Ask the RD: How to Make “Smart” Resolutions

Join Kelsey Kinney, MS, RD and Laura Schoenfeld, MPH, RD, as they answer your questions about ancestral and Paleo nutrition. A must-listen for anyone new to the Paleo diet or looking to improve their current Paleo diet based on their personal needs and health goals.

The content on this show reflects the opinion of Kelsey and Laura and does not represent the opinions of Chris Kresser, who has not reviewed the content of this podcast.

Happy New Year, everyone! We’re back from a short hiatus. Laura and Kelsey will be addressing the following topic in this podcast:

1. How do I make a health-focused New Years Resolution that will stick?

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Links Discussed:

• Ideal Body Weight Calculator
• Gold star stickers! 🙂
• Order Your Personal Paleo Code (The Paleo Cure in paperback) on Amazon
• YogaGlo
• FitBit Activity Tracker
• Nerd Fitness Academy
• Meal Logger
• Amber Goggles (Laura’s Pick!)
• Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
• Meetup.com

About Laura:Laura is a Registered Dietitian with a Master’s degree in Public Health from UNC Chapel Hill. She is passionate about making traditional diets healthful and accessible for all her clients. You can learn more about Laura by checking out her blog or visiting her on Facebook.

About Kelsey: Kelsey is a Registered Dietitian with a Master’s degree in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine. She works in private practice and recommends individualized dietary therapy focusing on biologically appropriate diet principles to aid her clients in losing weight, gaining energy, and pursuing continued health. You can learn more about Kelsey by visiting her website.

TRANSCRIPT

A huge thank you to Amy Berger from TuitNutrition for the transcript. This was a long one!

LAURA: Hi Everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of Ask the RD. I’m Laura. I have a master’s degree in Public Health Nutrition and will soon be a registered dietitian.

KELSEY: And I’m Kelsey, a registered dietitian with a master’s in Nutrition and Functional Medicine.

LAURA: We’ll be answering your nutrition-related questions on the show, so remember to submit your questions through the online submission form on Chris’s site. And as a reminder to everyone, this is just general advice and should not be used in place of medical advice from a licensed professional.

So today on Ask the RD, instead of answering a specific question, Kelsey and I are going to discuss everyone’s favorite topic for this time of year, and that’s new year’s resolutions. So that actually might be some listeners’ least favorite topic; it’s one of those love it or hate it kind of things, but we’re going to talk about resolutions today because this podcast will be airing right before new year’s, I believe, and we’d like to share our recommendations with you all as we head into 2014. And I’ve been back and forth about resolutions before. I think they can be helpful because this is the time of year that everyone seems to be more motivated and interested in making changes, which is great. And I think it’s good to have a plan, so writing resolutions can help keep you on track. However, I also think it puts a lot of pressure on people to make major changes at this time of year, and I also think people tend to jump on the resolutions bandwagon without really considering whether they’re fully committed to the change they intend to make.

KELSEY: That’s a good point, Laura.

LAURA: Yeah, or if they even have a plan on how to follow through on these resolutions. So just writing your resolution without creating a plan on how to achieve that resolution can be problematic, especially if your resolution is something like, “Lose ten pounds,” or, “Exercise more.” So when a resolution is vague like that, or it doesn’t have action steps, it makes it really difficult to follow through with. So an easy way to make goals that will stick is by following something called a SMART goal format. And this is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. So S-M-A-R-T.

Specific means that you’ve targeted an area for improvement. Measurable means that you can measure your progress towards that goal, or at least quantify it. Attainable means that it’s a realistic goal that’s possible for you to achieve. Relevant means that it’s a worthwhile goal that matches with what you want from your life, and Time-bound means that you’ve set deadlines for when you want to meet the goals that you’ve set. Using these SMART goal formats can…you can apply it to any of the resolution topics that we discuss today. And Kelsey and I are going to help you make resolutions that are not only worthwhile but that also have a good chance of success. And we have six specific topics we’re going to discuss today, and those are: diet, exercise, sleep, stress, play, and socialization. All right, Kelsey, let’s hear your recommendations on how to set a resolution on diet changes.

DIET

KELSEY: Sure. So New Year’s is a great time just to check in with yourself and see what’s been going great, and also what hasn’t. And I think, first of all, just to kind of give an overview of how I like to think about new year’s resolutions is, I would rather see you do it in a totally non-judgmental way, but rather in a constructive and honest way. So as we discussed, there are these six places that are great to do a little checkup on—what Laura just mentioned: food, sleep, exercise, stress, socialization, and play. And as we walk through each of them, try to think about whether it’s something that you’ve done really well with this year and you’d like to continue with the things you’ve been doing, or if it’s something that has been somewhat neglected and should be a focus for you.

So, we’ll start with diet here. And I think this is a really good place to start for a lot of us, especially with the holidays behind us. As I’m sure is true for a lot of you, too, I tend to go off of my usual eating plan during the holidays, and for me, that tends to mean more sweets and treats just because that’s kind of part of my family’s traditions that we’ve had for many, many years. And I don’t really go overboard, but I certainly take the opportunity to enjoy those foods and not worry about it too much. And once new year’s comes around, I think it’s just a great time to reset your diet and get back on track.

So some people like to do with a strict Paleo diet or some people, more like what I do, I just need to take the treats out. Because otherwise, my diet is pretty good. For those of you who don’t go off your usual diet plan during the holidays, it’s a good time to check in just make sure you’re getting the most out of your diet. And this is for someone who went off the rails during the holidays too, but more so for people who did pretty well during the holidays. So that means asking yourself, am I eating the most nutrient dense foods possible? Are you regularly including superfoods, like organ meats and tough, gelatinous cuts of meat, bone broth, and fermented foods. I get off track with that sometimes. I just stop making bone broth or doing something like that, and this is a really good time to check in and get back on track with making those habits and keeping them up.

