We often hear about how the top New Years resolutions revolve around weight loss and fitness. So naturally it makes sense that google would experience a full on assault of these resolution related queries. Using the Google Trends website, the data absolutely agrees with this notion, and it is absolutely fascinating.

diet-trends

To start, I did a quick search of the three common diet strategies. Paleo, Atkins and South Beach all have had their moments in the sun. South Beach which has steadily declined in popularity since the early 2000's where it took the nation by storm, Atkins which has remained fairly popular over time, and the newest hot trend being the Paleo Diet were chosen because I felt like they represent a wide swath of approaches in general. At first glance the data looked fairly noisy, and was hard to realize what was going on. But then I realized that the spikes in all three data sets corresponded directly to January 1st of each month. Bring on those New Years resolutions!

What amazes me is how cyclical the diet and exercise routine truly is. Apparently very few people in October really care one way or another about diet at all, though I am curious about the week following Halloween! It is also pretty cool to see the general trajectory each diet has taken too. I've zoomed in to the past eight years, but looking further back in time, South Beach was completely dominant for many years.

I guess the message of the day for me is this, don't let your enthusiasm fade over the next month or two. Keep at it and you will see results. Things take time, and the only way to really break free of the diet and exercise cycle is to fully commit to it day in and day out. Capitalize on your new-found interest in getting healthy, and establish good behaviors so that next time New Years comes along you won't be part of this statistic.