Anyone and every fitness junkie knows Jillian Michaels, celebrity trainer extraordinaire of The Biggest Loser and Losing It With Jillian fame (who also happens to be a multiple New York Times best-selling author). Michaels is famous for her 90-day weight loss program “Body Revolution” as well as BODYSHRED, the 30-minute workout class she launched exclusively at GoodLife gyms in North America. Now, Michaels is making her fitness techniques accessible to anyone with an iPhone or Android. With her new app, “My Fitness by Jillian Michaels,” she has you covered, whether you want to lose weight, burn fat, tone it up, or sweat your way into 2018. Not only does the app offer custom workout plans based on your specific fitness level and goals, but it also includes customizable meal plans to follow throughout the training period (regardless of if you’re vegetarian, pescatarian, etc), access to over 550+ unique exercises with an HD video to help you perfect your form, and more. The latest version comes with a plethora of new features like selfie trackers to keep up with your progress throughout your training; it also syncs up with your Apple Watch to make it even more personal. Now, this fitness guru is sharing even more of her expertise, dishing on how to get that hot bod you’ve always dreamed of just in time for the New Year.

1. First and foremost establish your why. I have said this over and over, but that’s because it’s so critical.  In truth, getting healthy is simple science.  Eat less, move more, use common sense with your food choices.  So if it’s so simple, why is it so hard?  This is where the motivation component comes in.  Work without a purpose is punishment, but work that has purpose becomes passion.  So it’s imperative that you sit down and think of all the things you want for your life and all the ways your life will improve in the long run by sticking with your health and fitness goals for 2018.  Come up with a detailed list.  Place it everywhere you can as a constant reminder so that when the going gets tough you have some perspective that the work is worth it.

2. As mentioned, nutrition is simple science that gets over complicated by fad diets from people trying to reinvent the wheel and sell you something you don’t need.  The universal rules of healthy eating apply to everyone.  The first of which is watch how many calories you eat.  Fat is stored energy and the calories in our food are units of energy.  No matter how healthy the food is, if you eat too many calories (more than you are burning off in a day) you will store that extra energy as fat.  So consider a tracking device or app that does it for free.  Apple’s health app does this and it syncs right up with my app so you can easily enter the foods from your meal plan and know exactly how much you’ve consumed.  When you are trying to lose over 25 pounds, you should eat no less than 1400 calories a day if you’re a woman and 1600 calories a day if your a man.  If you are trying to lose the last 10 pounds, you should eat no less than 1600 a day as a woman and no less than 1800 as a man.  Green vegetables are free foods – you can eat as much as you want, but you still have to count the sauce or oil they may be cooked in.  This is because green veggies are loaded with phyto-nutrients, fiber, and water content with very little calories.  It’s nearly a draw on how much energy it takes to digest them verses how much energy is in them.

3. Eat real food.  While this should be common sense, there is so much crap in our food that many of us can’t imagine would be legally allowed in our food that we don’t even know what to look for.  So, in a perfect world, you eat organic whenever possible to avoid chemicals, pesticides, fungicides, antibiotics, hormones etc. Obviously, that is not the easiest thing to do from a cost perspective, so here are some tips to make this work.  First, even if a product isn’t organic many are ethical enough to avoid the top offenders.  Look out for hydrogenated oils, fractionated oils, food coloring, artificial sweeteners (stevia, xylitol, erythritol are ok), and MSG.  Then when it comes to produce, if you can’t go organic choose thick skinned fruits like oranges instead of berries or watermelon instead of peaches, bananas instead of plums etc.  This is because thick skinned fruits require less pesticides. When it comes to greens choose cruciferous like broccoli over leafy like spinach because cruciferous require less chemicals as well to keep the bugs at bay.  And last, eat less meat, and when you do, eat and buy organic.  This matters. Especially when it comes to beef and dairy as well. Or you can choose non-dairy alternatives like coconut or almond.

4. Get a meal plan.  No one expects you to be a nutritionist and if the above feels overwhelming to you try a meal plan out.  The key is to find one that is calorie controlled, has ingredients that are affordable and easy to find, and quick to make but tasty to eat. My app, for example, has 5 different meal plans with hundreds of recipes designed with registered dietitians and professional chefs so that no matter if you are vegan, paleo, omnivore, gluten free etc. you can find exactly what you need without having to stress about it.

5. Move. While it’s true that there are definitely ideal techniques to achieve results quickly if you don’t like the workout you won’t do it. And the most effective workout is the one you show up for consistently.  So identify activities you enjoy and work those into your weekly fitness regimen. Whether it’s yoga, spinning, hiking, surfing, skiing etc., put some fun workouts on your to do list for the new year.

6. Get support. This is a big one. Not everyone can find the support they need in friends, family, co-workers etc. If you can that’s great, but in some cases, those individuals might even be sabotaging your success.  So, if you find that you need to look outside for support a fitness community can be the thing.  For example, a running group, a community at a group class in a studio you love, or an online community are all great options.  There is a group called “Jillian Michaels Workout Junkies” that are about 50k strong on Instagram and it’s literally a group of woman that challenge, support, befriend and train with one another to help maintain their motivation.

7. Get expert advice.  Ultimately, you are not expected to know how to train yourself in the most efficient, but safe way possible.  For this reason, a little expert advice can go along way.  And there are so many options now to get incredible training affordably.  Whether it’s an actual personal trainer, or streaming workouts on a platform like FitFusion (which has ALL my fitness titles on there as well as so many other trainers), or an app that has workouts on it – this instruction can help so much because you see results faster and are more likely to avoid an injury. My app, for example, totally customizes your workout based on your current fitness level, fitness goals, time frame, equipment available etc. So make sure you find solutions that are tailored to you and your needs.