This yearly check-in is also a great opportunity to take out foods you’ve been wondering if you’re sensitive to. Because, you know, I see this with clients all the time. Some people definitely want to push off working with me during the holidays. Have it after new year’s, because then they’re more likely to actually stick to taking some of the foods we’re worried about out of their diet. So this is a great time to experiment and take out those foods that you’ve been suspicious of and then add them back in to see if they are indeed causing you trouble. Don’t put it off for another year. It’s a good time to do this. And lastly, I think it’s a really excellent time to make sure that your relationship with food is doing well. If you’ve been feeling a bit obsessive about your food intake to the point where it’s affecting other parts of your life, of perhaps you’ve stopped caring about what you put in your body at all—either side of these things is not where you want to be. So now is a time to rethink that relationship, and if you feel as though there’s something not quite healthy about that relationship, it’s a good idea to see someone about it, or just to be more aware of it. The relationship we have with food is so, so important. And it can often be more important to our overall health than the food we eat—you know, how we feel about the food we eat is so important to how we actually take that food and use it in our body.

With all that said, if we want to make a SMART goal related to food, it could be something like, “I will eat three servings of fermented foods a week.” That way, you’re saying it’s you. You’re gonna eat three servings, so it’s specific, you’re saying how many. You’re quantifying that. And you’re saying what you’re going to eat, and you could even make that for a determined amount of time, so you could even do it just for six weeks, kind of to get you on track if that’s more your style. Laura, would you change anything about that goal?

LAURA: I think it could potentially be more specific and say, “I will eat fermented foods on Monday, Wednesday, Friday,” if people think that they…some people really do need that…

KELSEY: Extra specificity.

LAURA: Right. And for some people, they like having the flexibility of just saying three times a week, so maybe that’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, maybe that’s Monday through Wednesday, so it’ll depend on what the listener’s personality is and how they feel they need to be, either very, very specific so that they can basically check it off every time they complete it, or just giving themselves a general idea of three times a week, so that by the time Friday or Saturday rolls around, if they haven’t done it, then they might be able to squeeze in a few servings at the end of the week.

KELSEY: Exactly. And I like what you said about kind of checking it off, and I think you maybe meant mentally, but I think also it would be a great idea to do it physically if you’re that kind of person who loves to do that. So you could have a little chart that you keep on your refrigerator and check off your 1-2-3 for those three times that you’re eating those fermented foods, and if you’re doing it on a specific day, you could have a calendar and check them off on those specific days that you’re supposed to eat them.

LAURA: Right. And I mean, this sounds a little bit juvenile, but even having a sticker, like a small little star that you put…

KELSEY: Right! A gold star! Who wouldn’t want a gold star?

LAURA: Right, exactly! A gold star! Say you just have the three days a week, and it doesn’t matter which day, and every time you eat a fermented food, you put a little star on your calendar. It sounds, like I said, a little bit juvenile, but I think it could be helpful for people that really want to stick to those kind of changes and want to have a visual example of the change that they have made. Especially with food and especially with diet change and those kind of goals that aren’t something like a weight loss goal, it’s a little bit harder to measure sometimes how you’re succeeding.

KELSEY: Right.

LAURA: So it might sound goofy to put a little gold star on every day that you eat an organ meat or—say you want to eat liver once a week and you have a little sticker that you put on every week you eat organ meat, and it’s almost like kind of a fun little challenge to see if you can get the stickers the way that they’re supposed to be every week on the chart.

KELSEY: Right. Plus, you see them add up. You know, if your calendar’s full of gold stickers, come on. That’s gonna be really motivating.

LAURA: Yeah. And you know, some people may not like that strategy, but I think that if people want to have a little fun with it and take it a little less seriously, it might actually be something that can help keep them on track with including superfoods especially, I think would be helpful using that technique.

KELSEY: Yeah, absolutely. Y’know, it’s a little bit harder to make these types of goals if you’re just kind of going back to a stricter Paleo diet. Something that’s a little bit more vague, but you could—instead of just saying, “I will eat a strict Paleo diet starting January 1^st,” you could say something like, “I will take out a certain food group,” so grains, etc., etc., and “I will eat…” we could even bring the fermented foods and the organ meats back. “I will eat one serving of organ meats; I will eat three servings of fermented foods, etc.”  That would be much more specific rather than just saying “I’m going to eat a strict Paleo diet.”

LAURA: Right. And especially because the strict Paleo, even if you only do it for 30 days, eventually most people will reintroduce foods, so it’s like you can’t necessarily do that indefinitely, and most people I don’t think would want to do it indefinitely.

KELSEY: Exactly. And that even specifies it further. “I will do this for 30 days.”

LAURA: Right. And if it’s a goal like that, where you’re doing the 30-day reset, for example, from Chris’s book, maybe you print out a 30-day calendar and every day that you finish, you just X it off. I mean, I’ve done that before with…when I did Diane Sanfilippo’s 21-Day Sugar Detox, I printed out a little countdown calendar and just X’d off every day that I completed. So it’s a little bit of an extra motivation. It’s sort of a way to keep yourself accountable to the changes that you’re making. I just think having a visual image of your success, especially with food, it’s like…it’s hard to measure whether you’re succeeding unless you can just look at the calendar and say, “Oh, look at all the stars!” Or “Look at all the X’s I’ve completed already!”

KELSEY: Right, exactly. And I think having a calendar like that, it just, it really helps you take it one day at a time rather than just thinking, Oh my God, 30 days is so long. You just have to focus on the day that you’re in, and that’s it, and once you’ve completed it, you put that gold star on and you’re done with that day.

LAURA: I love this gold star idea! I think it’s so funny.

KELSEY: I really want to do this now for people.

LAURA: I know. Seriously. I’m thinking maybe I need to come up with a goal so I can make a sticker chart for myself!

KELSEY: Absolutely. So Laura, would you add anything on to this topic of diet here?

LAURA: I don’t think so. I mean, I think it’s going to mainly have to do with the individual person’s goals. So hopefully we’ve given people some ideas of things that they could do if they wanted to tackle a resolution that’s diet-based, but I think that it’ll really depend on what someone’s desired outcome is, because if they want to lose weight, their goal is going to be entirely different than if someone wants to gain weight, or if someone wants to reduce their autoimmune disease symptoms or something like that.

KELSEY: Right, totally. So I think you’re absolutely right about that. And perhaps listening to some of our older podcasts, because we’ve talked about some of that stuff, and reading Chris’s site, or Chris’s new book when it comes out, can help to give you some ideas of what you should be focused on exactly in regards to diet.

