15 Resolutions

Your New Year’s Resolutions are getting stale. The same goals seem to pop up year after year and many of them revolve around health and body.

We’re here to help spice that up list, offering 15 suggestions for a better, more beautiful, more relaxed you in 2008. We think our ideas are pretty darn good, so we’ll guarentee that they’ll lead to one of the greatest years of your life. Oh, a quick note, just because we feature a beautiful woman in our photos, we’re expecting men to adhere to these health, beauty, and body resolutions, too.

1. Start off on a relaxed foot
To truly improve yourself for 2008, you’ll need to start off on a real, nice relaxed foot. That’s why you desperately need to take a weekend spa retreat. Go for two nights, leave the cell phone, bring a loved one, eat well, sleep in, partake in a few different spa services and best of all, wear a robe for 48 consecutive hours—room service makes this possible. Locally, we love Boulder’s St. Julien. In the mountains, check out Cordillera in Vail. Down in Colorado Springs, The Broadmoor offers some of the most luxurious amenities in the country. Spa packages offer the best deals to keep these weekends in the realm of affordability, generally starting at $300 per person, per night.

2. Eat much, much healthier
Regardless of how painful this may be, stop eating out so much. Lunch every day, dinner every other night and breakfast out on the weekends adds up to a whole lot of extra calories and fat. Cook from home and do some research on how to do it well. And with the money you save, you’ll have some extra cash to pay for many of the following treatments. If you need help, check websites such as The World’s Healthiest Foods for tips, recipes and a list of the 100 or so healthiest ingredients. Apples, yogurt and tuna make the list—somehow French fries got left off. Sad.

3. Get it all out
So you spent the better part of November and December eating and drinking—and eating and drinking some more. It may be wise to think about cooling it on the martinis for a month while your body adjusts to its new, healthier outlook. It’s tough to do—we love a big bold glass of Malbec as much as you—but detoxing for a month will get you on the right path to reach all of your health-related resolutions in 2008.

4. Find a unique body treatment
Day spas such as Lakeshore Athletic Club in Broomfield offer unique pamperings such as an 80-minute Papaya Mango Body Smoothie session. Nimble hands coat you in a lemon sugar polish that includes an exfoliating almond oil treatment. Then the creamy tropical mixture is applied to soften and clear up your skin. Or try a C-Firming Wrap from St. Julien that will have you covered in a cranberry pomegranate scrub. These services generally start in the $100 range.

5. Wave it away
Acoustic Wave Therapy is a relatively new treatment (to the U.S. at least) that is one of the first to treat cellulite. It’s non-surgical and non-invasive and can be preformed on the stomach, thighs, butt and arms. It takes about six, 30- to 45-minute sessions to significantly reduce the tissue problems and release those “dimples.” For years, Europeans have been using this technique that uses a pulse waves to slim, firm and smooth the areas in need. Rejuvenescence Spa in Louisville, which opened in November, is the first medical spa in the area to offer it. Full treatment, which is recommended to be completed within three weeks and should coincide with improved diet and exercise habits, ranges from about $1,200 to $1,500.

6. Indulge in the classic
Throughout the year, make sure find yourself a suitable masseuse to perform whatever your pleasure whether it be the standby Swedish, more hardcore deep tissue or a trendy treatment such as hot stone. Words to live by: Life is not worth living without massage. Ok, we just made that up, but there are day spas aplenty in the area that offer massages for an hour or longer (starting at about $50). You’ll get bonus points if you take the time for a 25-minute lunchtime rubdown every now
and then.

7. Go find yourself a gym
For the next four to six weeks, every gym in American is going to be jam-packed with folks trying to live up to their resolutions and shed some excess holiday weight gained by all those servings of turkey, ham and eggnog. Please purchase a gym membership that isn’t month-to-month. If you are paying your dues for a year or longer, there should be enough monetary guilt to sustain your workouts long after the February fizzle. Then won’t even need to make a 2009 fitness resolution.

8. Then check out an alternative
It’s about time we say this: Yoga and pilates aren’t just for hippies. Both these practices are great alternatives to hopping on a treadmill, lifting weights or any other traditional workout. Yoga studios range from the gong-banging, incense-burning sort to the more mainstream that burn and stretch your muscles to extremes you’d never thought possible. Or take in the mind body combo of pilates. Both forms of exercise promote smaller, lean muscles—the ones that make for super sexy bodies.

9. Make your house a spa
A little home improvement can go a long way to ensuring yourself the ability to relax monthly, weekly or even nightly in the comfort of your own home. We suggest replacing that tired old tub in your master bath with a whirlpool version. Then buy some scented candles, a few bath salts and one of those ever-so-comfy terri cloth robes. It may seem expensive, but the four-digit investment will save you from having to drop into the spa every week.. If you can swing a hut tub in the backyard, too, you will be the envy of the neighborhood—you may have to charge your friends who start showing up every time they get back from a day of skiing, though.

10. Cool hair treatment
Your hair wants some love, too. It is the part of your body that keeps your scalp from getting fried by the hot Colorado summer sun and your noggin warm when the single-digit temperatures kick in each winter. Day spas such as Evergreen Cottage offer various conditioning treatments that will replenish your hair from all that damage day-in and day-out. Evergreen offers a deep condition treatment using organic Aveda products. For $50, it includes a scalp massage that uses oils to balance and sooth. That’s followed by a deep condition that adds either protein or moisture to your hair. These treatments bring out the shine and elasticity of your hair and are recommended once a season.

11. Go to the hospital
It’s time to get a little serious with your New Year’s goals. Preventative care is one of the most successful ways to avoid long-term health problems. So see your primary care physician to get that annual check up (don’t forget a visit to the dentist, too). Also, health facilities such as Boulder Community Hospital offer an array of affordable classes for everyone from seniors looking to heal arthritis, to those at risk for heart disease looking to change their lifestyles, to people who plan on traveling to Third World countries and need a little advice on immunizations and other issues.

12. Go under the laser
When a laser comes into play, you can get rid of sun-damaged skin, unwanted hair and blotchy spots on your face. There’s really nothing a laser cannot do. So if you have a bunch of unwanted hair, regardless of where it is, check out clinics such as Affordable Laser and New Image Laser that offer six-time packages to permanently get rid of it. Starting at about $250 for a lip and topping out at $2,500 for shoulders and back, this could be one of the best investments to keeping your sexy, hairless body. If you have sun-damaged or blotchy skin, treatments such as collagen rebuilding and photo rejuvenation can bring your skin back 15 years, at least.

13. Get a ‘cure monthly
As with the others, this is a resolution both men and women should enjoy. Seriously. Manicures and pedicures don’t just make your nails look pretty. They include a hand massage, which makes for a spoiled treatment almost as relaxing as a full-body massage. Kudos to those who throw in facial with their ‘cure.

14. Don’t forget your knees
If you are a skier or runner or biker or any other type of athlete who abuses the knees, it’s time to start taking a supplement such as glucosamine sulfate. Taking about 500 milligrams a day fosters healthy joints—it’s basically knee lube. So grease up your most important joints and start tackling epic mogul runs like Vail’s Highline or enjoying those eight-mile without a rebellion from your knees.

15. Take a soak at lunch
Many day spas such as Mystic Garden in Longmont offer relaxing dips in their nutrient-enriched baths. For $25, take a 20-minute dip in a tub filled with sea algae, or salts and other goodies that’ll leave your skin feeling like it did when you where 18. Since these treatments take less time than it does to eat out for lunch, schedule in one to break up your workday every now and then.