In the first part of these posts I suggested November as the date that you should start preparing. In part that is because if you intend to start at New Year then you want all of the things in place by then, what are you doing, when are you going to do it by. Indeed there may be some research to do for example finding an exercise class. All of that takes time and December is often one of the busiest months.
One thought you may wish to consider is putting of your Resolutions till February. I read an interesting post on Groundhog day resolutions http://davidseah.com/blog/2007/02/groundhog-day-resolutions/ Groundhog day always falls on the 2nd of February (2/2) and if your resolutions start then you have all of the Christmas baggage out of the way.
Groundhog resolutions have a further advantage. One of the most important things you can do is to regularly check the progress of your goals and the change you are trying to bring about – are you on target. If you use Groundhog day (2/2) it seems sensible to use the 3rd March (3/3) and the 4th of April (4/4) and so on as review points – a sort of built in reminder for review.