LAURA: Right, and just as an aside, I know we keep promoting this book, but we included some really helpful tools that people can use in the book that they can actually use in their resolution setting. So every chapter has its own little quiz that goes with it, and it’s a symptom quiz basically. And if you fill it out and you have a high score, the quiz basically directs you to that topic as being an area for focus. So the book’s coming out I think December 31^st is the date…

KELSEY: Yeah, I believe so.

LAURA:  So if you’ve preordered it, I think Amazon can actually get it to you by maybe January 1^st or something. I think Amazon’s kind of crazy like that. But I think that maybe putting off the resolution a couple days and getting that book read and figuring out what your actual priorities should be could be really helpful for people, because that’s where the Relevant part of the SMART goal comes in, because you want to make sure that you’re setting a worthwhile goal that’s gonna really make an impact in your health.

KELSEY: Absolutely. Cool! So I think that’s a really good overview of diet and making those SMART goals. So do you want to move on to exercise now, Laura?

EXERCISE

LAURA: Sure! Well, exercise is definitely one of those resolutions that you need to come up with specific changes that you want to make. You can’t just say that your resolution is to exercise more, because as we mentioned before, that’s not measurable or specific. Another poorly worded resolution would be to “get in shape,” which I think back in college, I would be like, “My resolution is to get in shape!” I mean, what does that even mean?

KELSEY: Right. And of course, that kind of sets you up for failure, because who even knows what that means?

LAURA: Like what shape? I want to get into a cube shape. Anyway, sorry, that’s really lame. Okay, so you really need to come up with the specific steps you’re going to take so that you can have an action plan to follow. Otherwise, you’ll just lose focus after a few weeks of just working out more. So, some good examples of goals that would be specific are, “I will exercise a minimum of 150 minutes per week.” Or, “I will attend yoga classes twice a week.” And you can even get more specific if you’d like, so you can use a goal such as, “I will attend yoga class on Tuesday and Thursday every week until the end of March.” So that way you can actually…

KELSEY: Right. Real specific.

LAURA: Right, and you can use your sticker chart that you created! But that way you can easily track how well you’re following your resolution. And if you have a fitness goal, such as weight loss, or some people, improve performance is their goal because they’ve maybe been working out for a long time. It’s not only crucial to have a specific goal and the specific steps you’ll take to meet that goal, but you also need to make sure your goal is realistic. So if your goal is to lose 30 pounds by the end of January, that would probably not be possible for most people. Same thing if your goal is to bench press your body weight by February and you’re only able to bench press 40 pounds right now, that’s probably not a realistic goal. So as far as weight loss goes, losing an average of 1-2 pounds per week is usually pretty realistic for most people. This kind of depends on how much weight you have to lose. If you only have about 10-15 pounds total to lose, it can actually make it hard to lose that one pound a week. And if you have, say, 50 pounds to lose, you might find that you can easily lose 3 or 4 pounds a week. So I would say for most people, aiming to lose about 5 pounds per month until you meet your goal weight is an attainable goal. And it’s also specific and it’s measurable. Say your goal weight loss is 20 pounds. You will say, “I want to lose 5 pounds per month until the end of April, by which time I’ll have lost 20 pounds.” So that’s an attainable and realistic goal to set. And if people are interested, they can look up their ideal body weight based on their height and gender to get a rough idea of what might be an appropriate end goal, because sometimes people set those end goals too low as well. And that’s not likely to be a healthy or sustainable goal in the long run. So I’ll link to a calculator that listeners can use to help determine a healthy weight range for themselves. It’s pretty wide. I think mine is like…it says between 125 to 165 pounds would be healthy. So it’s not like, “145 pounds is your ideal weight and that’s it.” It gives you a really good range, so people can check that out if they’re interested in seeing what would be a good goal for themselves to set.

And there are some different techniques that can help people stick to their exercise plan. One idea is to enlist a buddy that has a similar fitness goal and that way you can both keep each other on track with your workouts. When you have someone that’s holding you accountable, it motivates you to stick to your plan, whether that’s meeting at the gym, going for walks or runs together, or simply just calling to check in with each other on a regular basis to see how things are going. Another idea is to sign up for personal training sessions if you can afford it, because that way, you’re not only accountable to your trainer, but you’re also investing money into it, which is motivating in itself. Joining a group exercise program can also help keep you accountable because a lot of times you make friends in these groups, and they may start to expect to see you regularly. I know when I’ve done CrossFit in the past, if I didn’t show up for a couple days, I would get back and people would be like, “Where have you been?!” Of course they’re just being friendly, but it does kind of motivate you to keep coming if you feel like people are going to be wondering where you are.

Another idea is to pay for a few months of a gym membership or a set of exercise  classes in advance, because if you’ve already paid for it, you may make more of an effort to make the most of what you paid for. So instead of just signing up for a yoga class, or a couple yoga classes, maybe get a package that…you’re gonna want to use it, because you’ve spent the money on it and it’ll help keep you going instead of…

KELSEY: And usually they’re time limited, so you would buy a pack for a month, or two months, or three months, so you have to use them within that timeframe.

LAURA: Right. So if you’re setting a performance goal, such as a PR for a specific lift, or maybe a race time, it helps to keep a log of your training sessions so you can monitor your progress. And sometimes you can even download training plans and fill them out as time goes by to make sure you’re progressing toward your goal. So if your goal is a race that you want to run and you want to have a specific time for it, or if you want to just complete the race, which I think is…y’know, I’ve done that before…

KELSEY: A worthy goal, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah. When I did a 10-mile race, I had a whole…I think it was six weeks that I had downloaded a training plan for, and that actually helped a lot because I could see every day what I was supposed to do. So they would have like 3 or 4 runs per week and then 2 strength training days or cross training, I guess they called it. So that was helpful for me because it kept me on track with the workouts I was supposed to be doing to prepare myself, and it was created by a professional fitness trainer, so I was confident that it was going to be an actual useful training plan and not just…I wasn’t going to show up on the day of the race and be totally unprepared for what I was going to do.

KELSEY: Right. Yeah, that’s great.

