This Year, Keep The Change

If the beginning of 2006 holds true to form, nearly half of all adults celebrated the arrival of the new year by making resolutions to improve their lives.

Do we need to tell you what's at the top of their lists?

"Weight loss is the number one New Year's resolution and has been for at least the last 10 to 15 years," says John Norcross, distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Scranton.

Those who promise to change their behavior as January arrives rarely manage to do so for long. "About 75 percent are successful in keeping their New Year's resolutions for a couple of weeks," Norcross says. But by Feb. 1, nearly half have given up.

New Year's resolutions "are good intentions that rarely have much impact," says Albert Bandura, professor of psychology at Stanford University, "because they're too general and too distant." Plus, most people set lofty, ambitious goals that are difficult to meet.

Losing weight "is not the 100-yard dash, it's truly a marathon," notes Norcross. "Otherwise, you wind up with yo-yo diets, [home] exercise machinery that is used for three weeks and one-year gym memberships that are essentially exhausted after three to four weeks."

It doesn't have to be this way. Here's what research suggests can increase the odds of sticking with your weight-loss resolution:

Ramp up slowly . Rapid take-offs usually result in a fast crash and burn, so begin gradually. "When people say to me that 'I am going to start to go to the gym five times a week,' I ask them, 'Can you sustain that for six months?' " says Norcross, co-author of "Changing for Good" (Avon). "They say, 'Of course not.' " The better, long-term strategy, he advises is "aim modestly and realistically and then build on that." So plan short workouts daily, then slowly but steadily increase time and intensity over a number of weeks.

Resolve to change habits, not reach arbitrary goals. Rather than saying "I need to lose 10 pounds," focus on what you need to eat and how much activity will be required to achieve your goal. Set short-term challenges to keep yourself motivated. "In successful self-change, you have to break these distant goals into small steps," Bandura says.

So if you're trying to lose weight, you might start by eating 100 calories less per day and getting 100 calories more of activity. Each week, try to decrease calories and increase activity until you hit a500-calorie deficit daily. That works out to about a one pound weight loss per week. When you change your eating and exercise behavior, the pounds will begin to come off.

Believe in yourself. Self-efficacy is the psychological concept that Bandura introduced in 1977 to describe how much someone believes he can succeed at making a habit change. Studies show that the greater your self-efficacy, the better your chances of success. "Unless people believe they can succeed, they have little incentive to act or persevere when faced with difficulties," Bandura says. While there's a lot of discouraging information about weight loss failure, his research shows that self-efficacy improves when you set and meet attainable goals.

Expect slips . When Norcross studied people who made New Year's resolutions, he discovered that nearly everyone experienced a slip within the first two weeks. What separated those who succeeded long-term from those who failed was how they viewed their slips. Successful habit changers saw the slip as a reason to recommit to their efforts, while those who failed in the long run "misinterpreted their slips as evidence of their inability to maintain their habit change," he says. "If you can forgive yourself for the small sins, salvation is still in sight."

Card it. That's how Norcross teaches his patients to keep the change. He advises them to carry an index card with a five-point list of steps to extricate themselves from a slip on one side and reminders of why their resolution is important on the other.(Find a downloadable template here.)

Act now. "Maana is the busiest day of the week," Bandura says. "We are really well-practiced at putting off what needs to be done under the illusion that we will have more time tomorrow." By finding excuses and reasons to overeat or not to be more physically active, he says, "we take time away from what really needs to be done."

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