If you’ve made “fresh starts” every January for the past few years, however, and find that you’re not feeling so “fresh” by February, you may need a new approach to making changes.

Forget the four-protein-shakes-a-day-but-nothing-that requires-teeth diet. Forget about hitting the gym for three hours a day, seven days a week. Grand and very intense plans like these are not sustainable. They may work for a few weeks, but then you start to want some real food, or your hectic schedule gets in the way of that gym plan, and then you give up and go back to your old habits. I just can’t do this, you may think, I’m doomed to be overweight and suffer from reflux/high cholesterol/high blood pressure/name your chronic condition here.

Instead of ambitious goals for 2012, I encourage you to make tiny, easy goals. And try making those goals at the beginning of each week based on what your schedule looks like. So you may resolve that this Wednesday and Friday, you will walk instead of taking the subway or driving somewhere. On Tuesday you will go to the greenmarket. On Wednesday you will cook a chicken vegetable soup with the fresh ingredients you bought at the greenmarket rather than ordering Chinese. On Sunday you will take that African dance class you’ve been meaning to try.

Focus on the process of getting healthier and losing weight rather than on the results. If you’re diligent about creating achievable goals and actually following through to meet them, the results will come. And it won’t feel like a struggle.

And if you’d like support in putting all the pieces together, making changes to your eating habits and lifestyle, and reaching your goals for 2012, contact me to set up a free one-hour nutrition consultation (the consultation can be done either in person or over the phone). You can read my clients’ success stories here–I’ve helped teachers, lawyers, film producers, graphic designers, waitresses, secretaries, bankers, social workers, stay-at-home moms and dads, students, retirees, magazine editors, and clergy all make significant changes to their weight, their health, and their lives overall.

Happy 2012!

Serves 2.

2 wild salmon fillets, 4-6 oz. each

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to brush onto fish

Salt and pepper to taste

3-6 sprigs fresh rosemary

3-6 cloves garlic, halved

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Wash and pat dry the salmon fillets. Remove the skin. Brush salmon with olive oil, and salt and pepper it to taste.

Heat the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in an oven-safe skillet (preferably cast-iron or other nonstick surface) over medium high heat. Just before the oil reaches its smoking point, add the rosemary and halved cloves of garlic to the pan. Lay salmon filets into the pan on top of the garlic and rosemary.

Let the salmon cook in the pan for 1 minute, then put the pan in the preheated oven. Bake for 5 minutes for medium rare, 7 minutes for medium, 10 minutes for well done.

Remove from oven and allow the pan to stand for a few minutes.

Serve with a green vegetable of your choice–try sautéing some fresh kale, spinach, or Swiss chard in olive oil with minced or pressed garlic until the leaves are tender. Just wash your greens first and, for kale/chard, rip the leaves off the tough stems before cooking.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

You can get through holiday party season without stretch pants or an IV drip of coffee. Here’s how:

Don’t arrive on an empty stomach. With the promise of free food, it can be tempting to show up to a party hungry and with the intent of making a dinner out of the hors d’oeuvres. The end result is predictable–you lose track of how many mini salmon cakes and barbecue chicken skewers you’ve grabbed, and eat way too much overall. The better way to go is to eat a light dinner (or a hefty healthy snack) before arriving, so that you don’t feel compelled to make a beeline for the cheese tray the second after you hang your coat. You’ll be much more in control of your appetite–and therefore your choices.

Eat mindfully. Don’t shovel. Take your time to savor each and every bite. Go slow. Truly taste and enjoy the food you’re eating.

Make non-party days extra-healthy days. On days you’re not attending parties, commit to eating well–really well. Load up your plate with extra veggies. Skip the sugary treats. Drink lots of water. And make time for exercise.

Prioritize sleep. Too many late nights will throw you out of balance. Get to bed early on non-party nights, and when you do have an event, leave at a time that will still allow you to get at least seven hours of sleep.

Nurse those drinks. If you’re a drinker, decide ahead of time what your drink limit for the night will be. Then sip slowly.