LAURA: So either people can check out downloadable training plans, or if you sign up for a couple of personal training classes, maybe you ask your trainer to set you up with a couple months of training plans or something. And a good trainer won’t have a problem with doing that, because sometimes they’ll say, “No, you need to come back and see me!” But if you buy a couple of training sessions and the trainer shows you what to do, and then you say, okay, can we set up a couple weeks where I can do this on my own and then I can come back and check in with you. That’s a little bit of a cheaper way to do the training thing.

And then also, with the weight loss goal, I do recommend that people weigh themselves weekly and record their weight in some kind of log. Some people do like to weigh themselves daily, which I guess…that’s fine if you like to do that, but it can sometimes be discouraging to people because day to day, weight tends to fluctuate a decent amount. So, for the general population I would suggest just picking a day and time when you’re going to weigh yourself every week so you have a measurement of your progress. So maybe that’s Wednesday morning right after you wake up, that’s the day you’re gonna measure yourself. And then you can keep track on a weekly basis what your progress is. And like I said, I think exercise in particular really requires very specific, measurable goals that are monitored regularly. And once you start to get into this new routine, you might actually find that it takes a lot less motivation to stick with it over time because you just get used to doing it on a regular basis. Did you have any suggestions on exercise?

KELSEY: I loved those, Laura. But I would also add that there are a few kind of…apps or just technological advances that we have now that can help, too. If you have an iPhone or a smart phone, I think there’s some app, and I forget what it’s called right now, but you made me think of it, and you set a goal and I think if you don’t work out one day that you said you would, you basically pay money to the app developer. So when people miss their sessions, they have to pay to do that, so I think that’s a really good motivator, especially…it doesn’t have to be a lot of money, but even if it’s a dollar or two, you’d be like, “No, I have to go to the gym because I’m gonna get charged if I don’t go to the gym.” So I think that can really work for people.

And I have to say that I use a website called Yoga Glo to do yoga at home sometimes, and on there, you can make a goal based on either the number of classes you want to do per week or the amount of hours of yoga you want to do per week. And it’ll keep track of that and show this bar that fills up as you start to get closer to that goal every week. And I think that just seeing stuff like that, like we were talking about with the calendar, is so, so helpful. So look online, find some of these cool apps that can help you stick to your goals. That’s an excellent way to do things too. And just going back to diet for a second, if you wanted to keep a food diary like we’re talking about a training diary type thing, Meal Logger is a great option for an app and there are plenty of others too if you just type “food diary” into the app search, you’ll find plenty of things.

LAURA: Yeah, I think that’s a really good idea. I’ve never heard of that option for Yoga Glo, so I’ll have to look into that. One thing that you jogged my memory about is that a really good fitness goal for a lot of people is number of steps taken per day. So, I think the number that gets thrown around a lot about what the ideal goal should be for the general population is 10,000 steps a day. That might be a lot for someone starting out, especially if you’re fairly sedentary, because I think 10,000 steps is…is it like five miles or something?

KELSEY: I’m not sure, to be honest with you.

LAURA: It’s pretty far, because I think I measured it before as far as my own activity, and it’s difficult to get to that level unless you’re working on a treadmill desk or something. But if you are someone that feels that a steps goal would be good for you, which I think is a great idea for a lot of people, maybe you set the goal to be 5000 steps every day for the first month. And you know, you don’t have to buy a high-tech pedometer. You can use a simple one. I have a Fitbit, which is a little more expensive but I really like it a lot. It measures more than just steps, but if you’re just getting a pedometer, it should be a couple of bucks, basically. Sometimes they even give them away for free at some companies. So if you wanted to set a steps goal, say it’s the 5000 steps a day for the first month. That means that you wear your pedometer every day, and then at the end of every day you go into your…it can literally be just a black and white notebook that you’re writing this down in, and you just write down the number that you’ve achieved every day. So maybe you do the first day and you find that you’ve only done 3500 or 4000 or something. And then the next day maybe you work a little harder and you find that you’ve made your 5000 steps goal. So it gives you kind of an idea of how hard you have to work every day to get to that goal. And then maybe once you’ve met the end of the month, you can say, “Okay, now I’m going to upgrade to 6000 steps a day.” So I think that that’s another really nice goal to set for the general population, mainly because most of us don’t get enough steps in during the day, and it’s really measurable because you can literally just look at this little thing that’s clipped onto your belt and it’ll tell you what you’ve done so you don’t have to figure out certain goals to set.

KELSEY: Right. Numbers can be so, so helpful that way. When you just see it like that, there’s no lying about it. You can’t trick yourself into thinking you did more than you actually did.

LAURA: Right. I mean, obviously there’s some level of measurement error that’s possible, but I think that these things are pretty accurate, and I almost think it’s a better goal to set than a specific weight loss goal, because weight’s one of those things that, y’know, maybe you drank more water the day before and that’s why you’ve put on an extra pound.

KELSEY: Right.

LAURA: So it’s a little less…how do I describe it? I just feel like weight can be a very slippery slope as far as setting health goals.

KELSEY: It can, and especially since you mentioned…if you’re measuring every day, it can be a little more discouraging. And yeah, setting goals that are really just about the number of minutes you do something or the number of steps you’re taking, rather than, “I want to weigh 20 pounds less,” which can fluctuate a little bit. That’s just part of our bodies, that it fluctuates. It’s never going to be static, so you have to kind of keep that in mind as you’re going through making these goals too.

SLEEP

LAURA: Right. So, okay, I think that’s good for exercise. Did you want to talk about sleep now?

KELSEY: Sure. So I think sleep is the beginning of the rest of these six areas that we can make goals on, and I separate it out because I think that most of us, when we think goals, we tend to think nutrition and exercise. That’s just kind of where we start. But these last four that we’re going to talk about, I feel like tend to be put on the backburner a little more often. And of course one of those is sleep. Something that really, a lot of us don’t get enough if. In fact, I think it’s almost a third of us get less than 6 hours a night, which is not good when we’re aiming for 7-9 hours a night. And getting less than 6 means we’re way off that mark. So if that sounds like you, definitely make sleep a priority this coming year. That means making time for sleep. So, turning off your computer and other devices a couple hours before bedtime, and taking that time to relax so that you’re ready for bed when that time comes around.

