Happy New Year. It's time for a new wave of ads from health clubs, fitness equipment purveyors and all the diet strategy companies. Check out this week's newspaper, radio or TV ads to see these often extraordinary offers. These folks are eager to capture your new commitment to lose weight NOW!

If you want to be successful, you need a plan. Signing up for a program or buying a product or piece of equipment is fruitless if you don't have a written strategy to reach your objective. If losing weight is your New Year's resolution you need three pieces of information to create that plan:

• 1. a realistic weight goal based on a body composition assessment. You can get this from a personal trainer or by purchasing a home body composition kit. (We carry two of these at my web site: http://www.rondagates.com)
• 2. an awareness of how many calories you need to eat to support weight loss without shutting down your metabolism. The home page of my web site offers a free calculation to give you this number. 3. a reasonable fitness strategy. This is an exercise routine you will do almost every day to help your body burn enough extra calories that it calls on body fat stores for energy.

Here are my recommendations:

• 1. shoot for a weight loss that is no more than ten percent of your current weight. It's an achievable goal that may, when you reach it, encourage you to keep going if you need to.
• 2. moderate calories by decreasing food portions instead of cutting out food groups or adapting an eating program that you won't want to stick to for the rest of your life. Almost everyone can manage radical diet changes for a short time but since most of us eat to nurture ourselves, a backup plan that can last a long time is essential to success. After you use the calculator at the web site be sure not to drop more than 300 calories below that number.
• 3. Focus on the new research that says that 10.000 strides/steps a day will improve all parameters of health including managing you weight. My weight management clients who use a pedometer discover they are more motivated by this tool than any other I've used in recent years. If you add a MIO watch to the mix you can track your calories and, while you exercise, monitor your pulse (and have a cool looking timepiece too). These tools require only a small investment when compared with the other pills and promises that are out there.

Regardless, consider visiting the web site also to review the Smart Goals strategy. You might also want to take time to review the more than 120 weekly messages archived at the site for hints on smart eating, smart exercising and smart behavior strategies. If you want some extra help, consider my popular coaching programs. There are some discount prices to jump start your New Year's Resolutions. See, I'm attempting to capture your interest too.

Regardless of what you choose, good luck. Let me know how you're doing.