Why most New Year’s resolutions fail (and how iPhone can help you succeed)

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The secret to losing weight and getting fit with iPhone in 2016
An expert reveals the secret to losing weight and getting fit with iPhone.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

If you’re feeling guilty about your festive overindulgence, you may be planning to lose some weight and get fit in the new year. Well, sorry to be a Grinch, but research suggests that only 8 percent of New Year’s resolutions are successful.

The good news is that there is a better way. One that involves steadily building healthy habits over time. There are some handy iPhone apps that can help with this, but you won’t find them in the Health & Fitness section of the App Store.

Why New Year’s resolutions fail

January 1 is probably the worst day of the year to make life-changing decisions. Many of us are still recovering from the night before. Chances are, you won’t feel inclined to go out for a run, and health clubs are often closed that day. Already you’re off to a bad start.

For most of us, the new year does not really get started until January 4, when we return to work. Meaning you already feel behind on your resolutions, and things are only going to get worse from there.

Regular gym-goers bemoan what they call “resolutioners.” As Urban Dictionary explains: “The Resolutioner is viewed as somewhat of a nuisance because their commitment to fitness is often only temporary (usually fading within 2-8 weeks of initial sighting).”

So how do you avoid becoming one of the horde of unsuccessful resolutioners?

New years resolutioners have spawned an entire genre of gym meme
New Year’s resolutioners spawned an entire genre of gym meme.
Photo: Memegenerator.net

How apps can help

You might expect this article to focus on fitness apps. But New Year’s resolutions are more of a mental challenge than a physical one. We are effectively trying to swap old habits with new ones – making fundamental changes to the way we live your lives. And like the saying goes, old habits die hard.

iPhone apps can play a valuable role in helping to us to change our ways. You’ll find “habit apps” like Balanced and Way of Life in the Productivity section of the App Store.

These apps help you to establish routines by planning when you are going to exercise or eat, reminding you to do it, and then logging your progress. If you repeat a routine for long enough, eventually it will become a  true habit — something you don’t even need to think about doing, you just do it. Like brushing your teeth.

Habit apps can be an effective tool in establishing new routines, but the key to using them successfully for a New Year’s resolution is to choose your new habits wisely and start slowly. For advice on this, I spoke to an expert: Paul Bedford, the self-styled “Retention Guru.”

Advice from a guru

It is tempting to be cynical about the big gym chains that invest so much in marketing at this time of year. Do they secretly hope our resolutions will fail, so they can keep charging us fees even though we never use their gyms?

Apparently not. Bedford travels the world advising health clubs on how to retain members. He explains that the industry is “currently oversupplied with facilities.” Which means competition for new members is fierce and gym chains must work hard just to keep the members they already have.

If you are not getting any benefit from your membership, it is inevitable that you will eventually cancel it. Bedford argues that they best way for gyms to prevent this is to provide members with support in achieving their fitness goals. This has been the focus of his research, and he shared some tips with me.

Picking the right habits

Bedford recommends starting out with something small and achievable.

Instead of linking your goals to the start of the year, he suggests beginning on a Wednesday. Any Wednesday. That way you’re already on top of “hump day” and it’s all downhill as you get started. Rather than seeing an entire year of suffering and self-denial ahead, you can focus on having three successful days, then allow yourself a bit of a rest over the weekend.

Then, having achieved a pattern of success, you can get back to it the following week and aim for a full five-day week. Building up habits gradually like this is far easier than trying to change everything on January 1 and aiming for 365 perfect days.

Making too many changes in one go can be overwhelming. Bedford warns that can be “too disruptive to our existing lives.” Instead, focus on one easily achievable goal to get started, and gradually build from there. If you were lucky enough to get an Apple Watch for Christmas, the Move goal that it sets when you enable the Activity app is a great place to start. (Check out my previous post on setting goals).

Before you get started, Bedford recommends doing some research. Many people arrive at the gym on day one and find they don’t like it. That could be the end of a resolution right there. Instead, why not spend January trying out different fitness activities to find out which you enjoy most? Or alternatively, which you hate least! (If you decide to give running a go, check out my beginners guide to running with Apple Watch.)

Using habit apps

Habit apps provide a great way to apply Bedford’s principles in practice. For example, let’s assume you want to lose weight and decide to reduce your calorie consumption. We should pick something simple and easy to begin with, so let’s start with breakfast.

In a busy life, many people skip breakfast, and this can be counterproductive. It leaves you feeling hungry all morning, and you risk eating unhealthy snacks to compensate. Instead, you could have a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. This contains “complex carbs,” which take longer to digest than sugary snacks, so you’ll get energy from them all morning. Plus, oatmeal contains fiber, which helps make you feel full, thereby reducing the temptation to eat snacks.

In your habit app, you would set up two activities: “Eating breakfast” and “Not eating snacks.” If that feels too ambitious for every day, Balanced lets you specify how many days a week you plan to do this.

With these two activities set up, you mark them as “Done” or “Skipped” at the end of each day. Way of Life uses a simple color scheme, with green for good days, red for bad days and gray for skipped days. So you can easily see at a glance how you are doing. Go easy on yourself if you have a lot of red days to begin with — just aim to go more green over time.

As you make more progress, you can steadily add more activities. If your New Year’s resolutions include getting fit, you will want to add an exercise activity too — but you don’t need to include this on January 1. Give yourself some time to decide what kind of exercise is right for you, and add it to your habit app when you feel ready.

Being part of the 8 percent

Changing the habits of a lifetime is not easy. And while 92 percent of New Year’s resolutions fail, that still leaves 8 percent that succeed. By following Bedford’s advice — starting gradually, building up over time, allowing yourself some days off and logging your progress in a habit app on your iPhone — you will maximize your chances of being part part of the 8 percent.

Habit apps: Way of Life and Balanced
Habit apps: Way of Life and Balanced.
Image: Graham Bower / Cult of Mac

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