Ringing In The New Year
Discover tricks to sticking to your New Year's resolutions

(ARA) - What's your New Year's Resolution? Some of the most popular answers to that question include to eat better, exercise more and lose weight. But do you have a strategy for achieving those goals?

If not, better come up with one, or you're destined for failure. Research over the years has concluded that about 80 percent of all New Year's resolutions are broken by Jan. 31. If that resolution had something to do with health and fitness (working out, losing weight, quitting smoking, etc.), 90 percent will be history by Jan. 15.

So how is it that the other 10 percent of Americans manage to follow through? Because they have found ways to make pursuing their goals fun.

It only makes sense that you're more likely to keep up with something you enjoy than something you dread. But how do you make something so tedious as working out and eating healthy fun?

You need only turn to the younger generation for inspiration. Kids are great at finding ways to make things they have to do fun. Take exercise, for example. Kids don't visit the gym. They get their exercise running around, riding bikes, playing on the jungle gym and hula hooping.

Of all those activities, which do you think offers the best work out? If you said hula hooping, you're right. According to the Cooper Institute, a health-based, nonprofit research and education center, one minute of hula hooping burns as many calories as running an eight-minute mile or high impact aerobic class.

The activity also promotes correct body alignment from the circular motions and proper posture in the upper body, which explains why it has

become so popular in fitness clubs

across the country.

As for coming up with ways to eat healthier, you can get inspiration from

the kids on that front too.

Instead of going out to eat at

the restaurant every day, pledge to begin packing a lunch similar

to the one you send with your kids to

school.

Healthy options include salads, peanut butter

and jelly sandwiches, fruit, cheese sticks, yogurt and pretzels.

Pledging to live a healthy lifestyle is one of the best New Year's resolutions you can make. So get out there and do it today.

Courtesy of ARAcontent