You will gather from my “I hate New Year” post that I don’t do the renewed vigour, the gritty determination to make more of my time, decisions to lose weight and get healthier or any other such clichéd resolution-type bullshit.
Why, then, am I now writing this at 9:15am, having already cleaned the kitchen, eaten breakfast, sorted some paperwork, packed away a little of Christmas and finally finished a deadline-free article I had hoped to complete last month but for it being a difficult one to write on?
Oh, and here is another thing… I went for a run the night before last, which I’ve not really had time to do since some time in November and did some pilates and a bit of Wii fit last night – I soon put paid to the Wii fit smugness though: “You’ve not been here for ages, fatty! Do you want some workout tips? – Oh my bad, you’ve lost 16 pounds since you played last, maybe you don’t need me after all… I’ll be under the coffee table should you change your mind!” Not that I particularly feel the need to lose weight, but it’s still good that I have. In fact, losing it when you aren’t trying is a real bonus; a freebie from karma to me… so in your face to all those people who are spending the next two or three weeks at the gym whilst nagging at those of us who prefer to workout somewhere void of the condescension of being surrounded by the young and healthy-without-even-trying as we sweat, pant and wheeze our way through the most sedate circuits we can create.
I found myself writing a list, too; a “things to do this year” type of list. It’s not a particularly creative one, nor is it anything too taxing… in fact there is no reason any of the things on the list are not attainable… but I am worried it smacks a little of a resolution of sorts.
You see, I do always find myself with accidental resolutions.
One year, I sat alone at the turn of the clock having had to stay up for the inevitable family phone calls and just cried. As with all years, there had been plans, but they fizzled out as one-by-one everyone else fell asleep until by the turn of the calendar I had been moping in my own misery for almost two hours; so I cracked. I was horrendously overweight at the time, although did not care much about it and started to wonder about how many calories I had consumed in the bottle of cheap celebratory fizz I had drunk alone so hit the internet in search of calorific values of various wines etc to find myself landing eventually on what turned out to be quite a life-changing website . I read about how this website could change everything I hated about my life by teaching me to create healthy habits. The website also had a calorie-counter, into which you could enter the food you had in a day and it would give a full nutritional breakdown.But it does not change the fact that without intending to, I had stumbled into a weight-loss resolution.
I hadn’t wanted to lose weight really; I knew I needed to, but there is a certain comfort in being bigger. Mainly in my case, as I was to learn much later, the fact that by staying fat (read: unattractive) I could go out without attracting unwanted attention from other guys, so did not need to think too much about whether or not I was happy with how deeply morose my home-life was. That said I found myself signing up, as much to use the calculator to work out my alcohol-calories for the day as anything else and found myself working through the stages to self-betterment.
Being as anti-cliché as I am, I was determined not to start a diet; especially on New Year. I was also very much of the impression that in order for any life-style change to stick it had to be as much like the norm as possible and as such, I did nothing to change my life initially, choosing to simply log my normal diet and activity just to see where I was; and that was the shocker.
In order to lose a healthy two pounds a week, the system told me I needed to consume 1250 calories a day; excluding that New Year’s Eve, I was taking on around 250. In fact, over the first two weeks, I was only able to break 300 on one day – and that was a day I had felt immensely stuffed and lethargic. I had always taken great pride in having beaten an eating disorder completely unaided at the age of 17, but the more I looked at it the more I realised that in actual fact all I had beaten was the need to weigh myself in fifteen minute intervals. At this point I was thirty years old, weighed almost two hundred pounds and decided enough was indeed enough.
The website had the most amazing wealth of information and experts you could chat with on-demand. It was (and still is!) completely free to use which amazed me, having seen how much some other sites were charging for a far less helpful service. I found myself learning about starvation mode, about the nutritional necessity of specific minerals and most importantly for me which foods offered high calories without adding fat, sugars, salt and other nasties. I gradually brought my intake up until eight months into the regime I found myself celebrating a first full week of hitting my target calories every day. That in itself was a big day for me, but also represented the most important message the site endorses; “Slowly, slowly; catchy monkey.” You cannot change your life in one day, it takes time. By starting with the small target of taking breakfast each day, I got into the habit of eating. Once that was set, I determined that breakfast had to be before ten which meant that I was starting to get hungry by mid-afternoon so would eat lunch. I had not felt hungry in such a long time, so that was a huge achievement for me and over time I was able to build up to regularly taking three meals, with a handful of nuts or seeds in the evening to punch the calorie target. I learnt so much about fitness, nutrition, goal-setting and more importantly about myself and I am eternally grateful for that.
Other years have passed in a similar fashion, like the year the girls and I had seen in the New Year singing along with the music channels on TV and had decided to have more family time, so opted for a weekly “Family Night”. That drifted off the radar after a few weeks when it became more a “mummy and baby” night.
There was also the year I had a New Year phone call from my gran, which had left me determined to make more effort to visit my older family members more often; but time was hard to come by and I never really managed to visit anyone.
And the year I decided to clean the house whilst awaiting my mum’s call and happened across my book of lists; I decided I no longer needed lists, so threw the book away and determined to never list anything again. That was the worst year ever; I forgot everything, was horrendously disorganised and life just became immensely chaotic until the moment I started to plan a birthday party for one of the kids and just knew without a list it would be the worst party ever.
You see, I accidentally make life-changing decisions at New Year and head down the pathway to Resolution-ville without a second thought.
And this year?
I seem to be accidentally working out
And losing weight
And taking a more organised approach to my work
And after having looked back through my list, gained some sort of ambition and drive unheard of before.
So now I have to make a decision:
Do I determine to achieve all I want and hope for success?
Or…
Do I throw the list away now before the thought of failure and Clichédom become too much to bear?
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