And there are a few ways that you can think about making goals. You can start to keep the lights lower once it gets dark out by using lamps or other low lights, rather than those big, bright overhead lights if you can do that. And that’s because artificial light causes us to produce less melatonin, which in turn disrupts our sleep. So make sure to reduce your exposure to artificial light. That could be an excellent goal. Obviously we’ll make that more specific, so that as much as possible the body can do its job and produce that melatonin, which will make you tired and make sure you sleep through the night.

You could also make a goal to purchase a pair of amber glasses that block the blue light, which is the kind of light that disrupts the melatonin production. And that might also let you sleep better. Laura, I know you have a pair of those, so how have those helped you?

LAURA: Well, they’re super goofy looking, but I do find that if I wear them while I’m either working on the computer in the evening or even watching TV or watching a movie, they make me…like I can’t stay up to do work. And granted, I haven’t really been staying up that late in the last couple days or weeks, to do work since I’m not a graduate student anymore, but when I was a student and I was staying up until 11 doing work on the computer, I would literally be feeling like I was nodding off. Whereas if I don’t wear the goggles, then I can stay up until 1:00 in the morning doing work and it wouldn’t really affect me. So I don’t think it’s something that people really appreciate until they actually use it and see how well they work.

KELSEY: Right, yeah. I think that’s awesome. And I have a couple clients who are using them and they really like how it affects their sleep and they’ve said kind of the same thing that you’ve said. I’ve yet to get a pair yet. Sleep doesn’t tend to be one of my issues. I can fall asleep in a second. But that’s really important. So if you’re the type of person who can just stay up really, really late on the computer or watching TV or something like that, usually that’s related to your exposure to artificial light. So a good goal to make here would be, for example, “When I come home every day from work [if it’s dark out at that time], I will use lamps” – you could even write down specific lamps in particular areas of your home – “and keep them on until a certain time,” or whenever you want to go to bed, make that the end time when the lights go off, so say “until 10:30pm every night, at which point I will get in bed.” So it doesn’t mean you actually have to fall asleep at 10:30, because that’s kind of unrealistic. We don’t know exactly when we’re going to fall asleep. But you can say when you’re going to get in bed. That’s a reasonable goal. What do you think about that, Laura?

LAURA: Yeah, I think setting a bedtime is a good idea basically for anyone, even if you’re not someone who struggles with sleep. Just because it kind of gives you a more concrete goal as far as addressing your sleep issues. Just because I think just saying, “Oh, my goal is to sleep better,” is very nebulous, and if your goal is to be in bed by 10:30 every night, then you can actually see if you’re achieving that. And something that can help is setting an alarm to actually go to bed, as opposed to an alarm that’s waking you up, you need to set an alarm that says, okay, it’s time to start getting ready to go to bed.

And obviously there’ll be some nights that you’re not following this, like on a Saturday night if you’re out to dinner and you don’t get home until 11:00 or something. But I’d say for most nights, if you have that alarm going off, even if it’s an alarm 30 minutes before you need to go to bed just reminding yourself to start getting ready, or it could also be an alarm that goes off telling you when to put the lights down or put your goggles on.

KELSEY: Exactly, exactly.

LAURA: So again, just setting these goals that are very specific and very easy to implement is really important for the success of the goal.

KELSEY: Right. And I think the bedtime goal is a perfect first step. If you’re not really sure where to start, making that bedtime goal is an excellent place to start. So you could say, “I will get in bed at 10:30pm at least four nights a week.” So that gives you a little bit of leeway on some of those nights that it’s just not gonna happen. And I think that’s really an important thing to focus on if you’ve realized that sleep is something that’s been neglected for a while for you. And as we go through these other topics here, they all play into sleep as well. So, for example, managing your movement. So your exercise. They’ve done studies that show people who don’t exercise much or don’t get a lot of movement through their day tend to sleep more poorly. So making sure that you’re exercising enough can help you to sleep better. So sleep is kind of this one that everything else plays into. And I think you want to make these action steps that will help you to sleep better, so keeping lights low, using goggles, setting a bedtime, making sure you’re exercising enough. Managing your stress is another big one which we’ll talk about soon. And getting all those areas of your life under control can greatly help you to better your sleep.

And even going back to diet, we could say stop consuming stimulants, like caffeine and chocolate. Sometimes those affect your sleep and Laura answered a question I think last time on our podcast about sleep nutrition. So that could be really useful for you if you’re having difficulty sleeping and maybe you’ve kind of taken a lot of the other things into consideration and diet seems to be that last step that might be holding you back.

LAURA: Yeah, and Chris has a good chapter on sleep in his book, so if this is something that you want more information about how to address this issue, he’s got a lot of really good recommendations in there.

KELSEY: Right, and he’s got chapters on all these topics, so if any of these are an issue for you, it’s a good idea to grab that book and check out what you can do.

LAURA: Right. So, one other thing I wanted to mention as far as setting alarms, you can also set an alarm that tells you when to turn off electronics. So things like your TV, your iPad, your phone. Maybe set a 10pm limit on those things and just say, “Okay, at 10pm I’m going to turn off all electronic devices that are light-emitting.”

KELSEY: Right.

LAURA: And I think that actually is a very difficult thing for a lot of people to do, especially people that enjoy watching TV late at night, or check their phone a lot before they go to bed, so that in itself could be a pretty important goal for some people to set. And there are some people that really like these late-night TV shows. I personally think it’s a better idea to get a service like Hulu, or a DVR recording device…

KELSEY: Like TiVO or something like that.

LAURA: Right, and record these shows so you can watch them at a more reasonable time during the day, because I just think staying up until 1:00 in the morning watching TV is probably one of the worst things people can do for their health, or for their sleep health. So setting limits on TV and screen time and having an alarm that reminds you to turn the screens off could be a good resolution for some people to make.

STRESS

KELSEY: Absolutely. Cool, so I think that goes over sleep pretty well for everyone, so do you want to move on to stress now, Laura?

