A Resolution Is Just A Fancy Word for "Goal."

According to USA.gov, the ten most popular New Year's Resolutions are as follows:

• Drink Less Alcohol
• Eat Healthy Food
• Get a Better Education
• Get a Better Job
• Get Fit
• Lose Weight
• Manage Debt
• Manage Stress
• Quit Smoking
• Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
• Save Money
• Take a Trip
• Volunteer to Help Others

More than half of them are health-related, which tells you that: (1) People know they're in piss-poor shape, and (2) they know something has to be done about it. But the problem, it seems, is that folks aren't sure how to achieve their goals. According to University of Minnesota psychology professor Marti Hope Gonzalez, research indicates that 80 percent of those who make New Year's Resolutions fail to keep them past February -- only to start over again the following January.

Ten years ago, a study published in American Psychologist termed this cycle of futility the "False Hope Syndrome" -- a phenomenon "particularly common among those who resolve to lose weight" due to “unrealistic goals and a misunderstanding of [their] own behavior.”

So what's the answer? How can we set goals and actually achieve them?

My thoughts:

Be reasonable. All goals -- not just resolutions -- should be S.M.A.R.T: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Simply saying that you want to "get healthier" isn't going to give you any metrics by which you can track progress or hold yourself accountable. Instead, set milestones and deadlines to check up on your incremental progress. And don't go crazy with unattainable resolutions -- otherwise, you'll rob yourself of the satisfaction you'll feel when you hit your goals.

Focus on behaviors and actions, not results. A resolution like “I wanna drop 30 pounds” or "I wanna deadlift 3 times my bodyweight" offers you no path to success. Instead, make a checklist of concrete, doable actions that’ll put you in the right direction -- like "I'm cutting sugar from my diet for the next 21 days" or "I'm signing my ass up for a 100-burpee challenge."

Do some research. So what if Gwyneth Paltrow eats nothing but twigs and does hundreds of reps of 3-pound lifts? And who cares if Rich Froning subsists on a diet of chocolate milk, protein shakes, and peanut butter and jelly? Blindly copying others won't transform you into a skinny movie star or the Fittest Man on the Planet. Before you set a goal, consider whether it's something that's actually likely to do you (or others) some good.

Tell people about your goals. It's all too easy to let yourself off the hook. If no one knows about your goals, no one'll get on your butt about sticking to them. But if you're serious about your resolutions, yell it from the mountaintops. (Or, more realistically, Facebook.) You don't have to be annoying about it, but make sure your support system of friends and family are aware that you're marching towards a goal so they can: (1) help you; (2) understand why you're not eating bread all of a sudden; (3) kick your ass if you try to give up. Plus, I've found that one of the greatest motivators is peer pressure (a.k.a. public shaming.)

Make it fun. If it's not enjoyable, it's not sustainable. Want to know why people don't stick to super-restrictive diets? Because they feel deprived. And why don't folks keep going to the globo-gym after January? Because endlessly climbing a StairMaster in slow motion is mind-numbing. So devise ways to keep things fun and interesting -- whether it's by using a kick-ass iPhone app to track your weight loss progress or by joining a running group.

Lastly, don't save your resolutions for January. Who says you can only set personal goals once per annum? Keep setting short- and long-term goals for yourself throughout the year, and work to methodically check 'em off the list.

Go to it, people.

Smoking Can Make Your Nipples Fall Off

Need one more reason to stop smoking cigarettes?

From Dr. Anthony Youn's recent post on CNN Health:

In my memoir “In Stitches,” I told the story of a smoker whose nipples turned purple while undergoing a breast lift surgery. Purple is the precursor to black. Black is the precursor to falling off. To save the patient -- and her nipples -- we turned to the only treatment available. 

We went medieval. 

We used leeches.

[Source]

14 Bizarre Diets & 1 Unsurprisingly Effective One

Can you guess which one of the "15 Most Bizarre Diets in History" (according to Woman's Day, at least) I don't find all that weird?

Hint: It's not the Cigarette Diet, which I'm sure was something Don Draper dreamed up.

(Source: Neatorama)

Soda = Tobacco?

"Is soda the new tobacco?" asks Mark Bittman in the New York Times.

Like cigarettes, soda is clearly a health hazard. The average American drinks about 50 gallons of soda per year, and the prevalence of sugary, fizzy beverages is linked to the explosion of obesity and diabetes in children. As Bittman points out:

[S]ugared beverages are the No. 1 source of calories in the American diet, representing 7 percent of the average person’s caloric intake, according to government surveys, and up to 10 percent for children and teenagers. These calories, they point out, are worse than useless -- they’re empty, and contribute to a daily total that is already too high.

Efforts to implement soda taxes to curb consumption are increasing, but like Big Tobacco, the soda industry continues to "market[] heavily to children, claiming their products are healthy or at worst benign, and lobbying to prevent change." In fact, Big Soda's protests are almost comically similar to the tobacco industry's claims about the folly of reducing/quitting smoking. For example:

• The president of the American Beverage Association, Susan Neely, "acknowledges that obesity is a problem but says: 'If you’re trying to manage people being overweight you need a variety of behavior changes to achieve energy balance — it can’t be done by eliminating one food from the diet.'”

• J. Justin Wilson, a senior research analyst for a soda industry-sponsored advocacy group, argues that "there is no unique link between soda and obesity.”

• PepsiCo's senior vice president of "global health policy," Derek Yach, claims that “simply pricing one product higher would lead to unknown effects on total dietary consumption. It may even lead to worse situations: people may stop spending on one food and eat more of another, so taxing high levels of sugar may lead to eating higher levels of fat.”

In other words, industry reps argue that a soda tax won't help slow the obesity epidemic, and might actually accelerate it because the thirsty hordes will rush to replace their 64-ounce Super Big Gulps with fatty death shakes or cupfuls of lard. Does this sound even remotely plausible?



If soda is truly like tobacco, then the good news is that education about the harmful effects of soda consumption will likely change people's behaviors and habits. As Bittman notes, "[t]he public war against tobacco has worked, if imperfectly: Americans smoke at half the rate they once did, half of all smokers have quit, and the tobacco companies finance strong antismoking campaigns."

I have a buddy who used to guzzle Dr. Pepper. Each day at work, he'd polish off a six-pack of the stuff while sitting at his desk. But once he came to understand exactly what it was he was ingesting, he put himself on a peculiar but effective diet, which he called "Meat-or-Soda."

The rules of the Meat-or-Soda Diet are pretty simple: Each day, you can choose to consume either meat or soda, but not both. My friend wasn't about to give up meat, so his soda consumption dropped significantly, and so did his weight.

Obviously, this isn't a diet I'd recommend to anyone who's vegetarian or otherwise already eating pretty healthfully, but it just might help move the needle for carnivores who drink nothing but soda.