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618: Ask Ted: Why Most New Year’s Resolutions Fail—and How to Make 2025 the Year You Succeed?

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618: Ask Ted: Why Most New Year’s Resolutions Fail—and How to Make 2025 the Year You Succeed?

It’s that time of year again. January is coming to an end, and many people are already starting to drift away from their New Year’s resolutions. Sounds familiar? Whether it’s vague goals, relying on motivation, or trying to change too much too fast, most people set themselves up for failure without even realizing it. 

In this episode, Ted tackles the common pitfalls of failed resolutions and explains why most strategies don’t work. He shares his “comeback framework” to help you reset your goals, refocus on what truly works, and rebuild your momentum step by step.  

Whether you’ve fallen off track or you’re looking for ways to avoid another year of frustration, this episode will give you the tools you need to succeed. Listen now! 

 

You’ll learn:

  • Why vague goals like “eating better” set you up for failure
  • The dangers of trying to overhaul your entire lifestyle at once
  • How to create specific, measurable goals for sustainable success
  • Why motivation fades and how to stay consistent without it
  • The power of starting small and building momentum over time
  • Effective strategies to help you bounce back
  • Why accountability and tracking are key to long-term results
  • And much more…

 

Related Episodes:  

Ted Talk 213: The 5 Mistakes People Make with Their New Year’s Resolutions (And How to Avoid Them) 

Ted Talk 165: Failed Your New Year’s Resolutions? Here’s What To Do 

Ted Talk 212: What Can I Do To Stay Consistent With My Health And Fitness Goals In 2024? – Ask Ted 

 

Ready to make 2025 your best year ever?

Together, we’ll craft a personalized plan to reclaim your health and transform your body in a way that fits your busy lifestyle.

If you want to learn more about our Unstoppable After 40 Coaching Program, click here!

We have limited spots, so click here to book a call now!

Podcast Transcription: Ask Ted: Why Most New Year’s Resolutions Fail—and How to Make 2025 the Year You Succeed?

Ted Ryce: January is almost over, and if you're feeling like your new year's goals are slipping away, you're not alone, but here's the good news. It's not too late to make 2025 the year you finally achieve the health, body and energy you long for that you've been working for so hard, and that's what we're going to cover in today's podcast. 

I'm going to hit you with some hard truths and also. A plan so that you can take action on it and change the trajectory of the starts and stops, the yo yo dieting, all those things. So if that sounds good to you, if that's what you're interested in, then you're in the right place. What is up my friend and welcome back to the legendary life podcast. 

I'm your host, Ted rice. I've been doing this for 25 years. And when I, when I say this, I mean, I've been coaching high performing executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals to the best health of their life, even if they're over 40. Actually, almost all my clients are forties and fifties, some in the sixties and some in the thirties. 

So you can do this too. And if you haven't achieved it yet, there's hope. Okay. So I promise you're going to get some actionable takeaways. For from today's episode, if you're ready to commit and maybe you're not in a place where you're ready to commit, listening to today's episode can help push you along to get you to the next level. 

There's actually levels in what we call the stages of change. Not going to go into that today, or maybe I will, but the first thing I want to cover is why your new year's resolutions haven't stuck. So common pitfalls here. Or number one is setting vague goals. So many people will say things like, well, I want to lose weight or I want to eat better. 

I just want to get more fit. You don't know what you really want then. Okay. You have an idea. You want this number on the scale to go down, or you want to see something better in the mirror, or when you're looking at the plate of food that you got for lunch, you want to feel better about it. But here's the thing. 

That's not good enough. Okay. You need a clear strategy and you need a clear goal. So in other words, I want to lose 20 pounds in the next four months. That's what we do with our clients. And my, uh, four month unstoppable after 40 pro, uh, body transformation program, let's say. So you need to be more specific. 

Eating better is a terrible thing to say. Oh, no. What are you talking about? Ted? No, I want to eat better. Yes, I know. The intention is good, but number one, what are you trying to achieve? What, what are you? Okay. Eating better. How are you going to know that you're eating better? That you're going to look at your plate and say, well, there's some salad here and then that's good. 

This is too vague. If you've been listening to my podcast for a while, you know, I am about measurable results. So in other words, if you eat better, what changes, what measurable changes happen? Losing fat would be one or losing weight. Those two things are different. By the way, I'm not going to go into the details. 