LAURA: Yeah, well, stress is kind of like sleep, where it’s a topic that doesn’t really get enough attention in people’s new year’s resolutions, and again, I think it’s because it’s a hard concept to make concrete goals about. I think most people could say that they want to be less stressed, but knowing how to reduce your stress can be really challenging, especially if you just don’t know what’s causing your stress or how to manage it. But I do think that it’s worth addressing stress as a new year’s resolution, because like sleep, it makes a huge difference in your health. And people can create SMART goals that address their stress levels. One of the best ways to do that is to commit to a regular stress-relieving practice. And there are a number of different options that you can do for stress relief, such as yoga, like you mentioned. There’s meditation, tai chi, visualization practices. Again, Chris has really good ideas in his book, which is coming out very soon, so we highly recommend checking it out, but the important part here, no matter what you choose as your stress relieving activity, is to start slowly, especially with techniques like meditation, which really do take some time to get the hang of. And I think if your resolution is to meditate every morning, make sure you’re setting a reasonable time for yourself, and I think it’s a great place to start at, say, five minutes of meditation every morning, which, for some people that might actually be a lot. And you can always increase it from there, but starting slowly will make this type of resolution much more achievable. You don’t want to start off by saying, “I’m gonna meditate for 30 minutes every morning for the next month.” I mean, I just don’t think that that’s a good place to start for a beginner.

KELSEY: Right. And I will say that I was kind of interested in meditation, so my yoga studio, every week on I think Sunday nights, they do a meditation. And this was my first dive into meditation. It was an hour long, and I just hated it.

LAURA: Oh my gosh.

KELSEY: So I just really suggest that if you want to get into meditation that you definitely start with something really, really small, because you might just feel so uncomfortable doing it for an hour that it’ll turn you off from it for a while.

LAURA: Right. I mean it’s almost like an exercise. You know, if you haven’t been exercising, you’re not going to say, “I’m going to run for an hour today.”

KELSEY: Right.

LAURA: That would be insane.

KELSEY: Right, Like me.

LAURA: Well, maybe not insane. I meant more with the running thing. But with the meditation thing, it’s definitely one of those things that if you’re not used to doing it or you’ve never done it before, you’d be surprised how quickly you get tired of it.

KELSEY: Absolutely.

LAURA: So I think a five-minute goal is a good starting place for most people, and if you find that that’s easy, which I don’t know a whole lot of people who find meditation easy, but you can always increase it to ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, and maybe get up to an hour by the end of the year.

KELSEY: Right.

LAURA: And another option for a stress-related resolution could be to sign up for a stress-reducing education program, and your resolution would be to complete the course. So you can find local or online mindfulness-based stress reduction programs, and they may take from a few days to a few weeks to complete. Or maybe like Kelsey said, your local yoga studio has a multi-week series you can sign up for, either for yoga or meditation. And sometimes it’s easier to have some structure with these programs when you’re first starting out, since like I said, they do take some practice to get comfortable with. And if you sign up for these courses, you can be led step by step through the beginning stages of getting into these practices, so that by the time you finish the program you’ll feel more confident doing it on your own, or just being able to do it on a regular basis. I know in North Carolina near me, they offer the mindfulness-based stress reduction programs I think on a quarterly basis, so every three months they have a different class that you can sign up for. So maybe people can look into that, and I think there are online programs that run continuously that you can sign up for that might take you step by step through the process. I think that would be a good thing for people to sign up for if they’ve never done any of these activities, because it is difficult to start from ground zero basically, with these programs. I almost think it’s harder to do this than exercise, because exercise is at least kind of like a natural thing that…y’know, you at least walk around during the day, so it’s not completely new…

KELSEY: Right, that’s true.

LAURA: Sometimes things like meditation, you can be surprised how hard they can be, because I tried it before too.

KELSEY: But it’s not.

LAURA: Yeah. I am terrible at it, which means I should probably set some kind of resolution related to it.

KELSEY: That’s actually a really good point. If you kind of walk yourself through all these different topics and you’re noticing that maybe one or two of them you’re like, “Ugh, I can’t be bothered with that,” that’s a good sign that that’s exactly what you need to work on.

LAURA: Right.

KELSEY: And I know that that’s something that I notice myself doing, and then I have to stop myself and say, “Okay, maybe I should think a little bit more about this and actually make a goal about one of these things,” because that’s just such a good sign. Especially when I’m working with a client and I ask them about their stress levels, they’re like, “Oh, y’know, whatever. I don’t even want to talk about it.”

LAURA: Yeah.

KELSEY: That, to me, is a really good hint that that’s probably one of their biggest issues, y’know?

LAURA: Or they might think that it’s normal to be that stressed.

KELSEY: Exactly.

LAURA: Which, I think especially in American culture, it’s one of those things that being stressed is almost like a badge of honor, basically.

KELSEY: Yeah.

LAURA: And it’s sometimes hard to kind of take a step back and look at your life and say, okay, there’s a difference between normal stress and stress that could be damaging. Y’know, no one’s going to have a completely stress-free life. We’re not saying that that’s an achievable goal, but at least being aware of what the sources of stress in your life are and addressing them and either removing the sources of stress as much as possible, or figuring out ways to deal with it in a constructive way. Because I know so many people that just work and work and work, and they don’t really pay attention to the fact that they’re running themselves into the ground. And I’ve been there before myself; it’s almost impossible to avoid when you’re a grad student, but it’s something that if you don’t address, it can definitely throw off all of the other resolutions we’ve talked about today, so this may be something people should consider at least addressing. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a resolution that you set, but at least thinking about how stress may be playing into your success in the other goals that you’re setting.

KELSEY: Yeah, absolutely. One other thing I want to mention about stress is that something I’ve found that helps my clients a lot to reduce their overall stress level, y’know, other than these kind of mind-body techniques, is to focus a lot on time management. Because the people who tend to be the most stressed tend to be the kind of people who have a million things going on. Y’know, they’re kind of disorganized, they don’t really have specific things that they’re supposed to be doing at specific times, and for those people, it’s really helpful to get on track with time management. So setting when they’re going to do specific things, making goals for what they’re going to accomplish and when, like when they need to go to the grocery store…kind of having a place for all of the things that they need to do. And that helps immensely to reduce the overall stress level, because if you know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing at any given time, then you can make a choice as to whether you want to incorporate a little bit of play, which we’ll talk about next. You have the ability to kind of alter that a little bit, because you know that you can stretch things a little bit, whereas if you are just all over the place, you don’t even know what you need to accomplish, never mind if you’re going to be able to do it if you introduce a little bit of spontaneous play or something like that within your week.

