New Year Resolutions Myths and Facts
Losing weight and increased fitness remain the most popular New Year’s Resolutions, and the primary reason people seek out a personal trainer in January. Every culture has a New Year celebration or ritual that is centered on atoning for the mistakes (or jerk moves) of the past year, and thinking about how you want to be better this year. This is a beautiful thing that we need more of. Sadly, it is popular to poop on people’s resolutions because it’s good clickbait. Let’s wipe the poop aside (wearing gloves obvi) and get into how you can improve your odds of success this year.
Myth #1: Resolutions always fail. Forbes says “New Year’s resolutions always fail and therefore are inherently depressing.” There’s so much wrong here, starting with math and facts.
Facts:
- About 40% of people keep their resolutions through 6 months, which is good! Being consistent in any sort of personal development, fitness or nutrition habit for 6 months is exceedingly difficult, and a monumental accomplishment.
- So, yes, most (60%) fail to last 6 months, 40% is infinitely better than “always fail” (0%).
- If you can’t fail at something, are you really doing anything? Furthermore, we learn far more from our failures than from our successes.
Myth #2: Set yourself up to win. An expanded version sounds like this, “avoid the possibility of failure because feelings trump everything else – if you don’t succeed then you won’t feel good, and if you don’t feel good then your precious self-esteem might evaporate, and without high self-esteem it’s impossible to accomplish anything.”
The idea that “self-esteem drives behavior and accomplishment” is popular, but also bullsh*t.
Facts:
- 50 years of research on self-esteem says it does not predict performance, and protecting (or promoting) self-esteem probably reduces performance.
- America’s self-esteem movement has been effective for boosting self-esteem in general, and self-esteem for math in particular, but not the ability to do math. We are #28 of 37 in math ability and #1 for math self-esteem… in other words, every country that beats us at math has kids that feel much worse about their ability to do math. Those kids probably worry about getting things wrong or getting beat the same way winners in anything feel.
- Pre-PC we would call the negative feelings of the high performing international kids “having a chip on your shoulder,” or “having something to prove.” Today these negative feelings would just melt the snowflakes I guess.
- For what it’s worth, human drive comes from negative feelings. That’s the positive power of negative emotions.
- Avoiding the possibility of failure means avoiding opportunities for growth. If you are “attempting” something you can’t fail at, then it is by definition very, very easy for you. A life of doing what is very, very easy for you is a recipe for fragility and shrinking capabilities.
Myth #3: Avoid the scale. This myth says: given that Chris Hemsworth’s BMI is overweight to obese (true), and that not everyone’s health is ideal at the same weight (true), therefore, bodyweight is completely useless.
Facts:
- The BMI is imperfect, and the scale is still useful, cheap and easy.
- If your goals include weight loss, knowing your weight this month (on average) vs last month (on average) will be useful.
- People who successfully maintain their weight loss track their weight weekly (or daily) so they can adjust course sooner than later. It is much easier to lose 3-5 pounds than it is to course correct after a 20 pound swing.
- You can (and should) try to gain muscle while losing fat. This both slows the scale while improving health and appearance. Adjust your weight goal accordingly.
Myth #4: Carbs make you fat. This myth says: carbs are uniquely fattening while dietary fat makes your body burn fat.
Facts:
- Your body burns what is available because the alternative is death. Low carb, high fat diets cause your body to burn fat because fat is what’s available. This increased fat burning is dietary fat (fat you have eaten) not body fat (fat you have stored).
- Body fat lost = fat eaten – fat burned. The more fat you eat the slower the loss of body fat no matter how big the calorie deficit.
- Calorie per calorie low-carb and high-fat diets cause 40% less fat loss than a high-carb and low-fat diet.
- Low carb diets cause rapid weight loss from water not body fat.
- Fruit does NOT make people fat.
Bottom Line on New Year Resolutions Myths and Facts
You can sum this up succinctly: try hard things where you might fail. Inner strength, like outer strength comes from pushing until failure against heavy resistance. Tap into your fear of failure to help you work harder and be more diligent. If weight loss is in your resolution, then track your weight somewhere so you can see trends up, down or flat. For weight loss, focus on getting your protein up, your fiber up, and keeping your calories down.