In this episode, I've talked about it a lot or improving your blood work. Let's say that your fasting glucose is high or your hemoglobin A1c or your C peptide or fasting insulin. Those are all biomarkers that you can test with blood work before and after to see if you're eating better strategy is working. 

So what I'm getting at here is you're too vague and vague strategies fail. Another common pitfall is trying to overhaul your entire lifestyle in one go. And here's what I mean by that, because actually if you join my body transformation program, uh, we go over a lot and I kind of do push you to overhaul things in a way, but here's what I mean, here's how, how it's done the wrong way. 

So let's say that you're eating a certain way right now. And that, by the way, this is important, and I want you to pay attention here. The way that you've been eating is reflected on your body, on your body fat level. It's not just food. It's exercise too, but nutrition is the number one thing that's going to determine how much body fat you have. 

So let's say you have this way of eating and then you just completely change it. This is one of the biggest concerns that my clients have. They say, well, you know, I've lost weight in the past, but it just wasn't sustainable. And then let's say that you haven't been exercising at all. And then you want to exercise every day. 

All of a sudden, the intention is good here. You're, you're like, I want to make big changes. But the issue is you need to step by step it a little bit, because if you just go crush yourself in the gym, you're going to be sore for five days. Or you're going to drive yourself into so much fatigue. You're just going to, you're going to burn out, especially if you're trying to eat better at the same time and you're not having the same levels of energy to support it. 

Does that make sense? You need to be, you need to have a better strategy. I don't kill my body transformation clients when they first come to me. Some, some people think like, Oh, I'm going to sign up with Ted and he's going to, you know, put me on the strict diet and then he's going to have me, you know, working out so much. 

No, our clients start out with four 30 minute workouts, sometimes even 20 minutes. If they're really out of shape, I step by step them. I take them from, you know, where they are and then slowly titrate up. I try not to get people too sore. I try to get people in shape because there's a difference. You getting sore is easy. 

And by the way, soreness, there's no connection between soreness and your, and the results that you get from a workout. It's kind of like saying, Oh, I worked so hard today. I worked so hard at work. It's like, yeah. And how much more money did you make as a result of working so hard? Well, I didn't make any. I mean, I mean, I made the same amount. 

Oh, well, that was not a smart strategy then. Okay. Obviously, obviously, sometimes, you know, like there's nuance there when it comes to, you know, sometimes we need to work on things in our business that don't directly lead to more money. But the point is, you want to be smart about the changes that you make so that the results reflect the amount of effort. 

And the reason why this is Yes. Is because if you don't see changes in your body and you're crushing yourself, if you feel like you're working hard and you're not seeing changes, this is one of the biggest reasons that my clients tell me that they quit other programs. They feel like they're working so hard and then they look at the results and it's just not there. 

And the other one is relying solely on motivation. Guess what? Everyone's motivated at the beginning of the year. I'm motivated, right? I know all this stuff. I've talked about temporal landmarks. Yeah. There are these points in time, like a milestone birthday, you're turning 40, you're turning 50. That's cool. 

But guess what? The motivation from turning 40 or 50 or the motivation from a new year that doesn't last. As soon as you get busy, as soon as you get a little overwhelmed, you're going to slide back. And so, Yeah, motivation is great. And what I tell my, my body transformation clients is look, there's going to be times in the year where you feel super motivated, where you feel like, Hey, let's make some progress. 

And right now is one of those times. And I'm pushing everybody. Hey, let's look at your plan. Let's see how we can push things to get you to the next level. Because guess what? During the year, there's going to be times. Now you just don't feel like doing as much, or maybe you're trying, but you're just, Oh man, it's a busy time at work. 

My business is. You know, having some challenges, there's a lot of travel involved for for work, whatever it is, and it can be a good thing. It doesn't have to be a negative thing. It can be. Oh, I'm really overwhelmed with clients right now, and I'm doing all these meetings. And so sometimes you need to maintain, but during the times where you are most motivated, what I tell my clients to do is two things. 

Number one, focus on the habits and also focus on getting results because what I, again, I love using this analogy. If you've ever flown business class. And then you had, this is me recently. I took an overnight flight to Buenos Aires from Houston, Texas. When I went to go see my family and I got an upgrade to business class for an overnight flight, usually like a 4, 000 ticket. 

