Statewide, Iowa — As 2023 looms, the experts say about eight in ten New Year’s resolutions are broken by the second week in February.
One popular vow that’ll be made on Saturday night is to lose weight. Nutritionist Heather Rasmussen says for Iowans who are positively committed to eating right and getting off the couch, they can absolutely get on course to better health.
Anytime you form a goal, she says it allows you a chance to pause, look over your situation and make changes to your lifestyle, even if the change is temporary. Rasmussen says permanently changing dietary habits is extremely difficult, so for those trying to stay on the diet wagon, a slow-and-steady approach may be ideal.
If you find yourself slipping on your nutritional mission, it might help to scale back long-term goals in favor of more short-term ones. Good habits, especially ones drastically different from typical lifestyles, are hard to start and even harder to keep. Research shows that on average, it takes about 66 days for a habit to become automatic.
