Happy New Year! It’s a time for a fresh start. What will 2015 mean for you? Will it be the year you get weight loss surgery, lose significant weight, or maybe maintain your major weight loss for the first time in your life?

The New Year gives you a chance to start over, but what exactly can you do to take advantage? Here are some tips for making resolutions that keep you moving forward, plus advice for preparing your home to help you lose weight and stay healthy.

Make Your Resolutions

It’s hard to think about the New Year without thinking about New Year’s resolutions. But did you really keep your resolutions in 2014? This year, make resolutions that actually help you hit your goals.

• Make them realistic. “I resolve to run a marathon by the end of the year” is definitely a challenging and motivating goal, but it’s not very realistic if you’re currently walking a few miles a day.
  
  A more realistic resolution is, “I resolve to continue exercising for as long as I currently am and to add some running into my walks.”
  
• Make them specific. “I resolve to eat right this year” sounds great, but what does it really mean? How do you know if you’re “eating right?”
  
  More specific resolutions are, “I resolve to stick to my weight loss surgery diet plan” and “I resolve to eat at least 70 grams of protein and average no more than 1,500 calories a day.”
  
• Make them controllable. “I resolve to lose 100 pounds this year” is specific and realistic, if you still have a lot of weight to lose, but it’s not necessarily under your control. You might do everything right and lose “just” 75 pounds, or you might have trouble with your lap-band and see your weight loss stall.
  
  A more controllable resolution might be, “I resolve to choose protein first at breakfast and lunch, and to measure and log my food.” You can carry out this kind of resolution regardless of circumstances outside of your control.
  

Clear Out Your Kitchen…

After the holidays, your kitchen may have turned into a disaster area. Baked goods and holiday leftovers tend to pile up on the counter, in the fridge, and in the pantry. Some household seem to attract boxes of chocolate and other edible gifts. They need to go – now. If they stick around, they’re inevitably going to find themselves in your stomach (or sleeve, or pouch).

If you have been doing a lot of holiday baking and cooking, take a look at your ingredients. Are they likely to cause trouble? Brownie mixes that you used to make holiday cookies are just a few quick minutes away from being a pan of delicious brownies in a moment of weakness, and the butter you stored to use for baking can easily hop into a pan next time you’re making a batch of eggs. If the ingredients aren’t in the house, they can’t be eaten.

…And Stock It Back Up

If your kitchen is depleted of healthy items, it’s time to stock back up. Your healthy grocery list should be the same as it was just a couple of months ago, before the holiday season struck.

• Lean proteins: chicken and turkey breast, ground turkey, canned tuna
  
• Reduced-fat dairy: non-fat yogurt, and low-fat cheese.
  
• Fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables.
  
• Whole grain pasta, brown rice, oatmeal, and high-fiber bread.
  

Also make sure all of your measuring spoons and cups are accounted for and your kitchen scale is working. If you’re going to eat cleanly, you need to be able to measure all of your food precisely. Do you have enough containers to store food, and some reusable water bottles to carry with you?

Do a Little Troubleshooting

Was there anything that kept you from achieving your goals last year? Maybe you were too busy to plan and cook healthy meals. Or you kept nibbling between meals or while preparing them in the kitchen. Or when you came home late after work, you let down your guard and ate too much.

These little problems can get in the way of your weight loss. Try to identify any patterns that got in your way last year, and figure out what you will do this year to avoid them. For example:

• Suck on a sugar-free breath mint while cooking dinner so you don’t nibble.
  
• Cook bigger batches of healthy food on weekends so you’re not caught without healthy meals during the week.
  
• Plan something fun for the evening, like watching a movie with your spouse, so you don’t turn to food.
  
• Go to bed a little earlier so it’s easier to get up to work out in the morning.
  

You don’t need to overhaul your whole life. A few small changes can be enough to get you on the right track this year. Make the most of your good intentions at the beginning of the New Year, and hit the ground running!

Excellent reminders. My task is to create and strive for goals that are action based instead of outcome based. Walk the stairs at work five times a day instead of lose ten pounds a month. Also goals that are "do" instead of "don't". For example, do eat solid Protein first at every meal instead of don't eat Pasta.

It's great to have milestone weight goals and I do. Sort of. But day to day and hour by hour I can only control what I do, not what I weigh.

I agree. Instead of New Years resolutions I have been focusing on specific daily goals to prep for surgery (ie, weaning off caffeine and increasing water, increasing activity to at least 60 minutes a day, eating more slowly with smaller bites and chewing more, etc).

food/eating will be lifetime, continuous resolution - following the rules and maintaining

i will/need to get more Water in

still sometimes have different water issues to deal with

then there are "silly" resolutions that aren't really silly to me ie

i put my glasses down here there and everywhere - then can't find them sob sob

i now have been putting them in glass case and leaving in certain spot on desk

promise to empty clean dishwasher, and load dirty dishes by the time i go to bed

will try (really hard) to read more

other silly odds and ends - but they add up

those little NSV's make me happy (its the little things LOL)

happy new year to you, me and everyone

may we all find health and happiness in this new year

kathy

2015 will be a pivotal year for me, the year where I hit my surgiversary (Feb 4th) and truly cement everything I have accomplished and learned. It will be the first time where I will be losing and keeping weight off for more than a year. And it will be a year where my sleeve will do less work and I will do more. Currently down 115 lbs with a goal to lose another 30.

I'm starting the year with going back to basics: literally doing the 10 day liver shrink diet to get back on track, to separate myself from poor holiday choices and reinvigorate my weight loss.

I'm already keeping up with my exercise and getting to the point where I'm one of those people who gets really disappointed if I have to miss a day. Ha!!

It was a life changing 2014, here's to even more progress in 2015! Thanks to the BP community and good health to us all!