Optimal Living System

New Year's resolutions pour onto Bay Area lists -- and here's how to keep them By Mike Rosenberg This New Year's, the Bay Area is resolving to get healthy and save money. Yet despite our best intentions, within a few months most of us will be back on the couch eating soft serve from the new ice-cream maker we blew $100 on. But all hope is not lost. Scientific studies of New Year's resolutions -- yes, actually done by psychologists -- indicate that some people can make lasting changes if they know what they're doing. "Sadly, the vast majority of people do not have an action plan or a healthy alternative ready to go on Jan. 1," says John Norcross, a psychology professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, who wrote the book on resolutions: "Changeology," released last week. "This Surveys indicate about 40 to 50 percent of us ...