I can afford a 4, 000 ticket, but. I'm not at the point in my business where I'm like, you know, super comfortable. I fly a lot. I do a lot of things. I have a certain level of lifestyle that I like to keep up. So spending 4, 000 for a business class ticket. And then, you know, it's not something that I can comfortably do. 

Right. I can afford it, but it's just like, ah, that's kind of like, but I got an upgrade. I'm like, I never want to do an overnight flight again. That's nine hours. Cause that's how long it is from Houston to Buenos Aires, about nine hours. I never want to do that again. So I need to make enough money so that I can throw down 4k. 

For a ticket or three K or whatever it is. So I don't do, so I don't sit in coach like I did on the way back. And actually on the way back, I was trying to upgrade the premium economy. I flew United and it was all full and I was really hoping I'd get some upgrade, but apparently a lot of Americans go to Buenos Aires, uh, during the, you know, the end of the year. 

Anyway, my point in saying that is that changing your body and getting to that next level of fitness and seeing it in the mirror and feeling the energy. It's like being in an over like business class at overnight flight. You just, it's so amazing. You just, Lay down, you eat better food, you get catered to. 

It's one of the first times I woke up on an overnight fight and I was just like, yeah, I, you know, I didn't sleep so good because of the turbulence. But the point is you always want to get back. It sets a new standard of what is achievable in your life. If you're just willing to do the work, does that make sense? 

So listen, if your schedule is packed with meetings, travel, and family responsibilities, it's no wonder that having vague goals and trying to make major changes in your lifestyle, and then relying on motivation, as soon as your schedule gets packed, it's all going to fall apart. And listen, the problem isn't you, it's the system that you're using. 

So let's talk about how to fix that. So let's talk about. Let's say the comeback framework here. I want you to reset, refocus, and rebuild. So step number one, reset your goals, reassess what truly matters to you here. If you're just trying to eat better, what does that mean? And for most people, by the way, let's stop, let's stop bullshitting ourselves. 

You want to look better. You want less fat on your body. You want more energy, be specific about it because look, you don't need a six pack, but you do need the energy to dominate your day, the mental clarity to make better decisions and a body that can keep up with your lifestyle. Because what I see too often is clients who've been so successful in their business or their career, they've got a good family and they're at the best time of their lives. 

It's your forties and fifties. And even 60 should be like the best time of your life. 70 is, I don't know. I'm 47. I can't quite speak to that, but this should be the best time of your life. And you should feel good with what you see in the mirror. Now, look, I'm, if you've seen my picture, you know, I don't have much hair on my head. 

My beard is, uh, showing gray and you know, I have a facial care routine, but I'm still seeing wrinkles starting to form. Right. But we can control our body. We can control our energy. We have so much control over that. So listen, change the goal. Reset your goal. Use a goal that's specific. For example, I want to lose 10 pounds in eight weeks by, I'm just going to use the example, tracking my calories on my fitness pal. 

And exercising three times a week for 45 minutes. Now, look, do you hit the 10 pounds? Do you hit the five pounds? The outcome is important, but it's not as important as what you start to build habit wise by tracking your calories and exercising the three times a week. Does that make sense? Be specific about what you're going to do and about the results you're looking for in our program. 

I helped my clients lose 10 pounds in the first month. Especially if people are coming in and they're highly motivated and they're like, you know, help me do this. And then we work on maintenance later because that's a separate skill set, but I help my clients get results fast. I don't agree with the coaches that say, oh, you want to lose weight slowly because if you lose it fast, it's easy to regain it fast. 

I think that's nonsense. And by the way, there's even research on this. Showing that people who achieve more aggressive results in the beginning are more likely to keep it. Makes total sense. If you, if you work hard for, let's say a few months and you lose 10 pounds, 10 pounds, isn't a lot of weight for the state of the average American or average Canadian or average person in the UK or Australia. 

It's not a lot of weight. You'll look and feel better, but it's so easy to slide back. Step number two is refocus on what works. Okay. Refocus on what works, what works for fat loss with nutrition, calorie deficit, you can do it with low carb. You can do it with paleo. You can do it with intermittent fasting, but at the end of the day, it is about the calorie deficit. 

So make sure. And if you are doing a diet right now, like eating better or just eating clean or whatever approach you're doing, and you're not seeing results, you're not in a calorie deficit. You need to achieve a calorie deficit. There's many ways of doing it. So stay focused on that. Another way to say that is adjust your nutrition so that the number on this scale starts to go down. 

