If you vowed a resolution to keep up with your healthy diet, but you’ve suffered a setback, you may feel deflated already. But you shouldn’t worry. After all, a brand new year doesn’t have to be perfect to “count,” you just have to view it as another opportunity to make better decisions.

Revivifying that energy after it’s dissipated somewhat can feel a little tiresome, however. Are there ways around this? We believe there are. Let’s consider what that might mean, as follows:

Consider The Power Of Community

It may seem a little sentimental to say this, but often, a fitness journey is so much more empowering when you share it with others. That doesn’t mean you have to share every progress pic on Instagram, but it can mean finding a loving community of like-minded individuals in spaces like HOTWORX, specifically designed to help you feel empowered through your exercise habits. Sometimes, that’s all you need as a newcomer or returning exercise practitioner.

Keep It Sustainable

Whenever we vow to make a change in life, it’s so easy to go all the way and set unrealistic standards for yourself. You won’t make a mistake, you think, so it’s fine for me to expect no cheat days, no missed exercise sessions, and no lapsing motivations. But does that have to be the case? What if you allow yourself an extra 100 calories a day, even in a small evening snack, but then spread your weight loss process over a longer time? Sometimes, sustainability and three-quarter steps in the right direction are better than cutting all progress down when you make a mistake.

Eat More Slowly

This might sound like some kind of Jedi mind trick, but it’s true. If you eat more slowly, a process known as patient mastication (yeah, we’ll stick to the first term, too), you actually feel fuller, burn more calories eating, and make it easier for your body to digest your food. Moreover, when you eat slowly, you’re giving your food more time to pass down into your stomach, which can help you avoid that tendency to overeat. We’re evolutionarily designed to get as many calories as we can in one sitting as our ancestors rarely knew how reliable their next meal would be, and so you subvert that desire to binge by eating more slowly. If you’ve struggled with portion control in the past, use this method, and see the difference!

With this advice, we hope you can more easily keep up with that resolution, or just keep living healthily no matter what goal you’ve set for yourself.

The post Struggling With That New Years Weight Loss Resolution? Consider This appeared first on InstantELLA.

It’s the season of giving and a time to think of giving instead of receiving.

It’s hard to know where to start your service endeavors because there are so many people in need and so many organizations that could use volunteers.

It can feel overwhelming, but the good news that if your heart is in the right place you can usually find a cause that you can volunteer your time and effort for.

And to help you get off on the right foot, here are five ways you can give back to your local or national community today and make where you live a better place.

Gather a clean-up crew

4 Ways to Help Your Community

Sadly, in most communities, there are areas that need a little extra love and care in the form of picking up trash and also cleaning it up in general.

Whether it’s a park, river, beach area, or other public areas, you can gather together a group of volunteers and create a clean-up project to help rejuvenate the community.

Make sure to get the permissions and permits you need, and then after that, go to work.

Your community will thank you for helping to beautify it, and those in charge will be grateful to not have to spend taxpayer money on it.

Volunteer to teach or help

If you have a specific skill you are really proficient at or are really good at teaching you may be able to volunteer to teach a class or be an aid.

For example, at a center that offers adult disability services you can ask if they need someone to teach a certain class or maybe the workers at the facility need help to put together a fun activity or program.

There are many places within your community that would probably love to have an extra hand.

Be a leader

Different, leader, best, unique, boss, individuality, original, special, worst, first, chief, champion and discrimination concept.

This can be applied to a community board or a little league coach, either way, you can definitely help your community out by becoming a leader in some organization that is city-run.

Since most of the time those positions are on a volunteer basis, becoming those leaders can help your voice to be heard in the community as well as affect lives for good.

Donate some money

Not everyone can put the time in to do something for the community, so if you have the means and big time constraints consider giving funds to a community cause in need.

Donations are very helpful to many organizations in your community, and you can do a little research to see where your money would best be served and then hand it over.

Share with your friends

The Science Behind the Joy of Sharing Joy

One person can really make a difference, but if that person gets their friends involved it can cause a positive ripple effect and before you know it there are people helping out everywhere you go which can only help your community.

If you are planning to volunteer or donate, share what you are doing with a friend, and if they want to get involved too, share with them how they can do their part.

The post 5 Ways to Give Back to the Community Today appeared first on InstantELLA.