ISU students, faculty and staff aiming for weight loss as their New Year’s resolution may be happy to hear their goal is more obtainable than they believed.

“You don’t really need to buy a gym membership, just try moving more,” said Duck-Chul Lee, assistant professor of kinesiology.

Lee said people can reach higher levels of physical activity without hitting the gym. This is good news for the busy student or professor, as trips to the gym can be time-consuming. Exercise can be found in lifestyle choices that increase daily activity.

“Studies have shown that lifestyle activities, compared to exercise in the gym, have the same amount of physical activity,” Lee said.

Ways to increase activity during the day may include walking to class rather than taking the bus. Using the stairs burns more calories than taking the elevator. Standing more at work and doing chores are also viable options. All of these can be easily incorporated into a daily schedule without the time commitment of gym exercises.

Increasing daily physical activity requires no knowledge of weight-lifting techniques or gym workouts. Anyone can do it and it works seamlessly into busy schedules. This will make sticking to that New Year’s resolution much easier.

Even with these easier activities, people might find themselves discouraged during the pursuit of their resolutions. Just looking at the number on the scale can easily shake someone’s resolution.

Alison Phillips, assistant professor of psychology, stresses the importance of looking for other signs of progress.

“Try to find more benefits to watch out for that might come sooner than weight loss,” Phillips said. “It takes a long time to see weight loss and it might be frustrating.”

When weight loss is one’s New Year’s resolution, seeing no dip in the numbers can be disheartening. Weight loss takes time, and patience is key. Paying attention to other signs of healthy progress is vital in ensuring people stick to their resolutions.

Lee supports his colleague in her conclusion that people need to focus on benefits other than weight loss. Lee said he believes people with a weight-loss resolution should keep fitness in mind. Body composition is often ignored in people’s pursuits of a lighter weight.

“People need to change their goal to include fitness rather than focusing on weight,” Lee said.

Fitness leads to higher energy levels, better sleep, less stress and less fat. These are signs of progress that get more apparent the longer people pursue their weight loss resolutions.

However, benefits such as these also appear without weight loss. Paying more attention to these benefits will help people stay motivated to fulfill their resolutions.

“Focusing on how [exercise] improves your mood, how it helps you sleep better, how it makes you feel, will help with that intrinsic motivation than just weight loss,” Phillips said.

Phillips also emphasizes the importance of doing physical activities people enjoy. For example, a treadmill run in the gym could be easily replaced by a nice walk in the park. By incorporating physical activity into lifestyle choices, focusing on benefits other than weight loss and doing activities people enjoy, New Year’s resolutions are very much within reach.

“If you exercise only for weight loss you are at risk of quitting when you achieve your goal or see no progress. … Focusing on the smaller, sooner rewards will help people stick to it,” Phillips said.