Making the most of your New Year's Resolutions

            It’s January which means that it is still “New Year’s resolution” season. The beginning of the new calendar year has traditionally been a popular starting place for personal change for many of us. Indeed, it has become engrained in our thinking that we push an annual “restart” button to wipe out unhealthy behaviours and reset our lives with healthier life-style options. However sincere and well-intentioned this annual resetting may be, the momentum behind these life-style changes inevitably ebbs as time goes on. We gradually revert to our previous unhealthy patterns and behaviours, and we let our New Year’s resolutions slip away.

With the start of a subsequent calendar year, we again attempt to reset our behaviours despite our previous year’s failings. We repeatedly blame ourselves for failing to successfully implement lasting life-style changes.  The failure does not lie with us as individuals but rather, lies in the faulty tools we use to try to implement and maintain these changes. While simple motivation to improve may be a sufficient catalyst to initiate life-style behavioural changes like weight loss, the challenge for most is to maintain that motivation and those behaviours over time in order to achieve lasting changes.

            Change is always a difficult process.  Humans are often viewed as creatures of habit. Changing a life-style, and the habits that are woven into that life-style, is a difficult process to start and it is an even more difficult process to maintain. Our previous habits are comfortable to us, and are therefore alluring to fall back on in times of discomfort. This reality makes it difficult to maintain our sought-after change. Simply having knowledge of the best practice is not always the only tool needed to maintain a sustained change in our lives. A more comprehensive approach to weight loss is needed to make a sustainable change. Research has begun to investigate the importance of breaking down old habits as well as building new ones.

            A group of researchers recently investigated the process of changing habits and maintaining that change. Cleo, Glasziou, Beller, Isenring, & Thomas (2019) focused on understanding the factors that influence weight loss maintenance. They gathered a group of individuals who were interested in participating in a weight loss study. The participants provided the Researchers with a variety of data such as current weight, waist circumference, weekly exercise and dietary information etc. in order to establish a starting point. Following the collection of baseline data, the participants were randomly split into three groups. For the first 12 weeks, these three groups would have weekly phone call checkups with the Researchers, to talk about their weight loss journey. Thereafter, they were left on their own for 12 months without interaction. During the 12-week period, one group would receive additional knowledge on ten beneficial weight loss habits. The second group would additionally receive tips on how to break their old habits by encouraging more novel behaviours on a daily basis. The final group was instructed that they were on the waitlist to receive an intervention and served as the comparison group. The same weight loss data that was collected at the beginning would be collected again at the end of 12 weeks and again at the end of 12 months.

At the end of the 12-week intervention period, the Researchers found that both the first and second group had lost significantly more weight than the waitlisted group. At the end of the 12 month period, both groups that had receive the intervention in the first 12 weeks had maintained and lost significantly more weight than the group that did not. These findings can be compared to other non-habit focused interventions which often do not maintain the same weight loss over time. Curioni & Lorenco (2005) were the researchers who identified that weight loss is difficult to maintain in the long run without these types of interventions.

            The results from this research demonstrate two important concepts to keep in mind when attempting to lose weight. The first concept is that focusing on our habits will dictate how well we will be able to maintain the weight loss we seek. We might use personal reasons or external rewards to start the process, but this does not appear to be a sustainable way to maintain the healthy life-style we might seek. Focusing that motivation to change directly on the individual behaviours is the most effective. Much like brushing our teeth at the end of the day, habits have a way of taking place without much thought or motivation. When trying to maintain weight loss or even start the process, it is important to focus that motivational energy on our behaviours and not let that energy waste away.

            The second and most important concept from this research lies in changing our habits. Both the first and second group saw significant weight loss at the end of the 12 week and 12 month periods. These groups however, were fundamentally unique. The first group aimed to build new habits that were based in knowledge of what works best. This group focused primarily on the development of new habits. The second group aimed to build a more diverse and flexible behavioural basis for carrying out habits. This group primarily developed the skills to break bad habits. Both groups are connected in the way that both, utilizing different approaches, addressed changes to habits that are needed in order to maintain weight loss progress. Since habits are so powerful in our lives, it is important to use both methods to our advantage when implementing the weight loss process. It is equally as important to break our old habits as it is to develop new ones. Both methods working together would create a solid foundation for habit change that could produce dependable results.

All of this being said, if we decide that you want to lose some weight and live a healthier life, it is easier than you may think, given the correct tools. Instead of falling into the same trap of starting New Year’s resolutions and giving up on them by summer, you should arm yourselves with all of the best tools for success. You should focus our energy on understanding your own behaviours. You should investigate new behaviours that would help achieve your goals and that you could develop into new habits, while simultaneously breaking up your old habits into novel behaviours that don’t feel as comfortable. Using both as tools when necessary would give you the added strength you need to make significant and long-lasting change in your lives.

Cleo, G., Glasziou, P., Beller, E., Isenring, E., & Thomas, R. (2019). Habit-based Interventions for Weight Loss Maintenance in Adults with Overweight and Obesity: a Randomized Controlled Trial. International Journal of Obesity, 43(2), 374.

Curioni, C. C., & Lourenco, P. M. (2005). Long-term Weight Loss After Diet and Exercise: a Systematic Review. International Journal of Obesity, 29(10), 1168-1174.