It’s that time of year again, as the calendar starts anew, it’s an opportunity to reflect and identify what you want to change about your life and health. New Year’s resolutions tend to be health-oriented; people want to eat nutritiously, exercise, establish healthy habits, and lose weight. 

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Establishing healthy lifestyle habits is a great goal, but ultimately, most resolutions fail. Why? Because healthy eating habits don’t just form by changing everything in a day and relying on willpower. Building habits takes time and practice. 

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If you don’t just want a regular new year, but a happy, healthy new year and to lose weight (and keep it off, finally), this article is for you. Keep reading as we explore a new way to approach resolutions and how The Fork Clinic can help you on your journey. We’ll discuss:

• Why new year health resolutions tend to fail, and how to approach them differently 
• The Mission YOU Approach
• Health foundations, and why it’s more than “eat less, exercise more”
• Our top New Year’s resolution ideas – the elimination diet
• The difference between a diet and healthy eating habits/lifestyle change

Resolutions Reinforce Dieting Mentality, But What if There Was a Different Way?

Resolutions are rarely about developing healthy eating habits to lose weight. Instead, they typically involve complete overhauls and significant changes to daily food intake or exercise. 

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Resolutions reinforce a dieting mentality that relies on restriction and willpower. In practice, it’s too much change and too many restrictions, all at once. The effort and willpower are not sustainable. Everything falls apart, and you’re back to your old habits by February. One study showed that 77% of people maintained their resolution for one week, but only 19% were successful by the 2-year mark. 

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What if there was a different way? Resolutions don’t offer a roadmap, guidebook, or much-needed support, but Mission YOU does. 

Mission YOU in 2026

Mission YOU is a functional medicine framework for developing healthy eating habits, patterns, and fitness resolutions that work for your unique body. It’s not about following a prescribed program but rather doing the inquisitive work to understand and implement the strategies that are effective and sustainable for your unique body.

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It’s not just another one-size-fits-all approach to wellness resolutions; it’s tailored for YOU. It addresses how to be healthy and how to stay healthy. But here’s the thing: it’s not a quick fix or a one-and-done strategy; it involves time, effort, and drawing from multiple functional medicine tools and foundations.

It’s not just another one-size-fits-all approach to wellness resolutions; it’s tailored for YOU. It addresses how to be healthy and how to stay healthy. But here’s the thing: it’s not a quick fix or a one-and-done strategy; it involves time, effort, and drawing from multiple functional medicine tools and foundations. 

Foundations of Functional Approach to Health

The functional medicine approach is built on the idea that all body systems are interconnected, that each person is an individual, and that the relationship between provider and patient matters. We use a detailed intake (to understand your timeline, history, and triggers), functional lab tests, and other tools to identify the root causes of symptoms and dysfunction. We don’t just treat disease, but we actively work to prevent it in the first place. 

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Then we build in the foundations:

• Nutrition – At The Fork, we begin with the YOU Diet, which is a systematic approach to learning what foods work for your body and which ones don’t. The answer will be as unique as you. It’s not a prescriptive, forever diet, but a deep understanding of your body and how to navigate the food and nutrition moving forward. More on this below. 

• Exercise – More isn’t better; it’s about finding the sweet spot, where you feel your best and receive the health benefits without overdoing it or getting injured. 

• Sleep – If you aren’t sleeping well, you can’t effectively heal, build, repair, balance hormones, or manage weight. Healthy sleep habits are foundational. 

• Stress management – You can eat the perfect diet (for you) and do all the things, but if your body is constantly under stress, you won’t reap all the benefits of your healthy habits. Stress management also involves social connection and community engagement. 

• Environmental health – Functional medicine also works to understand the relationship between your environment and your health. A healthy routine can’t overlook the role of toxins and reducing exposure wherever possible. 

• Medications and supplements – Targeted, personalized interventions support health in conjunction with the lifestyle pieces. 

Importance of an Elimination Diet

Don’t start a new year diet unless it’s the last diet you’ll ever need: the elimination diet, and more specifically, The YOU Diet. 

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The YOU Diet is our elimination diet approach, which isn’t really a diet, but a systematic tool to discover the foods and ways of eating that support your highest health. We remove common inflammatory and allergenic foods, allow the body to reclaim a new baseline of feeling well, and then reintroduce foods one at a time. Beyond this, we focus on food quality, removing ultra-processed foods, optimizing your macronutrients, and harnessing personalized nutrition. 

Diet Vs. Lifestyle Change

Turning unsustainable resolutions into lifelong habits requires a shift in mindset. Instead of looking through the lens of dieting and diet culture, we must think about lifestyle change, not quick fixes, but slow, sustainable habit building. 

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From this view, you may not need New Year’s resolutions at all. Rather, get started by scheduling your discovery call with The Fork for guidance and support every step of the way. 

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Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year!

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References

1. Norcross, J. C., & Vangarelli, D. J. (1988). The resolution solution: longitudinal examination of New Year's change attempts. Journal of substance abuse, 1(2), 127–134. 

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