NO YEAR’S RESOLUTION

I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. This is an
epiphany I have come to in the past few weeks, mostly
after realizing that I did not meet any of the New Year’s
Resolutions I planned to accomplish at the beginning of
last year. Did I start working towards these resolutions?
Yes. But can I say I accomplished them completely?
No. And this is why I do not believe in New Year’s
Resolutions. Let me explain.
At the beginning of every year, we all come up with
these things we are going to accomplish by the end of
the year. These “things” could be changes in our personality,
our habits or just anything we feel that we need
to work on for the new year. The common New Year’s
Resolutions include losing weight, becoming healthier
and spending less time in front of a screen. We will all
go after these resolutions for a month or so, before we
will get caught up in our old habits, declare our resolutions
a failure and decide to “try again next year.” And,
up until this year, I have been guilty of doing exactly
this. However this changed in 2017.
At the beginning of the year I made a resolution. It
was, simply put, to lose weight. I have a wedding coming
up in July and I need to drop a few pounds, not
only for that purpose, but because I would feel better
about myself. However, when I made the resolution,
it would have been the fourth time I attempted to lose
weight. And, when I did so previously, I would do so
by completely cutting out all junk food, eating only fruit
and vegetables and exercising for an hour each day.
Needless to say, after about a week of doing this, I was
tired. And hungry. So I went back to my old eating habits
and resorted back to my old workout habits—doing
five sit-ups a day and deeming that as “good enough.”
Therefore, when I made the resolution in 2017, I started
off the year in the same manner. I called it a New
Year’s Resolution, I started to cut all my favorite foods
out of my diet and I began eating spinach and carrot
sticks without any type of dressing for lunch every day.
In the evenings I would exercise to the point of exhaustion;
which wasn’t my best idea considering the fact
that I was only eating very small amounts of fruits and
vegetables. Would it surprise anyone to say that these
actions lasted me about a week? No? That’s what I figured.
But this time, when I felt myself giving up, I took a
different approach.
I don’t know about any of you, but—in the past—when
I hadn’t accomplished my New Year’s Resolutions by
February I decided that there was nothing I could do
and would have to make an attempt the next year. So,
when February of 2017 came around, and I had not lost
the amount of weight I expected to lose, it would have
been easy for me to just give up. But I didn’t. This time
around I was determined to stick with the resolution,
even if it meant making a few changes.
The biggest change I made was that I stopped thinking
of my weight loss as a New Year’s Resolution.
I even stopped thinking of it as a weight loss plan.
Instead, what I told myself, was that this would be a
lifestyle change that would be a work in progress. So
often, when it comes to our resolutions, we believe it
has to be a one and done type of deal. But this is definitely
not the case. It is much better to take baby steps,
as they are easier to meet and leave less of a chance
of us giving up.
And the funny thing about my resolution is that it was
an up and down process. It has only been in the past
month that I have finally started to take it seriously.
Prior to this time I was walking every day for an hour,
but I hadn’t changed my eating habits. I was still eating
large plates of nachos once a week, buying McDonald’s
frappes every other week and snacking on chips, goldfish
and chocolate on a nightly basis while watching
Netflix until 1 in the morning. So, of course, I wasn’t
losing much, if any, weight.
However, towards the end of November, I started to
make small changes. These actions I took didn’t happen
overnight. It took a lot of research, conversations with
people I trust and pep talks with myself. I was already
walking every day, so I tried increasing my workouts by
mixing in a few minutes of jogging with the walking. I like
to listen to music when I work-out, so I would walk for
one song length and then jog for a song length. I started
incorporating strength training into my workouts; to the
point where I would alternate between cardio one day
and strength the next. Eventually I started to try new
workouts, including using the elliptical machine. And I
started to make healthier
eating choices. This was
the hardest because I am
a huge food lover.
At first I wouldn’t cut
anything out of my diet.
Instead, I started to add
healthier choices to my
meal plan. After a while,
I started to reduce the
portion size of the junk
food I would eat. So, for
example, I would eat half
the size of a meal I love
so that I could satisfy my
craving with less calories.
Following this, I started to make easy-to-manage
changes. I would bring fruit, nuts and yogurt to work so
that I would have healthier snacks, and wouldn’t be running
to the grocery store to buy Cheetos. I stopped putting
sugar in my coffee and tea and, after a week or so,
I stopped drinking coffee all together. Instead of buying
a burger from the café next door each week, I would go
once a month. Instead of getting a Frappuccino every
other week, I started getting them once a month.
I don’t even know if I have lost weight. I refuse to
step on the scale. I know myself and if I have seen
that I haven’t lost any weight I will get frustrated, and I
will give up. Because, although I have started to make
these changes, I still have a lot to work on. Though it is
less often than before, I still drink soft drinks and I still
eat junk food. Some days are better than others and
there are many days I go off the wagon and will eat a
piece of cake, drink a coke and eat a candy bar all in
one day. But, every time I do, I don’t beat myself up over
it. I’ll just say “it happened” and how can I make sure it
doesn’t happen again?
What I have noticed is that, lately, I’ve been wanting
to eat healthier foods. I enjoy working out and I
love how good I feel when I do so or when I make a
healthier choice when it comes to eating. This is all a
work in progress and that is why I will no longer refer to
it—or any choice I make—as a New Year’s Resolution.
Because every decision I make is leading to a better me
and I can make these decisions, and work on myself, at
any time during the year.
So let’s do away with the idea of New Year’s
Resolutions. You don’t have to wait until January 1st to
make any changes you want. You can do it at any time
in the year.