The Cheat’s Guide to ‘New Year, New You’
Kat Dawes

New Year, new you…ugh. Detox, resolutions, tape measures, diets, expensive supplements, battering yourself in the gym. It’s got to be easier, surely? Try these five simple tips — just pick one, even — and give yourself a head-start. You’ll start feeling better in baby steps.

Be realistic — don’t give up two food groups in one go, weigh yourself every day or start taking slimming pills. Fast weight loss makes you feel great when looking at the scales, but it’ll also leave you physically tired, desperate to eat and possibly malnourished. Set some goals that you can achieve, like replacing your 3pm blood-sugar-dip cake with a handful of nuts (it works, I swear). Write the goal down in your diary, stick it on your pinboard, whatever it takes.

Check this chart — http://www.naturopathyworks.com/pages/cravings.php
What you think you’re craving is your body’s expression of a deeper need for some essential vitamin or mineral, so try one of these, give it 20 minutes and see if the craving goes. If it’s still a packet of Munchies or nothing, go for it, but watch out for emotional over-eating!

Examples: Craving chocolate: you need magnesium. Try raw nuts and seeds, fruit. Craving bread, you need nitrogen. Try high protein foods like fish, meat, nuts, beans. Craving tobacco, you need silicon. Try nuts and seeds, avoid refined starches. See more >>

Surf We could hardly forget this one! Makes you feel better all round as well as being slimming. You’ve done some exercise, people are amazed and impressed that you’re so dedicated and determined, the fresh air has given you some colour (no, not blue, pink!), and it really wasn’t as cold as you imagined. Of course, you may prefer a holiday somewhere hot and sunny or with fresh powder, in which case, good on you.

Eat negative calorie foods
Negative calorie foods are foods that contain less calories than it takes for you to digest them. They have the added bonus of often being nutritious anyway. Yeah, that includes lettuce…but also, boiled eggs,
There’s got to be something in this list that you fancy. Well, we hope so…

’What did you do as a child
…that made the hours pass like minutes? Therein lies the key to your earthly pursuit.‘

That’s some bloke called Jung. It seems most applicable to careers, but also applies to exercise. Liked climbing trees? Find a climbing wall. Liked gymnastics? Try yoga. Liked playing kiss-chase? Run laps in the park the hot men frequent. Liked fighting in the playground? Go kickboxing. Just joking on some of those, but there really is something out there for everyone, and if you’re enjoying it, you’re more likely to stick to it. I do yoga a few times a week, but you won’t drag me into a gym ever (unless I put on another three pounds, then it’s pain time, baby)

Well, give it a go. We’re not saying don’t colon cleanse, buy a treadmill, strap weights on every time you go for a walk or go surfing when it’s howling onshore and six feet. But don’t beat yourself up when you don’t quite get there, either! Try the baby steps and feel a glow of achievement.

And when you falter, the mystic poet Rumi has some words of inspiration for you:

Come, come whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving
–it doesn’t matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times
Come, come again