PLAY

LAURA: Yeah, so I think that’s a good transition into our next topic, so do you want to tell our listeners about play?

KELSEY: Yeah, absolutely! So this is probably the one that most of us forget about. We relate play to children, and we think that now that we’re adults, we don’t have time for play, or that we shouldn’t play, but I think that we absolutely should. And I think some of us may not even know what play is anymore. So play can be something that you enjoy doing. And it should be creative, it should be all-consuming and improvisational. It could be playing a board game, creating or listening to music or art, or playing a team sport. Really, it’s totally up to you and it should be something that you love and enjoy doing. Also, it doesn’t need to accomplish any type of goal, which is kind of ironic, given what we’re talking about today. But it means that you don’t need to win the board game, so…I mean, that might make it a little more fun, to win the board game, but really the act of playing the game itself is more important when you’re playing. And honestly, this is something I need to focus on in the new year. I’m sure you can relate, Laura, that over the last couple of years, we’ve both been working on our master’s degrees, and now that I’m finally done, the first thing I thought was, yes, now I can do some fun things that I’ve really been avoiding for the last couple of years just while I was doing this. And the first thing that I did, or the first play thing I did was to have a snowball fight…”

LAURA: Nice!

KELSEY: Which was so much fun, yeah! And it had just snowed a ton here, because right now I’m in Massachusetts visiting family for the holidays, and I was outside with my boyfriend doing something practical, of course, and then somehow it ended up turning into a snowball fight, and it was so great! And usually I would just be like, “Oh, I don’t have time to waste doing this…I need to do homework” or something, but doing that, it really woke me up and energized me, and that’s exactly the point of play. You kind of disappear into it and time stops because you’re having so much  fun.

LAURA: And the nice thing is that a lot of these play experiences, like something like a snowball fight or a kickball game or something like that, that’s a little bit more obvious as far as being play, but play could also be something like doing a crossword puzzle on your own. It doesn’t necessarily have to be with another person.

KELSEY: Right.

LAURA: Or it could be, y’know, if you have a dog, just roughhousing with your dog a little bit. The whole point—I think you hit the nail on the head there—I actually think it shouldn’t have a purpose. I mean I guess sometimes they can have purposes, like if you want to do an art project, then you might have a goal in mind as far as the end result, but I think the best type of play is actually stuff that has no purpose, because that way it’s kind of like giving you a little bit of an escape from…a lot of us get into this routine where everything you do has to have a purpose, and if you’re not doing something purposeful you feel like you’re wasting time. Especially, you know, I’m a little bit of a type A, maybe a type half-A or something, where I get into this mode where everything has to be productive and I forget that sometimes you can do stuff just for fun. And I think setting aside time, purposefully, to do something that has no purpose, is a really good idea. So I don’t know if that’s something that you were going to mention.

KELSEY: Yeah, y’know, I think that’s a little bit confusing, honestly, with play, because I do think that play should be very spontaneous. So I think scheduling it in may not be the best way to go about it, however, obviously if you’re a soccer game or something, usually that’s gonna be somewhat set in your schedule, but something like a snowball fight, that was completely spontaneous and just happened on the moment, but going back to what I was talking about, about time management, I think that making sure you’re on track with everything you need to do allows you that flexibility in your schedule to fit in play when it occurs. If I didn’t know that I was all done with my homework or something else that I had to do, then I probably would’ve said I can’t take half an hour to have this snowball fight, and what a bummer that is. So I think really focusing on your stress and time management and making sure that you are on track with everything allows you that flexibility to incorporate play more often.

LAURA: Right. And I think it’ll depend on people’s individual circumstances, because I know for me, if I was going to set a play goal for myself, I would probably find some kind of social sport or something to sign up for, which, like you said, if that’s something you like doing, that’s going to have a scheduled component to it.

KELSEY: And you could probably do bits of both. You know, have a scheduled component so you’re making sure you’re getting a certain amount, but then allowing yourself some extra time during the week for spontaneous play as well.

LAURA: Right. So I think for people that are very lacking when it comes to play in their lives that scheduling something that’s on a recurring basis can actually be helpful because it’ll get them into the habit of doing stuff that’s like that, so then once that starts to become a habit, and like you said, getting time management skills on track is actually another helpful thing for getting enough play in your life. But maybe once they’ve started to incorporate scheduled play time, then they’ll start to appreciate it more, and then when opportunities come up to just be spontaneous in play situations, then they might be more likely to go for it. It’s almost like taking small steps towards that goal.

KELSEY: Right, yeah. Spontaneous play is probably the end goal here, and most people won’t start there. You’re absolutely right.

LAURA: Right. So just as far as resolutions go, I think scheduling maybe a weekly softball game that you go play, or even scheduling like 30 minutes a night that you do Sudoku puzzles that you really enjoy. It seems a little silly to schedule it, but I think the more people commit to doing it, the more they’ll appreciate it and do it on a more regular and spontaneous basis. But that’s me being type A – “I need to schedule my volleyball game because I won’t do it if I don’t have it on my schedule!”

KELSEY: No, and that’s a great point. There are different types of people, and someone who is a type A might feel much more comfortable doing a scheduled activity. But I do think the end goal is to incorporate some type of spontaneous play, and that can be anything. It doesn’t have to be something as grand as a snowball fight.

LAURA: Right.

KELSEY: It could be just five minutes of doing something that you really enjoy, that on the spur of the moment catches your interest. So that’s obviously the end goal, but I think a good first step, especially for someone that’s kind of a type A personality, would be to schedule it in in the form of some type of social activity like we were talking about. And I think that’s actually a really good step into our next topic, which is socialization.

SOCIALIZATION

LAURA: Yeah, well when I was looking into the socialization goal setting, it kind of seemed to be blending with play a lot.

KELSEY: Yeah.

LAURA: So this could be kind of a two-part resolution for people if they’re finding that this area of their life is lacking. And I’m sure like me, and maybe you might find this too, I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there that have allowed their social life to take a backseat to things, such as their career, or their family…”

KELSEY: Or their master’s degree…

LAURA: Right, seriously. Even health can sometimes cause people to have their social life put on the back burner. I think this is especially common in the Paleo community because many times people who are intensely focused on their diet and exercise routine actually end up avoiding social situations that might put them off track with their health goals. But as people may be aware, socialization is a really important component of health, and it’s an important part of life that really needs to have as much attention paid to it as diet and exercise, if not maybe more, depending on what your circumstances are.

