Your New Year’s Resolution Action Plan

This morning on the news I heard that only 8% of Americans will fulfill their New Year’s Resolutions. That is sad. I want to help you beat the odds.

Yesterday I wrote a post about New Year’s Resolutions with the following points of advice:

1. Focus on one primary goal
2. Measure
3. Take action and watch things begin to fall into place
4. Rethink the issue
5. Remember  decisions are made at the margin
6. Remove the large obstacles

In this post, I am going to show you exactly how to translate each point into action.

Case Study: Weight Loss

Let’s assume that your New Year’s resolution is to lose 25 pounds.

1. You have focused on one primary goal. That is good. It is important not to have too many goals at once.

2. Measure. Suppose you currently weight 200 pounds (for the sake of round numbers). How long  will it be before you can slim down to 175 pounds?

If you walk for an just under an hour at 4.5 miles per hour, you will burn roughly 500 calories. There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. This means that in 1 week, you can shed one pound.

By doing nothing else, you will have achieved your goal by June.

Add in minor dietary changes and you can reach your goal by Spring Break.

How? Keep reading…

3.  Now that you have taken action, other things will begin to fall into place. 

When you get home, you are less tempted by that strawberry frosted donut (320 calories or roughly a half hour of walking) and elect to snack on something more sensible. You are internally motivated to choose something else. After all, that walk was a lot of work.

You are also are not as tempted to have a Coke (14o empty calories and 39 grams of sugar). After your walk, water looks quite appealing (o calories).

 

Put another way, two Cokes will cost me more than half the gains from my walk. How did I figure that?

4. I rethought the process.

I used to choose food based only on cost. But, when I began to think about food in terms of how much it cost me in time to exercise,  the equation radically changed (in the business literature, this concept is called multiple bottom lines):

• I can walk off about 10 calories a minute as described above.
• Let’s assume I make $10/hour. That is roughly $20,ooo per year. You can do quick math to adjust the numbers based on your income.
• (Note the national average wage is $44,321.67 or an hourly wage of $21.31).

So you walk into McDonalds  determined to spend as little as possible for your money. You look closely at the menu and realize that you can fill yourself with two McDoubles for only $2.38. What a deal! Stop. Think differently. That will be the most expensive $2.38  you ever spent if weight loss is important to you.

Let’s do the math:

• Two sandwiches cost $2.38 in total.
• They are 390 calories each or 780 total calories.
• You can walk off 10 calories per minute
• So, you will need to walk 78 minutes
• You make $10/hour (that is 16 cents a minute)
• Congratulations, it has just cost you $13 to work off the $2.38 sandwiches
• Note: If you make the average national wage, it costs $27.70

When the cost to get it those calories off your body is part of your calculation, you have much more motivation to abstain. I am not talking about psyching yourself up. This calculation creates a revulsion towards the things you should not eat.

5. Remember, decisions are made at the margin. This is not an all or nothing situation. What could you choose instead?

Choose an apple.

You know it is good for you. An apple contains a mere 116 calories, no fat, and 20% of your dietary fiber.

Or, have some celery. Two stalks of celery are only 15 calories. You can eat all three bags of celery, and you will only have ingested 225 calories.

Now, I realize that celery is not exactly a treat, and by itself, it is bland. So have two stalks with two spoons of peanut butter.

You will have consumed about 200 calories which will include 7 grams of protein. This is a far cry from even one McDouble.

Remember, marginal savings add up and compound over time.

Which of these frozen Boston Market dinners should you chose? They look the same. They will both satisfy your hunger. But…

Look at the label.

The turkey dinner has only 290 calories and 9 grams of fat. The Salisbury Steak has 630 calories and 35 grams of fat. If you eat the Salisbury steak, you will need to walk an additional  half hour to burn it off. Make wise choices at the margin.

6. Finally, in order to accelerate your progress, remove the large obstacles.

If you are like me, you have regularly eaten the McDonalds burgers while you were on the go.

Another personal favorite was Cheetos. I have loved them since childhood. I am not sure why. They are like little angelic puffs of bliss on my tongue. I could consume nearly an entire bag in one sitting and this might happen once a week on average. Yet Cheetos contain a shockingly high number of calories.

Look at the nutrition facts.

150 calories per serving does not look bad until you realize that there are 10 servings in the bag.So if I stress-eat a bag of Cheetos (and I have 5 kids so I stress eat), I have just added 1,500 calories to my body.

Let’s do the math:

• The bag costs $3.50
• They are 1,500 total calories in a bag.
• I walk off 10 calories per minute
• It will take 150 minutes
• If I make $10/hour (that is 16 cents a minute)
• It has just cost me an additional $25 to work off one bag.
• If I make the national average, it would cost me an additional $53.28 to work off one bag…and I am a business professor, so when I do the math, I am now revolted by these demonic little puffs from Hades.

But Wait, There’s More

Since a bag of Cheetos per week has been a regular habit, just ceasing to regularly eat a bag of Cheetos will have a pronounced effect on my weight.

• I reduce my overall calorie count by 1,500 per week by doing nothing
• Over the year, I will not have ingested 75,000 calories. (Multiply 1,500 by 50 weeks, allowing you to snack a few times over the course of the year).
• There are 3,500 calories in a pound
• This means, I will not have added 21.4 potential pounds of extra weight that I need to exercise off my body. It works the same way for the McDoubles you forego.

You Can Do This!

So what is stopping you? I mapped out a practical game plan. Now you have the tools to keep your New Year’s resolution.

What one thing will you do this year?

I would love to hear your feedback. How can this plan work for you?

-Darin Gerdes, Ph.D.

Note: I am not a medical doctor. A nutritionist might suggest you eat or not eat something that contradicts my advice here. Obey the nutritionist’s recommendations about food but follow the principles about rethinking, marginal thinking, and removing the large obstacles. My Ph.D. is in organizational leadership. I am not dispensing medical advice but providing a strategy to help you rethink your goals.  In other words, don’t sue me.

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Dr. Gerdes is the Director of Graduate Programs in the School of Business at Charleston Southern University. All ideas expressed on www.daringerdes.com are his own.