According to a recently-published Thomson Reuters-NPR Health Poll, 51 percent of Americans have set New Year's resolutions to excercise more and 35 percent have promised to lose weight. I've already read countless Facebook posts about friends throwing out piles "unhealthy" food, complaining of hunger pangs on a starvation diet and icing sore muscles after overdoing it in the gym.

If you’ve been reading this blog since 2011 started you likely made a resolution to take a positive approach to eating rather than restricting foods (we know that diets don’t work, right?).

Now that you are nearing the two-week mark, how are you doing? No doubt you’ve hit some roadblocks and stumbled.

Don’t give up. Today you are refining your goal for better success. This is your goal—not your friends’, partners’ or the suggestions of the top 10 food list you saw on TV last week. You are unique so choose what works for you and fits your lifestyle.

What will you do differently with the foods you choose? This is the centerpiece of your meal planning (no diets here!). Write a list of the foods and behaviors that you would like to change. You can store these on the Personal Nutrition Planner and check back on your progress.

What is your goal or resolution? What has worked so far and what obstacles have you faced? Perhaps your goal is too general such as “lose weight.”

Find one or two specific items you can do because taking small steps to improve can make a big difference over time. You could plan dinners with fewer high-calorie, low-nutrition foods and instead focus on foods high in fiber and volume (think soups in the winter). Or it could be cooking one or two more times a week at home rather than eating out to manage portion sizes.

Use a reality-based approach of small steps toward healthier eating. If you tried a hot food trend that is terrific for health but didn’t like it don’t eat it. Kimchi, Korean pickled cabbage, may be a great food but if you do not like spicy foods cross it off your list and move on. Food preferences are personal and you should eat what you love in moderation.

How have your family and friends helped or hindered your goal? Research shows individuals who have a strong support network are more successful. If you are the family meal preparer you may have to adjust meals to account for food likes and dislikes.

Try small changes rather than giving up on foods that are important to you. For example, I stock a variety of yogurts to make everyone happy. I’ll make “pulled apart” meals which have components of the entrée in separate dishes for everyone to select what they want. By customizing the meal everyone’s needs are addressed.

Nutrition is considered a young science and there is much new and often conflicting information. The matrix shown above illustrates the factors that may influence your food choices.

Try our Personal Nutrition Planner. This will give you scientifically sound recommendations based on your age, activity level, health concerns and your weight goal. You can discover new foods or reacquaint yourself with forgotten foods. As you write down foods you want to add consider priorities such as organic foods, convenience, cultural foods, cost, family preferences or buying local.

Remember, it is about making small, sustainable improvements for a healthier you. By personalizing and customizing your goals within the wider context in the matrix will you find better success in achieving your resolution! Remember that social support is important to success. Add a comment here with your new and improved New Year’s resolution.

Trina Robertson, Registered Dietitian

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This guest post by Estela Schnelle, RD, is part of our New Year, New Approach feature to kick off 2011 with a renewed passion for healthy eating.

Living a life of not dieting means listening to our body and making more mindful choices. The first step is making peace with food.

The biggest thing I believe in when I talk about not dieting is the importance of NOT following a restricted eating regimen. The way human nature works… or at least with me… the minute I try to restrict myself from any food, or say I won’t let myself eat a certain food… I instantly want that food.

For example, how long would you last if you vowed to not eat sweets for the next six weeks? I know myself all too well… I would crack.

If we tell ourselves that we can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can often lead to intense feelings of deprivation and uncontrollable cravings.  When we finally “give-in” to a “forbidden” food, it’s often done with such strong intensity that it can result in the Last Supper syndrome where we just eat and eat and eat. Or, it could be followed by extreme guilt.

It’s extremely important to NEVER deprive ourselves of the foods we love. In my book, there is no such thing as a good or bad food, but there is such a thing as a bad portion. Eating healthy is important, but how much we eat is even more important. Try to guide your eating with the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of what I eat is healthy and twenty percent is whatever else I want. There’s no particular order to how this happens either. I’ve had days where I’ve eaten a healthy breakfast, a cheeseburger for lunch, and something small and healthy for dinner. Or, I might have a piece of chocolate after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It changes everyday.

Here’s a little exercise I’d like for you to do. Every single day I want for you to think of one food you truly love, and eat it. For example, if you’re craving pizza, eat it. There’s no need to eat the entire pizza. Wait until you’re truly physically hungry and eat a mindful portion. When I say “mindful portion” you want to eat enough until you are satisfied. Not overly full, but satisfied. If you’ve been overly restricted with your diet in the past, this can be challenging. Take your time and slowly start to mindfully incorporate more of the foods you love, or food you thought you loved. When you start to eat them, you may even realize that you don’t like it too much.

Want to read more on not dieting? Read my No Diet Series.

Estela Schnelle, Registered Dietitian

Estela Schnelle is a registered dietitian and stay-at-home mom. She shares recipes, nutrition tips and her adventures in mommyhood on her blog, WeeklyBite.com.

