While the new year might be a good starting point for healthy practices, try not to get too ambitious with your resolutions. Instead, consider 10 small changes that will add up a healthier you in 2013:

Don't call it a comeback.

Don't call it a diet or a workout. Think about exercise as a healthy break in your day, a chance to give your mind a rest. A change in perspective may make the change in lifestyle less intimidating.

At the grocery store, try something new.

A meal of tomatoes, garlic, chicken and almonds gives you cancer-fighting lycopene from the tomatoes, free-radical destroyers in the garlic, weight-loss support from the nuts and a better coating for chicken than bread crumbs. Try Greek yogurt on mashed cauliflower rather than fat and cholesterol-filled sour cream on starchy potatoes.

Visit http://www.choosemyplate.gov

to learn about how you can make your daily meals better. The USDA recommends at least half of your plate should be full of fruits and vegetables. For 2013, set a six-month goal to make sure that at least one of your plates each day looks like the MyPlate picture. When you've achieved that goal, challenge yourself to shaping up at least two plates a day and then so on, for all three meals.

More Information

Sources: Linda Gottlieb, nationally certified personal trainer, cancer exercise trainer, and master fitness motivator based in Milford, Conn.; psychologist Jeremy Dean, author of "Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don't, and How to Make Any Change Stick"; "Healthy Resolutions and How to Keep Them by Lisa Collier Cool, http://health.yahoo.net; Stephanie DiBacco, registered dietitian and instructor, The Sage Colleges; Claire Wieman, owner, Evo-Life Counseling and Coaching, Ballston Spa, NY.

Instead of rigid diets and counting calories,

replace the processed foods in your cabinets with real food. It is more satisfying and filling, and will leave you feeling more energized and less apt to go rummaging through the kitchen after dinner, hunting snacks.

What is real food? Michael Pollan, author of "In Defense of Food," offers this rule of thumb before munching: "Was this item around when my grandmother was a child?" If it wasn't, consider replacing it with something that was. When you start with better nutrition as a foundation, weight loss and fitness goals fall into line behind it with ease.

Wear a pedometer.

Doing so causes people to take about 2,000 extra steps (one extra mile) per day, according to a study at Stanford University.

6. We all know old habits die hard. Identify the triggers for your bad habits — eating out of boredom, for example. Once the habit's trigger has been identified, it's possible to make a change. But the mistake people make is trying to suppress the habit. Research has shown that this tends to backfire, making the habit, and its unconscious performance, come back even stronger.

Try to replace the bad habit with a better one. Rather than suppressing a snacking habit, for example, it's better to make the snack food healthier: Switch from candy to apples. Say something to yourself like: "If I'm hungry between meals, then I will eat an apple." Each time you successfully repeat the new response in the same situation, your replacement habit gains in strength.

7. Stop comparing yourself to others. When you focus on measuring yourself against others you will always lose; there will be someone more talented, more attractive, or more successful than you, no matter how good you are.

Think instead about strengths that you wish to develop in yourself this year. Remember that for every person who has it better, there's someone else who's got it worse. Take a deep breath and think about one thing you can do that day to be a better person. Taking one simple action already makes you better than you ever were before.

8. Schedule time to do things that you truly love to do, not just things that you should be doing. Make the activity mindful by mapping out a time frame to do it; that will make it that much more enjoyable. Sneaking it in here or there carelessly, or with guilt that it's taking you away from something that you feel you are supposed to be doing instead, will detract from the pleasure of the experience.

9. Consistency is the single biggest key to succeeding. Use your calendar, and schedule your activity and don't hit the delete key on yourself. You are the most important person in your life. If you can only find 10 minutes in your day, make it sacred time. It all adds up.

10. But stuff happens. Some days just don't go as planned. Having alternate options for the snow days, the out of town or vacation days and overtime days is critical to staying on your fit and trim path. Have a pair of sneakers in your car or briefcase for times you can sneak in some "instant recess."

lhornbeck@timesunion.com • 518-454-5352 • @leighhornbeck