How to make those New Year’s fitness resolutions stick

FRANKLIN, Mass. — It’s here. the day of regrets. The day of reckoning. The day to start burning rubber on those resolutions.

A recent survey found a third of Americans with resolve to change something on Jan. 1 focus on diet and fitness.

Right on cue, the YMCA in Franklin was packed.

"It's a very busy time," Hockomock YMCA spokesperson Hope Lanza said. "Lots of people sign up for the New Year. It was very busy when we opened up. There was a line out the door."

But some resolutions fizzle in mere weeks.

"You feel this excitement. This exhilaration to start something new. But often, by February 1, people stop," MGH Doctor Fatima Cody-Standford explained.

Doctor Cody-Stanford is an obesity medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

She offers five tips to keep fitness and weight loss resolutions on track.

The first is to be consistent.

"Find your soul-mate, work-out...whatever that is that you enjoy doing, do it. Do it well. Do it consistently," she said.

Doctor Cody-Stanford recommends at least two and a half hours of moderately intense exercise per week.

The second tip is to remember you're only human, and occasional failure will happen.

The third tip is to not compare your fitness outcomes to others.

"We are not all the same," she said. "We all respond differently to different exercise regimens, so don't compare yourself to how someone else responded you saw on some late night infomercial or maybe at your gym."

Doctor Cody-Stanford is a fan of proven science when it comes to weight loss methods -- not fads.

Her final tip is when nothing seems to be working, remember that weight loss doctors can help with what can, for some, be an ongoing battle.

"Some of us will still struggle even under treatment. And it's okay. But improving the current status is extremely Important," she said.

Three years ago, Kelly Demartinis embarked on a journey to improve her health status.

"I was about 220 pounds and I needed to do something about high cholesterol and triglycerides," she said.

Motivated by the loss of her father at an early age, Kelly enlisted the help of a YMCA trainer to lose nearly 60 pounds. And for three years, she has kept it off.

"There will be struggles," Demartinis said. "Then you have to go back on it. So if you want that doughnut, eat that doughnut."

Keeping in mind one doughnut does not blow weeks of good effort.

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