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This guest post is part of our New Year, New Approach feature to kick off 2011 with a renewed passion for healthy eating.

On January 1st, millions of people set their hopes high with a resolution to lose weight. I hope you weren't one of them.

You may be thinking, "What?!!! Of course I was - it's a tradition. I resolve to lose weight every year!"

Let me clarify. Losing weight is NOT a resolution, it is a RESULT. It is the result of specific changes in the way you eat, move, and live. So this year, instead of setting a goal to lose an arbitrary number of pounds, inches, or clothing sizes, resolve to think differently about eating, physical activity, and living.

Let me give you an example. Leah said she just HAD to lose weight because she didn't like the way she looked or felt. She admitted that she had tried many times in the past to lose weight but she always reverted back to her old habits as soon as her resolve wore thin.

She was a busy mom with two kids and a successful career. She typically skipped breakfast or grabbed a donut at work. She was starving by lunch time so she would pick up fast food to eat at her desk while doing paperwork. Dinner was either fast food again between her kids' soccer practice and dance classes or a quick-to-fix meal like mac ‘n cheese before homework. After the kids were in bed and the house was finally picked up, she would snack until she went to bed.

It would have been easy to focus on what she should or shouldn't be eating but we both knew that her weight was really just a result of the choices she made at the many decision points throughout her busy days. So we created a strategic plan to get her where she wanted to be. The outline we used, called New You Resolutions in 10 Strategic Steps to can be found at http://amihungry.com/new-you-resolutions.shtml. Use this template for creating reasonable yet powerful goals any time of the year.

Back to Leah. We reviewed her starting point - what was working for her and what wasn't. Once she really understood what she was doing, she then focused on what was most meaningful to her: spending time with her family and having the energy to be successful at her job. With this focus, we laid out a plan for her to make one change at a time.

First, she started getting up 10 minutes earlier for a bowl of cereal and some quiet time before anyone else was up. She quickly found that she felt calmer and had more energy throughout the morning. Her next step was to start bringing her lunch at least several times a week and give herself at least 20 minutes to eat without working. She enjoyed her meals more and felt more recharged by taking a break.

With these positive experiences to fuel her along, she took her next step: walking for 10 minutes twice during her work day. She wasn't perfect but it felt great so she did the best she could to be consistent.

Next, she asked her husband to help their family plan ahead for dinner by throwing beans or chicken into the crock pot or having the ingredients on hand for a main dish salad. On the occasions they still went out for fast food, she tried to make healthier choices and stopped up-sizing her meal. Not only were they spending less money, but the kids were eating healthier too.

She then turned to her night time snack habit. She realized that most of the time she wasn't hungry but was rewarding herself for getting through the day. She promised herself that she could eat her favorite foods without feeling guilty but she wanted to try rewarding herself in more nurturing ways. Her favorites became hot baths, reading, and scrap booking. She was feeling so much better that started a dance class while her daughter was in ballet twice a week.

Looking back, Leah realized that if she had just started another diet or joined a gym like every other year, she might have had some quick but temporary results. This time she knew that weight loss was only one of many great results she got from the small changes she made.

Curl up in a comfortable chair and create your plan. When you focus on the small stuff instead of those overwhelming monster goals, you will make one sustainable change at a time and achieve the results you want for a lifetime of good health.

Michelle May, M.D. is a recovered yoyo dieter and the award winning author of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat: How to Break Your Eat-Repent-Repeat Cycle (download the first chapter free). She conducts corporate workshops and speaks throughout the country on mindful eating and vibrant living.

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In his 1945 #1 hit (yes, it’s old), Bing Crosby encouraged people to “accentuate the positive” and “latch on to the affirmative.”  I flashed back to this song recently when I was reading a summary of the 2010 Family Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey results conducted by The American Dietetic Association Foundation. One of the overarching conclusions from this report was that families are more aware of what they should not eat than what they should eat.

I feel that the focus on negative dietary advice has gone too far.  In the past five to ten years, I’ve seen the focus of nutrition recommendations and policy guidelines focus more and more on the negative—what “sinful” foods should be eliminated, restricted or taxed because of their fat, sugar, calorie or sodium content.  But this approach of “villainizing” an ever-expanding list of foods just doesn’t work!  

At Meals Matter, we believe you have to teach people about the nutrient-rich foods they should eat as part of their healthy family meals.

Throughout the month of January we will be sharing tips and practical advice for taking a positive approach to healthy eating and family meals with our New Year, New Approach blog series.

If you don’t already, be sure to subscribe to our blog.

Rather than focus on the negative, we need to heed Bing’s advice and focus on what we can “do” to eat healthfully; spend less time on the “don’ts”. A positive approach to eating also takes into account family cultural traditions, as well as cost and convenience. Respecting an individual’s food tastes and cooking preferences is part of the positive and realistic approach to eating that helps people eat healthier over a lifetime.

I am certain that once we take a positive approach to eating and preparing food, we will start to see that people can make healthy choices that are sustainable for long-term good health! 

Mary Anne Burkman, Registered Dietitian