriented goal, when you have that slip-up, you're just going to feel discouraged. But if it's more of the approach-oriented, you think, well, tomorrow's another day to try to eat healthier because you're looking for something more positive. So I can totally see how that would be more effective.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Yeah. And it's it's like the the goal we referenced with 10,000 steps on the last episode, and the person who says, Well, I can't possibly hit that, so I'm just not even going to try.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

And I have more on that concept here in a bit. I think something that ties into that. The second thing I wanted to share around setting resolutions and setting yourself up for success was an interesting concept. It's this idea, and this is a little, this is a little squishy. So it's this idea of asking yourself a question. Uh which yeah, so I'm not in practice, I'm not sure how this was work. But I was reading there was a study from 2015 from Washington State University, a meta-analytic synthesis of the question behavior effect, and it found that asking a question to a person very simply can elicit a behavioral change. So if you qu this this uh researcher, Dave Sprott said, if you question a person about performing a future behavior, the likelihood of that behavior happening will change. Uh so a great example of this that they mentioned um in the research synopsis was asking people, will you recycle? Uh from the study, it says that remind this this for one reminds people that recycling is a good thing for the environment, but it kind of in a weird way exerts pressure on them. It almost makes them feel uncomfortable if they're not recycling. So then to relieve that feeling of being uncomfortable, they will go and recycle. That's psychologically what is going on there. So uh the study was kind of relating this to fitness and said you could ask yourself, will I exercise this year? So the weird thing about this, again, I said it's kind of a squishy concept. So how do you actually apply that practically? I almost think you could do it like in a meditation or something, uh, turn it into a mantra. I don't know, but I thought that was a really interesting concept, more like asking yourself this question, and maybe you incorporate it into your daily meditation routine or something. Uh that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Uh, you know, it reminds me of the episode we did on Fitness Friends, because remember some of the studies talked about, you know, like um friends who talked about an anti-smoking campaign, even without specifically calling out somebody else, their behavior inadvertently changed. So I could definitely see that with other people. I don't know about asking myself the question, though.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, I I think it could I think you could do it either way. Um, but yeah, so if you've got fitness friends, maybe you should ask each other questions about your new year's resolution. So just see if it works. I'm curious. I thought it was an interesting uh concept. Third thing I wanted to bring up, um, and this kind of gets back to what you were just talking about. Don't aim for a specific number, set a range. So I saw kind of two contrasting pieces of advice that were out there about setting resolutions. One person was saying you need to use, you know, these SMART goals, which you know sounds like something you hear at work. Oh, corporate speak, yes, it's corporate. Corporate speak, yeah, smart measurable, um actionable. Actionable.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

What's the R? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Anyways, it's it's an acronym. So uh they were saying set very specific goals and check in on the goals and monitor progress. And I just I didn't like the sound of that uh based on everything else I've been reading. And then I saw this other study out of Stanford where they looked at people trying to achieve very specific goals versus vague goals. So the findings of the study indicated that setting something a little more vague, like a range. So instead of saying, I want to lose 10 pounds, saying I will lose five to fifteen pounds would be better. And it was it was uh actually more effective. So to me, this kind of went against some of that traditional wisdom around specific goals. Uh I also wonder, too, you kind of have to feel out how you would set a range for something, for example. Um, you know, I'm gonna run one to two miles a day, or you know, there's different ways you could approach that. Uh, but um I I really like the concept. Um, it it feels less stressful that you know, my wife and I were just talking about this. We're, you know, she's trying to reach her yearly cycling goal, and I just said, well, mine is blown because I broke my leg, so I had a goal of 3,000 miles, I'm not reaching that. So why even try? No. But uh you you see, that's why I kind of like this idea of a range. So I thought that was something I might try to incorporate into my fitness goals moving forward. I like that too. One final very straightforward tip that I saw. If you're thinking about goals around diet and exercise, and based on the survey we saw, people are, um you should tackle them at the same time. They've done research on this again from Stanford University, and it shows that it it's more effective when you when you do them at the same time, uh, rather than trying to focus on one or the other or do them like consecutively. Like I'm gonna focus on my fitness for six months, I'm gonna focus on my diet for six months. They say just take it on at the same time. It's more effective. I mean, very simple concept, but I thought very straightforward and and good advice if you're thinking about a resolution. So if you think you need to work on both of them, just go ahead and and work on them both uh for the new year. Um, Jen, any any other tips you would add?

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Um Yeah, those are um really good and give me a lot to think about. I think my number one tip is like I said earlier, you know, if you're motivated to make a change, do it now. Don't you know this concept of future you, I think can be a real psychological trap where you think I'm gonna be this kind of person in the future. And chances are, you know, you're stuck with the person you are. So you know, I like to think about uh change in smaller incremental ways. So actually, and I think I talked about this on one of the former podcast episodes, I set goals in a shorter time frame. So like for the next 30 days, I want to do X. And the idea is more to build a habit than to have a resolution or to be a different person. It's just like let's say I want to meditate more. Can I do it for the next 30 days and see if it sticks? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But you know, I just feel like it's something more that uh attainable if it's shorter and just kind of trying it on, see what that feels like, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Yeah, I think that's I think that's great advice. And so we joked about not liking resolutions, and you know, we're being honest, neither of us are big on them, but it was really interesting to do this research and see how people could be successful if they're going down that path. And I think the thing that's really great about this, if you're not doing New Year's resolutions, you can take some of these concepts. Like I said, I love that concept of the range. I might try to apply that to my own fitness goals. So uh these concepts can be used regardless of if you're uh doing New Year's resolutions or you're just thinking about fitness goals or updating your fitness goals. So very cool concepts. And uh that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

One thing I wanted to say. So I I don't set I don't have resolutions or goals, but there is one thing I do every single New Year's that I really love, and I it's that I go for a hike. So the uh state and national parks across the country have these first day hikes on New Year's Day. You can go for a great guided hike, and I just think it's a really fun way to get get the year started, you know, with it.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Yeah, I think sometimes people sleep on their state park systems. Like you and I have talked about, we're you know, you having lump here for all the time, we have an amazing state park system in Texas. So yeah, go out, check it out, go online, do some Googling, and go for a New Year's Day hike.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

And also, if you do have success with resolutions, change our minds. Tell us about them, tell us about the ones that have worked for you. You know, we're we're here to be convinced.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah, let us know. Comment on the podcast, uh, shoot me an email at alex at practically.fit. And don't forget to sign up for the newsletter over at practically. Where you can read about all kinds of great topics like what we've talked about today, New Year's resolutions and gym memberships in the new year. I I really enjoyed that chart I made. So I really I'm trying to get people to look at it. I I've spent a lot of time on that. So well, that's it for this week's episode. Uh, we really appreciate you. Uh, we'll be back next week with another episode. We're gonna talk about this whole concept of dry January, alcohol, and your fitness. So we're gonna do that one and then probably take a week break before we ratchet it back up in the new year. So until then, remember fitness is for everybody.