Prioritize people, not food. In the end, the holidays are not about gorging ourselves–they’re about reconnecting with the people we care about, sharing, giving, and gratitude. When you arrive at a party, focus your attention on the people around you, rather than the food. Talk, dance, laugh, and maybe even say a thank you or two to the people who helped make your year a good one.

Happy holidays, everyone.

UPDATE: And…. yes, the House of Representatives has in fact now voted to protect pizza as a vegetable.

But it will also benefit you greatly to make sure that your immune system is in tip-top shape. If it is, it can potentially destroy any invading pathogens before they set up shop in your body and cause illness.

Here are some tips on how to build your immunity:

• Get stress under control. Studies have shown that stress is the cause of at least 80 percent of all disease, and there is no question that stress suppresses the immune system.
• Get enough sleep. In a 2009 study, people who slept fewer than seven hours per night had triple the risk of getting sick compared to those who averaged eight hours or more.
• Get regular exercise. Couch potato behavior promotes atrophy as well as impaired circulation, both of which result in a compromised immune system.
• Eat whole grains. The outer covering of whole grains–the part that is removed to make white rice, white flour, etc.–contains many vitamins and minerals, including selenium, that help support immunity.
• Eat leafy greens and other vegetables. Vegetables provide the vitamins, minerals, and fiber that are key to overall good health–a plant-centric diet will boost your immune system and protect you against everything from the latest cold making its way through your office to more serious illnesses like cancer.

“When obese people lose body fat, levels of the hormone leptin, which is produced by fat cells, drop. That signals to the brain that the body’s energy stores are low, slowing metabolism and triggering hunger.”

Take the “stale popcorn study,” conducted by Brian Wansink, who heads the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University. In this study, people were given terrible, Styrofoam-stale popcorn to eat at a theater. They had all eaten dinner just before arriving. The study found that people ate 34 percent more popcorn–bad popcorn, mind you–if it came in a larger bucket. Similarly, in a separate study, subjects given soup in an automatically refilling bowl ate 73 percent more than those given a regular bowl of soup.

The point? That the amount of food we eat can very much depend on how much food is put in front of us. This is why it’s such a problem to eat out at restaurants or buy takeout several times a week. Restaurants serve enormous portions–and chances are, you’ll eat way, way more food when you’re in the restaurant than you ever would at home, simply because so much was served to you.

Other interesting findings from Wansink, as discussed in Nutrition Action Healthletter:

• Secretaries ate five more Hershey’s kisses per day if a candy bowl was placed on his/her desk vs. six feet away. That translates to 11-12 pounds of extra weight gain over the course of a year. Secretaries who got a clear candy bowl ate two more candies per day than those who got an opaque bowl.

• People bought 27 percent more food at a cafeteria when more descriptive names were given to the entrees (“Italian Pasta” was changed to “Succulent Tuscany Pasta,” “Chocolate Cake” was changed to “Belgian Black Forest Cake,” etc.).

• Men ate 29 percent more if a serving dish was left on the table vs. on the kitchen counter. Women ate about 10 percent more.

• People sitting with someone eating very quickly ate significantly more calories than if they were paired with someone eating very slowly.

• At an all-you-can-eat Buffalo wings restaurant, people ate 28 percent more wings if the bones were regularly bussed from the table instead of being left there.

Cultivating awareness about these issues can certainly help matters, but so can eating at home more. So can using smaller plates, and putting your healthiest food in a visible, easy-to-reach area, and leaving your serving dishes in the kitchen. Every little change like this can make a big difference when it comes to your weight.

It’s nice to see that some members are walking away from the ADA as a result of Coca-Cola sponsorships and the like.

This is one of the reasons I chose not to pursue a career as a registered dietician, and instead went the alternative route to become a holistic nutrition counselor. My approach and my recommendations are based on using whole foods and science not funded by the food industry. The fact that some dieticians are buying into what the likes of Kellogg’s has to say about proper eating is pretty alarming.