As 2011 becomes a memory, it’s easy to start 2012 with great intentions – lose weight, give up chocolate, go to the gym, cook every day – the problem is, as easy as New Year’s resolutions are to make, they’re just as easy to break.
According to a survey of 18,000 shoppers, despite many making plans for a New-Year detox, more than half had fallen off the resolution bandwagon within just two weeks, thanks to work, gloomy weather and slipping back into old habits. In fact, by the second weekend in January, one supermarket found sales of chocolate had risen by 43 per cent, microwave meals by 39 per cent and wine by a whopping 62 per cent!
So perhaps it’s no surprise then that the third Monday in January has been shown to be the day when women feel at their heaviest and are most likely to enquire about having cosmetic surgery, such as liposuction.
Fortunately, that’s not the only solution. We take a look at some of the most common New Year’s resolutions – and show you how to stick to them in the long term.

We might fork out on a gym membership, but good intentions are often short- lived. Experts agree daily gym sessions are unrealistic for most people, and may even increase the risk of injury as muscles and joints become overworked by doing the same repetitive exercises. Gym workouts can also get boring, so you start to go less often and eventually stop altogether.

Resolution resolve: Work out how many planned exercise sessions you can comfortably fit into your week and vary your activities to prevent boredom. As well as traditional exercise, such as going to the gym, jogging or swimming, try Popdance or martial arts – anything that gets you moving and you enjoy. Or take up a team sport such as netball or hockey – you’ll be more likely to attend as you won’t want to let other people down.

After stuffing yourself with chocolate over Christmas, it’s easy to start the New Year free from Quality Street. But after a week or so, chances are you’ll start craving chocolate. Research shows that depriving yourself of the foods you love makes you binge on them.

Resolution resolve: Don’t ban chocolate – just eat less. Size matters, so opt for smaller, lighter bars such as a Milky Way or Flake. Keep it in the fridge, too. It’ll take longer to melt in your mouth so you’ll savour every mouthful for longer. Find other chocolate fixes, too – a mug of low-cal hot chocolate or a teaspoon of chocolate spread mixed into porridge may satisfy you for just 50 calories, compared to 250 calories in a standard bar.

While we’d love to be like Nigella, work, family and social commitments mean we rarely have time to cook from scratch every evening – and trying to achieve this can mean we get so stressed we order a takeaway. There’s no guarantee Masterchef- worthy dinners are more healthy either. In fact, there may be more calories, fat and salt in a dinner cooked from scratch than in a healthy ready meal.

Resolution resolve: 'I’m going to cook from scratch every evening' Get label savvy and look at the nutrition information and ingredients of your favourite time-saving foods, and choose those with the least fat and salt. Remember, too, that noodles, wholewheat pasta, potatoes, rice, lean meat, chicken, fish, eggs, beans and frozen veg can be made into speedy dinners. A jacket potato with baked beans and salad, for example, requires minimum preparation.

It might work for Posh, but in reality, reaching size zero healthily is about as likely as getting a date with David Beckham. Most women will have to starve themselves to get the ‘lollipop’ look – so-called because of the appearance of an overly large head on a thin, stick-like body – which is unhealthy, unachievable and potentially sets up a damaging relationship with food. 

Resolution resolve: Leave size zero to Hollywood. Super- skinny is unhealthy and increases the risk of osteoporosis, infertility, weakened immunity and anaemia. Instead, concentrate on reaching a healthy weight for your height – that’s a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 18.5 to 24.9. To calculate your BMI, visit www.bdaweightwise.com

High-profile diets, such as Atkins and the Dukan plan and their reported successes, may lead you to decide to cut out carbs to shift those excess pounds. But avoiding all carbs is unhealthy and can leave you craving them. Plus, you may feel unwell – cutting right down on carbs means the body goes into fat-burning overdrive, a condition called ketosis that causes symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, nausea, and bad breath. The result: you feel so ill you quickly put carbs back on the menu and any pounds you lose go straight back on – often with extra as you overcompensate for those carb-free days.

