Getting Back Into Shape In 2012? Make A Resolution You Can Keep And Walk!

Getting Ready for Christmas├óΓé¼┬¿├óΓé¼┬¿Bah Humbug or Here Comes Santa Claus…where do you fit in?
Kathy Kaehler, our newest FitPerez contributor, fitness instructor and author of Mom Energy, wants you to get into the holiday spirit by starting your New Year’s Resolution a few weeks earlier this year.
Check out her best advice for setting a realistic goal that will allow you to get back into shape in 2012 below:
The holidays can be freakin’ out of control. The mailbox is overflowing with Christmas “annual report” cards of who has grown tallest, God forbid the widest and any new members to the family who is posed in a Santa Suit. The twinkling lights began showing up while carving the pumpkin and my favorite radio station now blasts nothing but pop versions of Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire. In all these years have you ever had a chestnut roasting on an open fire for Christmas?
Anyway, the holidays are here so you can look at the season with the glass half full or the glass half empty. I choose half full and make it “red” please. This is the time of year where work and school slow up and then shut down. People pack up and leave for holiday if they still can afford to, while others stay home. It’s the end of the year people! However, it can also be a time to start something new.├óΓé¼┬¿├óΓé¼┬¿
I hate to have people wait until the New Year’s resolution to “Get back in shape!”, “Lose ten pounds!”, ├óΓé¼┬¿”Start to eat better!”, and here is my favorite “Join the gym!”. Really, haven’t you used one of those at least 5 times already and by Feb. 1st they failed. While everyone else is freaking out and running around like its the end of the Mayan Calendar, change up your regular routine and add in healthy habits that have a better chance of sticking around.
I know this sounds lame and simple, but it works. If you don’t do any cardio now or do a little bike ride here and a little stairclimbing there, skip all that and start to WALK. There isn’t much to learn about how to walk and, the best part is, you can do it anywhere. The magic behind walking is in the details. You need to do it 5 times a week. You need to walk for 45 minutes. And you need to cover 3 miles.
Now you may have just read this and said, “WHAT, I don’t have 45 minutes, I can’t walk 5 days a week. Is she crazy?” ├óΓé¼┬¿├óΓé¼┬¿You know you want something that is going to have a host of benefits, well this is it. Walking will help you reduce stress, poor sleep and anxiety. Walking can lift your ass, tone your legs, whittle your waist (that is a 50’s term, but I still love it), improve your heart health, hello!!!! Why wouldn’t you do it? Priority, that’s why.
If you don’t make physical activity on a regular basis a priority then it doesn’t work. There are countless studies and testimonials about walking so we know it works. It is simply up to you to do it. Now here is the best part. While all the people around that you haven’t convinced to come walking with you, struggle with being over tired, stressed out, freaked out and quite frankly Bah Humbug. YOU will be whistling Jingle Bells and super stoked that this year you can finally make a New Year’s Resolution that makes sense, has some value and just may actually come true.
Like what you just read? Check out more Kathy here!
[Image via WENN.]