Personal trainer shares tips for sticking to New Year’s fitness goals

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Nearly half of Americans have set New Year’s goals to improve their fitness. However, 23% of adults will give up their New Year’s Resolutions this Friday, which has come to be known as “Quitter’s Day.”

Cuong Nguyen is a personal trainer in Sioux Falls and owner of Cuong Strong Personal Training. He has some tips on sticking to those fitness goals.

“So, usually people don’t lose the weight as fast as they want to because a lot of people, when it comes to weight loss, are really impatient. But the thing with weight loss is that it took a while to gain all that weight, so you just got to be patient and trust the process and know that all the little actions that you take every day, they’ll someday accumulate and you’ll reach your goal if you keep working towards it,” said Nguyen.

In addition to patience, Nguyen also warns against taking on too much at once.

“One of the most common mistakes that I see people make when they start out with trying to lose weight or get in good shape is, a lot of times, people are honestly doing too much all at once. So, the problem with doing too much all at once is eventually, you hit a plateau. If you’re already doing too much or you’re restricting your calories too much and then you hit a plateau, it makes it harder to keep moving forward if you’ve already done too much right away,” said Nguyen.

Nguyen also recommends picking one goal and sticking to it.

“If you set a goal that’s important to you, you’re going to do everything that you can to achieve that goal. If it’s really important to you, it will make it easier to not make up excuses to not reach that goal,” said Nguyen.

Copyright 2025 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.