New Year’s Weight Loss: The Easiest Ways to Make Progress

We’ve all rolled our eyes at the phrase “new year, new me” at one point or another. But, then, December comes calling. Before you know it, you’re staring down the 31st and feeling a little contemplative. Maybe it’s time for a “new me” after all.

New Year’s weight loss resolutions are among the most common proclamations people make before the ball drops. The Pew Research Center suggests that weight loss resolutions for the new year account for a “large majority” of the promises folks make to themselves—though almost half fail to see their commitments through. 

Let’s make sure you don’t fall into that bucket. These are the best tips and tricks for sticking to wellness resolutions, plus a look at the science behind it all to help you answer those nagging questions like, “When do you start to see weight loss?”

Understand Your “Why” for New Year’s Weight Loss Resolution

Motivation precedes action. To embark on a weight loss New Year’s resolution, you need two things; a motive and a destination. Let’s start with the former; a study published in the journal Eating Behaviors showcased that most people have more than one motive for wanting to lose weight.

• 50% want to lose weight to improve their long-term health
• 35% want to lose weight to look better
• 15% want to lose weight to feel better day-to-day

Your individual reasons are likely more nuanced, but they probably fall somewhere under one of those umbrellas. For instance, time spent with family during the holidays can be a blessing, but also a wake-up call if you have relatives suffering from chronic diseases like obesity or hypertension. 

Once you’ve gotten your head around your “why”, it’s essential to nail down a destination and use your motivation to propel you toward it. For example: If you want to lose weight to look better, it helps to set a specific goal in that area, such as fitting back into your favorite jeans from college. 

If your reasoning is more pragmatic, you may want to aim for receiving top marks at your next annual physical. Whatever it is, make it specific and clear; the difference between wandering and traveling is having a destination. 

Track Where You Are and Where You’re Going

Once you have a goal in mind, it’s time to get practical. There are two ways to achieve fat loss; winging it, or being clinical. Only one works in a reasonable amount of time, so let’s talk about specific tracking methodologies that are guaranteed to move the needle.

Calorie Counting

If you’ve ever stepped on the scale and wondered, “Why can I not lose weight?” The answer involves your caloric intake. Gaining and losing weight, which falls under the realm of managing your body composition, is a bit like balancing a checkbook or spreadsheet. 

Despite what you may have heard about hormone regulation, gluten, seed oils, or whatever, the science is crystal clear—barring niche circumstances, you need to eat fewer calories than you expend to lose weight. 

Tracking your calories each day (whether through an app or manually with pen and paper) helps you sidestep the “blind budgeting” of estimating how many calories you’re actually taking in. Once you know how much you’re consistently eating, cut back by 300-500, stick to that new ceiling, and see how the scale changes.

Step Tracking

Energy balance—that’s the operating costs of being alive measured against your caloric income—determines weight loss. So, you need to pay attention to both how many calories you’re eating and how much you’re burning, particularly through exercise.

One of the best and least-intrusive ways of increasing your physical activity and helping to create a calorie deficit is to track your daily steps. Up to around 10,000 is the clinical benchmark for maximizing health and longevity. Doing more will burn additional calories, but may not confer the same wellness benefits.

Don’t get it twisted; all activity burns calories. Steps are doable by just about anyone, rain or shine, without expensive equipment. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “What do I do at the gym to lose weight?” Start with treadmill walking. Weights and other cardio can certainly help, though, and we’ll get to those a bit later on.

Frequent Weighing

It’s totally normal to have anxiety about stepping on the scale. But without keeping tabs on your weight loss efforts by, well, weighing yourself, you’re flying blind. Weighing yourself once a week (or more often if you’re up to it, though it’s not necessary) provides essential feedback about whether your changes are making a difference. 

Weigh yourself under the same circumstances each time. Ideally, fasted and nude after using the bathroom in the morning. The number on the scale is nothing more than a data point—if it’s not going down, you simply need to deepen your calorie deficit a bit, or add a bit more daily movement. 

SMART Goal for Weight Loss

On paper, it sounds simple: Just weigh yourself, eat less, and move more! “Just do it” works well as a slogan, but if achieving our goals were that easy, everyone would do them. Life can get in the way, so it pays to have a framework for goal-setting that rolls with the punches.

Enter ‘SMART’ goals. ‘SMART’ is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound. These are the parameters that define good goals, for New Year’s or otherwise. 