Resolution resolve: Don’t ditch carbs completely, just eat smaller portions and choose the right types. Cut back on processed, sugary carbs such as sweets, fizzy drinks and white pasta and bread. Instead, choose fibre-rich carbs such as brown rice, wholewheat pasta and wholegrain cereals. They’ll fill you up and keep your blood sugar steady, so you don’t experience crashes that leave you reaching for a biscuit.

The idea of exercising at home is a nice one – especially in the depths of winter. It’s no surprise then that one survey found women, on average, spend £181 on fitness equipment, dumbbells, trainers, clothes and exercise DVDs in a year. Sadly, the same survey showed they were rarely used. 

Resolution resolve: Think carefully about whether you really will get the opportunity – and the motivation – to work out at home. Bear in mind, too, that you don't need to spend a fortune on equipment and gadgets to exercise effectively. Try to walk more, and if you love gadgets, buy a pedometer and aim for 10,000 steps a day. Or download a walking app such as Walk Tracker Pro, to track your route, time, pace, speed and calories burned.

Going booze-free may seem a good option when you’re hungover on New Year’s Day, but if you’re used to drinking regularly, by mid-January you’ll miss a tipple so much, you’ll compensate by drinking more – and potentially ending up in a binge/teetotal cycle. 

Resolution resolve: Alcohol is high in calories, so it makes sense to drink less if you want to lose weight, but you don’t have to avoid it completely. In fact, studies show small amounts of alcohol – one or two units a day – help boost heart health in post- menopausal women by increasing HDL or ‘good’ cholesterol levels and reducing the stickiness of blood, which helps prevent blood clots that can cause heart attacks or strokes. Stick to government recommendations of no more than 2-3 units of alcohol daily, and to lose weight, choose lower-cal options such as spirits with diet mixers or white wine with soda water.

Eating tiny portions – or skipping meals – will help you lose weight because it cuts calories, but it also cuts vital nutrients, so your health suffers, too. In addition, you’ll be tired, irritable and unable to concentrate. Hunger will eventually leave you bingeing on the foods you’ve missed.

Resolution resolve: Most women will lose weight on 1,250 calories a day (more if you’re very overweight). Go below this and your body starts using its muscles to provide it with energy, and that lowers metabolism, making it even more difficult to lose weight. If you’re already on a high-fat diet, you may find you can eat a bigger quantity of food by cutting out fatty foods and adding lots of low-cal fruit and veg.

Making resolutions generally means ditching old habits and replacing them with new ones – and that can take time. Bad habits don’t occur overnight, so you can’t expect to create new ones overnight either. In fact, research from University College London found it takes 66 days, on average, to form a new habit – far longer than most of us try for.

You’ll have more chance of sticking to your resolutions in the long term if you set goals that are S.M.A.R.T:
• Specific For example, rather than saying you ‘want to lose weight’, define exactly how much you want to shift. Experts say losing five to ten per cent of weight improves health, so if you weigh 70kg, set yourself the specific goal of 7kg to start with. Once achieved, you can then set a new specific goal.
• Measurable For example, weigh yourself and measure your vital statistics once a week; or monitor how far you run on a treadmill in 15 minutes, once a month.
• Achievable Look at barriers that might stop you from achieving your goal, then plan accordingly. For example, planning to go swimming three times a week isn’t likely if your nearest pool is 30 minutes away, so jogging or cycling may be a more achievable option.
• Realistic If you’ve never run 3k before, it’s not realistic to say you want to run a marathon. That might be your long-term goal, but set smaller distance goals in the short term, for example, a 5k race. When you’ve achieved that, set yourself a new goal of a 10k race.
• Time Set a sensible time scale to achieve your goals – and make sure it’s realistic. Losing 1st in two weeks, for example, isn’t safe or sensible. Realistically, you can expect to lose up to 2lb a week – or 1st in seven weeks.

Detox diets might promise weight loss and less cellulite and bloating, but in reality they usually cause extreme hunger, headaches, dizziness and cravings – all of which are the side effects of low blood sugar levels rather than your body ‘eliminating toxins’. Strict detox diets are also low in nutrients. 

Resolution resolve: Take the healthier aspects of detoxing – eating more fruit and veg, drinking more water and cutting down on junk, processed foods, caffeine and alcohol – and work them into a healthy, balanced eating plan that you can sustain for good. That way you won’t need to start 2013 with lots of health resolutions!