I hate new year’s resolutions... but

I think I need to make one this year

People always say that new year’s resolutions are made to be broken.

I generally avoid making them given people are correct in that the resolution typically fails to be achieved. And then we see the same people making the same resolutions year after year after year.

But the timing works for me this year. So, while I would set this goal regardless of whether or not it is called a “new year’s resolution”, we’ll call it one anyway.

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What did I get for Christmas? Fat... I got fat.

It’s not yet Christmas however I feel as if I have packed on the kilos over the past few months.

And it’s for many reasons:

My routine is all over the shop. Since going back to full time employment I’ve struggled to establish an exercise routine outside of work with any level of success.
The constant travel has destroyed my diet. I get cooked for while at work for every meal of the day. It’s easy to over eat. And healthy options can be few and far between. This is a real problem with no simple solution other than being strict with meal portions and having healthy options on hand (an emergency food stash essentially) where there aren’t any provided.
My sleeping habits have been utterly destroyed. I spend most weekends at home and travel to work throughout the week while staying in hotels in whichever town I’m travelling through at the time. This means that setting a bed time routine can be challenging. My only solution right now is to be incredibly strict with my bed time, start and finish time’s for work and finding a place to exercise regardless of where I am. Being away from home for work often results in working long hours, for the simple fact that there isn’t much else to do.

Excuses, excuses, excuses

Yes, enough with the excuses. It’s probably quite obvious now that my new year’s resolution is to get not fat.

I am incredibly sick of feeling unfit and discovering that my favourite items of clothing no longer fit.

Being fat is not something that I am accustomed to. I have been fit and slim for most of my life. This is an incredibly unusual experience for me. And I do not like it one little bit.

I’m not one to focus on how much I weigh, or what my measurements are. If I feel fit, and don’t feel shocked in a bad way when I look in the mirror, and if my clothes fit well, then I am happy.

So my goal is quite simply to fit into my favourite items of clothing once again.

It should be very simple really. But harder to execute given my employment situation and the constant travel.

But I will find a way. And diet is a massive contributor to the weight gain. So I will fix that situation as a priority followed by ensuring that some form of exercise is taking place daily.

It’s the season to be jolly, and get fat

Christmas is a terrible time of year to start this type of mission. It’s typically a time where people expect to put on weight given all the food and beverages that are consumed.

I’m going to make it a mission to minimise my intake of these foods and drinks however. There’s no point gaining more weight at this time of year if it’s only going to make me feel worse.

For the next two weeks I am in my home town. So, while there will be constant family events which are all centred around food and beverages, I at least have a gym to train in and my bike to ride. So I’ll be exercising every day before going to family events.

Portion control will be a big deal at these family events. There will be no returning for seconds. And deserts will not be permitted.

And then there’s all the alcoholic drinks. Australia is big on drinking. It’s rare to socialise without a beverage of some type. So I’m gong to need to be very disciplined and limit myself to only one or two drinks per event. This will take some control as I do love my red wine.