Affirming your weight loss goals helps to keep you motivated when your will flounders.

Since weight loss is 50 percent attitude it only seems reasonable that positive reinforcement would help to cement your resolve.

Your mindset will be your strongest tool in weight loss efforts.

Tenacity is the best way to keep off the weight.

With all the resolutions to lose weight being made this year it is easy to forget that reaching your goal involves a lot of changes.

And in making those changes there are bound to be a few slips along the way.

Well, it is not in the mistake but rather in the recovery where success is borne.

Behavior change is the cornerstone of healthy, successful weight loss and it takes about three months to establish a new behavior.

Only 20 percent of Americans who’ve tried to lose weight will keep the weight off after one year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Bartfield offered the following tips to help reverse this trend and help people achieve and maintain their weight-loss goals.

Don’t forget to to give yourself some slack.

A few mistakes here and there is no reason to give up.

Keeping a food diary is one of the best ways to ensure weight loss success.

Everyone underestimates how much they eat and keeping a diary keeps you accountable and aware.

The American Academy of Family Physicians offers these tips on what to record in your food diary:

Exactly what foods you ate — don’t forget to include any condiments, sauces or other extras.

The amount of food that you ate, in either size or volume.

What time of day that you ate, and where you were when you ate.

What you were doing when you ate, and how you felt when you were eating.

Whether you were alone or with someone else.