HAPPY New Year to you all. I hope you had a great Christmas period and managed to recharge your batteries if you managed to have time off work.

By now the New Year resolutions will either be forgotten or you’ll be sticking to what you said religiously.

One of the most popular resolutions seems to be based on losing weight.

This is a really good resolution to have but in my experience a little bit misguided for most people.

The big problem for most people is that we tend to put on weight due to being inactive. Most people reading this will have a job that tends to involve being sat at a desk all day.

But those people wanting to lose weight will tend to go on a diet requiring a lot of self-discipline and, normally, self-sacrifice.

So we stick to the diet, hate doing it but see those pounds dropping off and feel a well-deserved sense of achievement. Then we come off the diet, eat how we normally eat and slowly but surely put the weight back on.

What I would suggest, rather than dieting, is to get more active.

Sure, most of us probably need to take a look at what we eat as well but dieting isn’t the way to do that. Changing your diet needs to be a permanent change and for most people needs to be done over time so that it’s almost unnoticed.

However, getting more active is fairly easy for most of us. And the maths all adds up.

If you weigh 12 stone and walk for half an hour at a moderate pace, you’ll burn around 125 calories. If you do that 4 times a week, you’ll burn 500 calories a week on top of what you’d normally burn off.

Over a few weeks that really starts to add up in terms of body fat being burnt. If you increase your activity then, chances are you will lose some weight.

As you increase your activity you will find yourself sleeping a lot better, so you’ll have more energy, so you’ll be able to get even more active and probably lose more weight. More importantly, you will feel better because you are fitter. When your fitness improves, eating healthier actually becomes a whole lot easier.

And as I’ve said before, getting more active doesn’t mean you have to get in training for a marathon, complete a Tough Mudder or become gym obsessed; it just means looking at your lifestyle and seeing where you can move more and be less active.

Check out my Facebook page for details of some free events and information sessions coming up in the coming weeks to help you get that extra activity into your day and some advice on simple lifestyle changes that will help you lead a healthier life.

All the best for 2015 and remember to GET ACTIVE.