One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to eat better and be healthier, and achieve the perfect diet.

But there are several reasons why most people fail.

4 reasons why New Year’s diets fail

1. Often people focus only on what foods they will and won’t eat

2. Going to extreme measures to have the perfect diet to meet that resolution

3. Following diet habits of another athlete or celebrity that isn’t you

4. Diet choices are driven by what you ‘should’ eat and not your individual needs

The truth is a perfect diet doesn’t exist. Nutrition and diet habits are a fluid evolution which encompasses the needs of lifestyle, physical and health goals, and training status and demands.

An athlete’s diet will always be a work in progress. There isn’t an end point to reach where you finally have it 100% and hit repeat for life. The skill to master to have a healthy diet which is right for you is not about serving up Instagram worthy meals all the time.

It’s how to ride the wave of life and to eat in a way that will serve you, to nourish and sustain you, your training and your needs at that time in your life.

Instead of focusing your energy only on what you should and shouldn’t be eating, or approaching it like an obligation to eat healthily, try to:

3 ways to give your resolution the best chance of success

1. See the new year changes to your diet as an opportunity to learn about what food and habits are best for your body, your lifestyle and what works for YOU

2. Think about your life and your demands and what you need from food and if that aligns with why you are eating it

3. Set an intention to embrace diet mistakes and learn from how they made you feel to adapt and evolve your diet as you go through different phases in life rather than succeeding or failing at your diet

Everyone is unique which means there is no bigger expert on your body than oneself. How you intrinsically feel and monitor what you know is right or wrong for your body and your lifestyle is so important to consider when you want to implement change to your diet for it to be successful.

A dietitian can help you to explore what some of the options that are out there that might work best or to better understand the nutrition messages available to align with how you want to feel.