New Year's Resolutions: Family Weight Loss Strategies and Fitness Goals

3 Fun Family Fitness Goals for the New Year!

      Exercise together. Exercising with your family is a great way to get everyone moving in a fun and engaging way. Consider planning a weekly family activity and let the kids take turns choosing what to do. Some ideas include hikes, bike rides, shooting baskets, rollerblading and ice-skating. If kids are older, consider joining a gym and working out or taking fitness classes together.  If you get stuck, think outside of the box with activities like squash, racquetball, rock climbing and martial arts. Most importantly, have fun doing it.

      Make a family exercise plan. Very little gets done with out a plan. This includes homework, work assignments, and of course, exercise. Create a family plan and put several physical activity dates on the calendar. This can include nightly family walks and weekly family events. If you plan ahead, you are more likely to do it – even if you don’t exercise on every day that you have planned, chances are that you will do more than you did before.

Create a Competition and Set a Goal. Friendly competition is motivating. Get everyone pedometers and see who can get 10,000k steps a day for the longest number of days. Then register for a Local 5k race. Kids will enjoy the feeling of accomplishment crossing the finish line and there are always fun things to do at the end of a race!

Can You Lose Weight Over the Holidays? 5 Weight Management Strategies for Your Family

This is a difficult time of year for most people to make healthy choices. We are very busy, weather can be icky, and we are surrounded by unhealthy food at every turn.

We experience all of those obstacles, THEN we take a 2 week winter break! If not organized carefully, we can start the new year several pounds heavier.

Here is a list of strategies that parents and kids find helpful to maintain their weight over the holiday season.

1) Manage the food gifts. As the chocolates and food baskets come in to the house, make a plan  to get them out of the house as quickly as possible! To reduce temptation for everyone, consider donating them to a shelter, giving them to a neighbor or sharing them at work.

2) Do something active EVERYDAY! You have the time - use it! This is a great opportunity to plan family hikes and bike rides. Celebrate winter and bundle up to ice skate with friends, walk in the neighborhood and play games at the park.

3) Change-up the Stocking Stuffers. If you (or Santa) usually put a lot of candy in the stockings, consider small gifts instead. Kids and Teens love to receive small items like Chapstick, socks, toys, lotions, iphone or itouch cases or lipgloss.

4) Plan meals ahead. Make sure there are plenty of healthy choices available. Set out or bring washed grapes, clementines or cut vegetables so you know there are plenty of healthy options around the house.

5) Limit the choices. Studies show that people eat less if there are fewer choices available. Offer or bring one kind of pie instead of three!

6) Do something active EVERYDAY! Oops... did I say that already??

Have a healthy, happy holiday!