Health-conscious and goal-oriented, many runners start the New Year with a long list of well-intended diet resolutions—like giving up all dessert or forgoing fat. But large, sweeping goals are often unrealistic and impossible to achieve, leaving you feeling overwhelmed and defeated before you even begin.
The more empowering route? Make smaller, more manageable changes that will keep you motivated and reshape the way you approach food. “When you decide to train for a marathon, you wouldn’t run all those miles right off the bat,” says Keri Gans, M.S., R.D., author of The Small Change Diet. “In the same way, hitting short-term nutrition goals will help you achieve the long-term ones.”