If you have a belly and you can't see your abs, if you're a man, actually it's easier for women to see their abs typically because they carry more of their weight. And their hips and butt area and guys, we carry it around our, around our midsection. So if you can't see any of your abs, if you have a belly, if you put on a fitted t shirt and you know, you feel uncomfortable and need to size up, prioritize, make sure that whatever nutrition plan you're, you're following causes. 

The number on the scale to go down causes those shifts in your body fat. The second is schedule short, effective resistance training workouts. Yes, you can do cardio. Yes, you can do HIIT training. Yes, you can, which you're probably not doing right by the way. Uh, especially if you're like, Oh, I do these HIIT workouts that I got on YouTube and it's like body weight squats. 

And yeah, okay. That's not HIIT training. Okay. That is circuit training with doing intervals. But the thing that I want you to focus on is resistance training, because it is the thing that is going to number one, build muscle. If you have the, uh, it build and maintain muscle. Okay. That's what you want to focus on for changing your body. 

And of course build consistency through making. Good goals. For example, I start my clients with four 30 minute workouts and I even ask my clients, is that something you can do? If they say yes, that's what we're doing. I don't say, Hey, listen, you have to start off with our workouts. No, I'll start them. I had a client, Dan, shout out to you, Dan. 

If you're listening, miss you, man. Incredible transformation with Dan. He started out with four 20 minute workouts. Do you want to know why I started out him out with four 20 minute workouts? Because he told me if it was going to be any longer than 20 minutes, he wasn't going to do them. Do you think I'm going to argue with a client like that? 

He's, he's at the top of his career, just crushing it as an, uh, uh, I forget within it. Yeah, he's a divorce attorney, family law. So the point is. You start with what you can do consistently. And the third thing is rebuild momentum, right? Again, this goes into what we just talked about, but start small, then start to build. 

Cause just to keep using Dan as an example here, we started with four 20 minute workouts, but guess what? A few months in all of a sudden, Dan had more time. Why? Because he saw the return on investment of his effort in the gym and he wanted better results. And guess what? He got them incredible transformation that Dan achieved. 

He got so lean. He's like, I've never been this lean in my whole entire life. And he was in his early fifties when that happened. So start small, but then build from there. Now let's talk about why accountability changes everything. So you're used to delegating in your business, or if you're a high performing professional, like, like my client, Dan, he gives work to other, what do you call it? 

Junior attorneys and your health is no different. You need a plan tailored to your life and someone to help you stay accountable when things get tough, because the biggest issue is my clients don't stay accountable to themselves. Yes. They start with great intentions, but they just can't stay accountable to themselves in this particular area. 

They stay accountable with their work and their business. They stay accountable with their family. Their health is the first thing to go. In other words, not their health, but the habits that lead to better health. So like going to the gym is the first thing to go. I don't have time to work out. I need to do this for work. 

And then I got to hang out with my family. And by the way, I've been, you know, I feel a bit guilty for taking time to go to the gym because I've been working so much. Sound familiar? And so here's how we provide accountability in my unstoppable after 40 body transformation program. First, we use data driven insights. 

I have you measure your workout progress. I have you measure your nutrition. We have your body composition measured. We take photos, we do blood work. I also get my clients to do VO two max tests to show them, Hey, listen, Here's the objective data. Here's how you're really doing with your health. Because so many of us will tell a story like, Hey, I'm, I'm doing pretty good with my health, but what does the data stay say the data stay? 

Hopefully the data doesn't stay. Hopefully it changes, but what does the data say about where you are with your health? And then we provide customized strategies for your lifestyle. A lot of my clients travel, they have family, they have work schedules, So the problem is if you're trying, if you find a free workout online or even pay for a workout, you're trying to fit your lifestyle to that workout. 

That's not what we do. We fit the workout to your lifestyle. It's a subtle difference. It doesn't sound like much, but it's the difference between you being consistent and you saying, Oh, I don't have time for that. You know, hour long workout and driving to the gym and back, et cetera. I've got clients with home workouts. 

I've got clients with gym workouts. I've got clients with both. I've got clients with travel workouts. I've got clients who, uh, who live in two different locations. So they'll have, uh, workouts for when they're in one of their homes and workouts when they're in their other home. Right. And then of course, real time support to overcome roadblocks, because here's the thing you will face challenges, trying to change your body. 

