Faith and fear cannot be friends—when one begins, the other one ends.

 

4 Fitness Resolutions for the New Year

Start the year off right! Rev up your fitness routine to fast-track your health and weight loss goals.

 

New year, new fit and fabulous you. Sound far-fetched? It's not — provided you make the right vows. "Women often fail to achieve their New Year's resolutions because they set impossible goals for themselves, or because they're not honest with themselves about their fitness routine," says Dana Rucci, a former trainer and representative at IDEA Health and Fitness Association in California. "The key is to make small, achievable changes that add up to big results." To help you get started, we've put together four fitness resolutions that can help to make 2013 your best year ever.

1. Find an exercise routine that works for you
Wish as you might, working out twice a week won't give you a toned tush or thinner thighs. To see results, exercise has to be a daily activity — one that's as much a part of your schedule as, say, brushing your teeth. Luckily, that doesn't mean that you need to spend an hour at the gym every day, says Rucci. "When you can't bear the thought of hopping on the treadmill, get creative," she says. "Take a brisk walk with your dog or chase your kids around the jungle gym instead." To make exercise a seamless part of your day, go to the Routines tool and add ones that will help make fitness a mindless habit. Try "Wear an activity monitor all day, every day," Know how you're going to be active tomorrow" or "Walk at least five minutes every hour."

2. Don't be too tough on yourself
One of the main reasons women ditch their fitness routine is because they expect perfection from themselves — and when they don't achieve it, they give up. "Don't throw in the towel if you skip a workout or have a bad week," says Rucci. Instead, acknowledge that you've fallen off the fitness wagon, and get back on as soon as possible — even if that means doing a few sets of pushups and crunches before bed. And take heart: Even going a whole week or two without working out won't cause you to put on 25 pounds or lose your hard-earned muscles.

3. Step it up
A few extra steps a day can make a world of difference for your body, and your health. "Studies have shown that when combined with a healthy diet, walking half an hour over the course of a day can help women lose weight and lower their risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes," says I-Min Lee, MD, associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. If you're already walking, slowly increase your efforts until you're logging an hour daily, suggests Lee. If you're crunched for time, break it up into 10 to 15 minutes before work, on lunch, while shopping or going to and from your car. To keep an accurate count, invest in an activity monitor.

4. Strive for balance
"Doing only one type of exercise — all aerobics, for example — can be both monotonous and ineffective," says Rucci. Adding weights and yoga, Pilates or stretching to your cardio routine will help you lose more weight and get stronger, more pliable muscles. Intimidated by the weight room or group classes? Opt for an at-home workout with a video, enlist the help of a trainer (many gyms will provide some free professional guidance to help you get the basics of resistance training down) or have a friend join you for moral support.

It’s not about you.
The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.

The search for the purpose of life has puzzled people for thousands of years. That’s because we typically begin at the wrong starting point - ourselves. We ask self-centered questions like What do I want to be? What should I do with my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life’s purpose. The Bible says, “It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone’s life is in his power.”

Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tell you, you won’t discover your life’s meaning by looking within yourself. You have probably tried that already. You didn’t create yourself, so there is no way you can tell yourself what you were created for! If I handed you an invention you had never seen before, you wouldn’t know its purpose, and the invention itself wouldn’t be able to tell you either. Only the creator or the owner’s manual could reveal its purpose.

I once got lost in the mountains. When I stopped to ask for directions to the campsite, I was told, “You can’t get there from here. You must start from the other side of the mountain!” In the same way, you cannot arrive at your life’s purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. You must begin with God, your Creator. You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God - and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.

Many people try to use God for their own self-actualization, but that is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure. You were made for God, not vice versa, and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purpose. The Bible says, “Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.”2

I have read many books that suggest ways to discover the purpose of my life. All of them could be classified as “self-help” books because they approach the subject from a self-centered viewpoint. Self-help books, even Christian ones, usually offer the same predictable steps to finding your life’s purpose: Consider your dreams. Clarify your values. Set some goals. Figure out what you are good at. Aim high. Go for it! Be disciplined. Believe you can achieve your goals. Involve others. Never give up.

Of course, these recommendations often lead to great success. You can usually succeed in reaching a goal if you put your mind to it. But being successful and fulfilling your life’s purpose are not at all the same issue! You could reach all your personal goals, becoming a raving success by the world’s standard, and still miss the purposes for which God created you. You need more than self-help advice. The Bible says, “Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.”3

It is not about finding the right career, achieving your dreams, or planning your life. It is not about how to cram more activities into an overloaded schedule. Actually, it will teach you how to do less in life - by focusing on what matters most. It is about becoming what God created you to be.