So socialization goals may actually be easier to set than people might think. You don’t necessarily need to make plans with your current friends. You might actually consider setting a goal to get involved in a new social group and attend social events on a regular basis. For example, you could join a meetup group. There’s a website called meetup.com, and maybe you resolve to attend one event per month, minimum, for the next year. Or if you’re more ambitious, maybe you could set a resolution to attend one event per week. Or if you’d rather nurture the relationships that you already have, you can find a friend who is also interested in improving their social life and maybe set a weekly or bi-weekly meetup with them that you both can stick to for a few months. So maybe you meet for coffee every Saturday morning, or maybe you find a restaurant that you both like to get lunch at and maybe you can get lunch every Sunday.

And you can combine your socialization goals with your exercise goals, too, or I guess this actually combines it with your play goals as well. Maybe you meet up with a friend for an hour long walk, or you join a kickball team that plays on a weekly basis. And obviously these socialization goals are largely going to depend on people’s age and family situation and health status, but maybe a 25-year-old single person would be interested in joining a weekly trivia team at a bar, whereas a 45-year-old married person may simply choose one day a week where they get to set aside an hour or two to socialize with a friend and get away from their family responsibilities. And then maybe a 65-year-old will want to join a book club that meets monthly. And obviously I’m being wildly stereotypical right now, but I just am trying to demonstrate to our listeners that there are really an infinite number of opportunities for nurturing social connection, and setting a resolution to do this might be a good idea for people who are used to making more health related goals and not really attending to their social lives. So this, like I said, it plays pretty well into the play goal setting, because a lot of times this will overlap with play.

KELSEY: Right, and usually someone who isn’t playing a lot isn’t socializing a lot, either.

LAURA: Right, and I think a lot of times, people that are very focused on things like, like we said, career, or school, or their families, or their health, they tend to kind of put socialization low on their totem pole of priorities. So yeah, once in a while you have to make sacrifices, but if you’re constantly sacrificing your social life for these other things, I think setting a resolution that’s related to socialization might actually be a good idea for some people. And like I said, it could be as easy as finding a friend and saying, “Hey, do you want to meet for coffee one day every two weeks,” or maybe even one day a month, maybe it’s the first Saturday of every month you meet for coffee. It could be something as simple as that, but I think that could make a difference in someone’s life that is struggling to get enough socialization time with their current responsibilities and their current priorities.

KELSEY: Right, and I think going back to play a little bit, too, one of the end goals of socialization could be to say yes to spontaneous events, because I think sometimes that tends to be the thing that we’re always saying no to when our time management is out of whack. When we don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing or what we need to accomplish, our immediate reaction is no, and the end goal should be always, or at least most of the time, to change that answer to yes. Y’know, figure out ways you can make these spontaneous things happen for you, because I think that spontaneousness—if that’s even a word…

LAURA: Spontaneity?

KELSEY: Yes, thank you! That is so important, and it makes us have so much more fun sometimes when we’re doing these things. Scheduling is really helpful of course when you’re trying to make goals, but being spontaneous is excellent and it kind of helps your brain to feel a little bit more creative, I think.

LAURA: Yeah, and I think with the socialization the same issue can came up where we talked about play, where if people aren’t used to doing it, just trying to spontaneously increase it is going to be difficult…

KELSEY: And it probably won’t happen, yeah.

LAURA: Right. So say you set a resolution to meet a friend for coffee every Saturday. Maybe that ends up snowballing and maybe that friend will say, “Oh, do you want to go to a concert on Friday,” or “Do you want to go shopping with me,” and it may actually lead to spontaneous opportunities for socialization. Or say you join a kickball team and you make some friends, and then those new friends you make start inviting you spontaneously to things. I think it’s helpful to have a scheduled socialization time for people that don’t socialize enough, so that way, it may open the door to future unscheduled socialization opportunities, because like you said, it can be difficult to just say, “My goal is to socialize more.” That really doesn’t mean anything until you put some kind of specific goal with that end point.

So hopefully people understand a little bit about how to set SMART goals. Obviously working with somebody can help you set goals, depending on what the topic of the goal is. And really just writing these things down and having a plan of attack, especially with the ones that really do require a level of commitment, those strategies that we talked about earlier can be helpful with the success of the goals that you do set.

KELSEY: Yeah, exactly. Making them specific I think is just…the more specific you can make your goal, the more likely you are to accomplish it. I really think that’s true.

LAURA: Right.

KELSEY: So hopefully this has given you a good overview of how to make those really SMART goals, and we hope to hear about all of your success with your new year’s resolutions later this year.

LAURA: Yeah! And maybe people can post in the comments of this podcast what their goals are and maybe see if you can work on writing it in a SMART format, so making it specific and measurable, and time-based and all that.

KELSEY: Yeah.

LAURA: I know Kelsey and I would love to hear back from you guys what kind of goals you might be setting based on what we’ve talked about today.

KELSEY: Right, and who knows – you might find a buddy in the comments who’s doing the same type of goal as you and you can kind of chat back and forth as you go through things, too.

LAURA: Yeah, definitely! Or share advice about…if you have an exercise program you’ve found that has helped you stay on track, like I know there’s this one by a guy named Steve Kamb, I think, and it’s Nerd Fitness.

KELSEY: Yeah.

LAURA: And they have this Nerd Fitness Academy. I actually signed up for it because it has some really good workout routines that are very structured, and they adjust to your level of fitness and you can go a little bit more intense, you can go more basic, depending on where you are in your fitness, but those kind of things, if people have recommendations for programs that can help people get started on some of these goals we’d love to hear your advice or your recommendations.

KELSEY: Absolutely.

LAURA: So all right, everyone. We hope you enjoyed the show today, our little new year’s themed podcast. And of course we would love any feedback that you have on how we can make our podcast even better, and as reminder, you can submit your nutrition-related questions through the link on Chris’s website. And who knows? We might answer your question on the next show. So have a great week, everyone. Happy New Year, and we’re looking forward to seeing you next time!

KELSEY: All right, take care, Laura.

LAURA: You too, Kelsey.