And the issue isn't that you're not smart enough because I train a lot of, most of my clients are just as smart as me. If not smarter, probably smarter. And many certainly with business. It's that you don't have, you don't even have time to work out a lot, but you have even less time to differentiate the information from the nonsense out there when it comes to health. 

Everyone's confused. Not everyone. I'm not confused. I know exactly what works. Well, how can you say that, Ted? Really easy. I use data to measure the results of what we do. So I know what works. I know what causes fat loss. I know what causes improvements in, uh, you know, metabolic health. I know it causes improvements in VO two max. 

So if you're ready to stop guessing and start winning with your health, I can help you with that. You can book a call at legendary life program. com slash apply. But what if you're not ready for coaching yet? Cause let me tell you something, coaching can change your life. It can, it's like my clients crush it. 

The clients who show up and do the work and. You know, they really take the coaching seriously. They crush it. They become a different person there. They, they have more knowledge, more skills. I know how to do this well, but the thing, the problem with coaching is that you have to kind of sell yourself on the idea. 

So many people want to talk to me on, you know, the breakthrough call and they're like, We don't, I don't show up and try to convince you to work with me. What we do is we send you information about the results we get about the processes that we use so that you can sell yourself on the idea that you really want the results that we get. 

And you resonate with the approach that I share that I do. Does that make sense? Because if you don't, I can't say, Hey, coaching is so awesome. You should do it. Sign up with me. You're going to be like, yeah, I don't know. It's kind of expensive and I want to think about it. So keep listening to this podcast. 

Watch my masterclass, sell yourself on coaching. If this is something that you're, let's say on the fence about sell yourself on coaching. But for those of you who are just getting started. Here's some things to do. Start tracking your food intake with an app like my fitness pal. Download it. You don't have to track for even a year, although that's a really good goal, but too much. 

Try tracking your nutrition for a week. And if you screw up one of the days, cause you got busy or you didn't know what to do, just say, I'm going to track for seven days and I'm going to keep doing it until I get full seven days data from my fitness pal about the number of calories that are meeting because that is the major issue. 

Here's another one. Schedule three non negotiable workouts per week. Do 30 minutes to start schedule. And when I say schedule, I mean, put it in your calendar and do not move it around for anyone. Oh, can you make a meeting at this? Oh no. Oh yeah, sure. I'll just, you know, I'll put my, I'll put my gym workout for later in the day and then you never do it. 

No schedule it. Keep it, keep your word to yourself. So those are two things I'm going to give you to, um, You know, to start with, you don't need to be perfect, but you do need to start. And even more importantly, you need to start with a plan that you can execute consistently. And if you do that, even if it seems so small a year from now, whoa, you're going to be different. 

Or if you don't do this a year from now, you'll wish you had. So again, watch my masterclass, go to my website, legendary life podcast. com, you know, start to get into the free resources. For ongoing support and you know, whether you end up working with me or not, that's cool. But I want to see you break through some of the traps you've been falling into. 

So again, whether you're ready to take action on your own, or you know, it's time to get expert help. The key is to start now, even if you've fallen off, don't start now, but start to reassess, go through all the things that we talked about, reassess your goals, find a way to be more consistent. Don't let another year slip by, do things differently. 

And again, if you're a busy professional over 40 and you're tired of spinning your wheels, let's talk my coaching program. It's not for everyone, but if you're ready to invest in yourself and finally see results in a way that you didn't never thought you could have because you feel like, Whoa, I could do this for the rest of my life, then 40 program. 

Again, you would do that at legendary like podcast. com. I'm sorry. Legendary life program. com slash apply. That's legendary life program. com slash apply. We'll make 2025 the year you take back control of your health. And remember the best time to start was yesterday. The next best time today, go take action out there.  I'll talk to you soon. 

 

Ted Ryce is a high-performance coach, celebrity trainer, and a longevity evangelist. A leading fitness professional for over 24 years in the Miami Beach area, who has worked with celebrities like Sir Richard Branson, Rick Martin, Robert Downey, Jr., and hundreads of CEOs of multimillion-dollar companies. In addition to his fitness career, Ryce is the host of the top-rated podcast called Legendary Life, which helps men and women reclaim their health, and create the body and life they deserve.

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