Five Tips To Transform Yourself In 2015

It's that time of the year again, when everybody is raving about making positive changes in their life. They're all talking about eating healthy, getting fit, and sporting a six pack by the summer. This year however, it's not just going to be another cliché for you. 2015 is going to be the year you turn your life around, and here are 5 essential tips that are going to help you live up to your new year resolution:

1. Set Realistic Goals

Your new year resolution is to get fit in 2015. By that, you must realize that you've made a commitment to turn your life around this year; Not this month or even this week. So if by any chance you don't look like Ryan Reynolds by day 7, don't give up just yet. Know that every time you hit the gym, every time you eat a healthy meal, you get 0.2% sexier, stronger & fitter. Stop worrying about how long it's going to take and just focus on getting better by the day.

2. Adapt to Flexible Dieting

The reason most people fail to live up to their dream of getting fit is because they fail at keeping up with their diet. I say this because come January 1st, people go from eating everything to eating nothing. That's too much change, too fast. The body just can't adapt. Moreover, a healthy lifestyle doesn't call for eating only "healthy" food. It calls for moderation. There's no harm in eating a pizza, or a burger, or a chocolate bar every once in a while. In fact, it's necessary to keep ourselves sane and in the game. As long as you're eating well and training hard, one odd meal here and there won't make or break your diet and progress. Don't give in to your cravings, but learn to control them.

3. Pick up on Protein

No, I'm not asking you to start chugging protein shakes. But I'm pretty sure your diet is lacking the sufficient amount of protein required to sustain muscle mass. It's true that you can lose weight eating anything as long as you're in a caloric deficit, but that sort of approach will most definitely affect your body composition. Lack of protein will cause you to lose more muscle than fat, leaving you with a smaller, flabbier version of your previous self. You don't only want to weigh less, you want to look good too, right? So make sure you have an ample serving of protein with each of your 5 meals*

Stack up on eggs, fish, chicken, lamb, beef and cottage cheese; Natural & unprocessed source of protein. Shoot for 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight daily.

*Yes, you are now going to be eating 5 meals a day. Eating more meals of smaller portions helps keep hunger pangs in between meals at bay. It's also a good way to keep you from munching on junk food when you're hungry at some odd hour in the afternoon or late at night.

4. Squeeze it like it owes you Money!

THIS! You need to compliment your new diet with appropriate exercise. However, going to the gym by itself isn't going to be enough. If you're at the gym, and you're comfortable.. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG! Leisure walking on the treadmill for an hour isn't going to cut it. You might as well be at home flicking through television channels because that probably burns the same amount of calories. I don't care if you're at it for an hour or three, if your heart isn't racing, the flab isn't burning.

The difference between those that remain the same year after year, and champions is that the latter go in to the gym like they mean business. Today's pain is tomorrow's strength. By investing an hour of everyday in yourself, you guarantee yourself a life time of success, pride & self improvement.

Whether its at work or at the gym, if you're not giving it your all, you're not getting anything in return.

5. Let the results be your only Motivation

Every person that has found success, has had to overcome some kind of an obstacle. I'm not necessarily talking about dieting or painful exercise, but also the people you surround yourself with. This journey doesn't mean much to anybody other than you. It's going to be easy for people to ask you to bail on a workout, to cheat on your diet or to just give up altogether. Why? Because they're not getting anything out of it. The only person that's getting better by the day is you, and when you listen to the haters, when you take their advice and quit, the only person losing is you. It's going to be hard, but you have to keep believing. People are going to laugh, they're going to point at you and make jokes, but as the months go by, as and when you start looking leaner and meaner, the jokes turn to jealousy. Eventually, when you're at the finish line, when you've achieved your goal, nobody is laughing anymore. Suddenly, you're a source of inspiration for everyone around you. You're filled with pride and surrounded with praise. But in order to get to that point, you have to be your own source of motivation and you have to surround yourself with people that support your goals.

Know that this month your waist went down by 2 inches, that you've started wearing a size M instead of an L. Flex your biceps every time you walk into the bathroom and tell yourself that your arms look bigger and better today than they did yesterday, and that this is only the beginning. Buy yourself a pair of jeans or a dress that you want to fit into 6 months down the line, and when you do, there's no better feeling in the world.