We’re just a few days away from 2021 & thank God honestly, because what a year it has been! Jeeeeeez! 🙄 If there’s one thing we’ve learned this year it’s that tomorrow isn’t promised. There’s no better time than right now to get started on those New Years resolutions. New beginnings to look forward to! New breakthroughs to overcome! New goals to work towards!

A year ago I had no idea how to set or tackle my fitness goals, so I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few tips for anyone trying to make a sustainable physical change in 2021.

THE FIRST STEP: GET IN A CALORIC DEFICIT

What is a caloric deficit? In a nutshell- it’s when you consume less calories than you burn. First steps are to figure out how many calories one must intake in order to maintain their weight. This is based on gender, age, height, activity levels, etc. Use this calculator (here) to find out your suggestive maintenance intake. Once that’s settled, best practice is to subtract 500 cals from your maintenance- this will put you in a caloric deficit. For example, if your maintenance calories are 2,000 per day, your new daily calorie goal would be 1,500.

I took this a step further & reduced my calories even more so I could achieve my goal weight by my goal date. Since calories are units of energy, I did this little by little. The last thing you’d want is to lose weight & not have the energy to go about your day & be active. So, be smart! Keep a close eye on the scale, log your weight first thing in the morning & track everything you eat. Doing this will help you see what foods promote weight loss vs. what foods are stressing your body tf out..

Disclaimer: JoJo does not condone starving oneself for weight loss. A caloric deficit might seem extreme, but in all honesty that’s just because we were overeating to begin with.

THE SECOND STEP: MOVE YOUR ASS

My best advice would be to get involved in some type of aerobic or muscle training routine. Find something that works with your schedule & more importantly something you wouldn’t mind doing regularly. Adding activity to your everyday will not only help you lose weight fast but, help you lose it the right way.

See below examples based on 30 minute sessions:

• Walking: 100-300 cals burned
• Strength Training: 130–220 cals burned
• YouTube HIIT videos: 261-374 cals burned
• Running: 280-520 cals burned
• Swimming: 300 cals burned
• Biking: 300 cals burned more or less

You get the point!

If you have an hour to watch Grey’s Anatomy, you have 30 minutes to spare to do a quick something something. Let’s leave the excuses in 2020!

THE THIRD STEP: KEEP A FOOD LOG

Literally track everything. Let’s say you couldn’t work out at the gym, so to make up for that you ate 300 less calories? Track that! Let’s say you couldn’t meal prep, so you had tacos at Don Julio’s – I don’t blame you 🤤 – but you better track that! Keeping a food log will help you learn more about your body. Unfortunately, we don’t come programmed with a manual, so we have no idea what foods impact us in a positive/negative way.

So! How do we shift these bad habits to set ourselves up for success?! We spend our calories on high volume foods- like protein & veggies. We cut fat & go for fat-free instead. We eliminate sugar. And lastly, we drink more water! There will be “off days”- which is fine, but we’re gonna get right back to business the next day. Right?!

MyFitnessPal can & will be your best friend, it’s a bit tedious to log everything but totally necessary if you want to begin to understand how foods are affecting your body.

Be safe, stay organized & trust the process. Happy New Years friends!