A SMART goal for weight loss nails the key aspect that causes many people to abandon their resolutions—practicality. Impractical goals are intimidating because they feel out-of-reach. But by employing some of the key strategies we’ve discussed, you can ensure your weight loss resolution is a SMART one:

• Specific: You know how much weight you want to lose.

• Measurable: You’re tracking your progress on the scale.

• Achievable: The amount of weight you want to lose is realistic.

• Relevant: Losing weight will make a tangible impact on your quality of life.

• Timely: You can achieve your weight loss goal by a deadline that makes sense for you.

New Year’s Weight Loss Tips & Tricks

Reducing your calorie intake and increasing physical activity are the meat and potatoes of weight loss. If you’re apprehensive because you’re wondering, “When do you start to see weight loss?” Know that changes to your body and health tend to have a rolling start. 

Luckily, there are things you can do to speed up the process a bit (provided you’re already monitoring your calories and moving more often):

• Eat more protein. Protein — like Purist® whey protein powder — is great for helping you feel full, and is essential for maintaining valuable muscle tissue while in a calorie deficit.
• Hit the weights. Resistance training helps build and maintain muscle; tissue that, on its own, burns calories even while not being used.
• Drink more water. Research consistently shows that folks who drink plenty of water, especially as a replacement for sugared beverages, lose significantly more weight. For added hydration, or to make water more appealing, check out Purist® hydration powder.
• Make movement social. You’re more likely to stick to your routine if you do it with a friend or partner, due to the personal accountability and motivation.

Above all, have patience. Weight loss doesn’t “kick in” right away for most people, and you can only lose weight so fast. If you’re in a 500 daily calorie deficit, you should expect to lose roughly a pound a week.

Double your deficit and you’ll lose weight faster, but it’s generally not advised to go much faster than that. You run the risk of malnutrition, among other negative health outcomes.

Your Takeaway: A Year of Change Takes 60 Days

Resolutions are easy. Change is hard. If you’ve set a New Year’s resolution to lose weight (and keep it off), you’ll inevitably have to adopt a bunch of new habits that may feel quite foreign to the lifestyle you know.

Here’s the selling point: Habits are, by definition, intuitive. You don’t need to think about them. And studies show that forming and engraining new habits takes about 60 days. 

If you can stick to your new habits—calorie monitoring, more movement, drinking water and hitting the weights—for two months, things will start feeling like they’re on cruise control. Before you know it, you’ll be bearing down on your destination. 

FAQs

What to do on New Year’s to lose weight?

If you’re trying to lose weight as a New Year’s resolution, you need to get a handle on how much you’re eating and reduce if necessary, while also adopting a consistent exercise routine.

What time of the year do people lose the most weight?

Most people will lose weight in the spring and summer, as the nicer weather encourages more time outdoors and being physically active. Conversely, most people put on weight in the winter, especially around the holidays.

Do I have to count calories to lose weight?

No, but counting calories to lose weight helps you ensure that your efforts are pointing in the right direction and actually making a dent in your goals. Trying to achieve weight loss without monitoring your caloric intake is flying blind.

References

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2. Strasser B, Spreitzer A, Haber P. Fat loss depends on energy deficit only, independently of the method for weight loss. Ann Nutr Metab. 2007;51(5):428-32. doi: 10.1159/000111162. Epub 2007 Nov 20. PMID: 18025815.

3. Maciej Banach, Joanna Lewek, Stanisław Surma, Peter E Penson, Amirhossein Sahebkar, Seth S Martin, Gani Bajraktari, Michael Y Henein, Željko Reiner, Agata Bielecka-Dąbrowa, Ibadete Bytyçi, on behalf of the Lipid and Blood Pressure Meta-analysis Collaboration (LBPMC) Group and the International Lipid Expert Panel (ILEP), The association between daily step count and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: a meta-analysis, European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, Volume 30, Issue 18, December 2023, Pages 1975–1985

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5. Singh B, Murphy A, Maher C, Smith AE. Time to Form a Habit: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Health Behaviour Habit Formation and Its Determinants. Healthcare (Basel). 2024 Dec 9;12(23):2488. doi: 10.3390/healthcare12232488. PMID: 39685110; PMCID: PMC11641623.

Jake Dickson holds a B.S. degree in Exercise Science and is a NASM-CPT. As a health & wellness writer, Jake focuses on making fitness practical and accessible for any audience. Off the clock, you can find Jake at the gym or unwinding by the beach.

This article was reviewed by Rosie Borchert, NASM-CPT, for accuracy.