Friday, December 28, 2007

Happy New Year's resolutions


For 2008, I have come up with some New Year’s resolutions.

I hereby vow that, starting on January first:

I will not launch a diet for five days, followed by three days of rationalization for over-eating, followed by 357 days of diet-memory amnesia.
I will not launch a five-day exercise regimen, followed by three days of rationalization for why I cannot exercise, followed by 357 days of exercise-memory amnesia.
I will not take a five-day battery of vitamins and mineral supplements, followed by three days of forgetting to take most of the pills, followed by 357 days of rationalizing that my vitamin-fortified milk will pick up most of the nutrition-gap.
I will not buy diet and cook books to kick-start my New Year’s resolutions, followed by relegating said books into a kitchen cupboard, followed by banishing them to the cobwebbed corners of the library, followed by dumping them in an end-of-year donation to Goodwill.
I will not buy pants a size too small as “inspiration,” followed by the bleak realization that I am not making progress toward a better fit, followed by 357 days of “disappearing” the offending pants into the depths of my closet, never to be seen again.


Do these resolutions sound too negative? Okay, here are some positive ones:

I will pay attention to hunger signals, and eat only after my stomach growls.
I will move my body each day, enough to feel my blood pumping through my cardiovascular system at a measurable rate.
I will incorporate three servings of high-nutrition vegetables and/or fruit into my daily intake.
I will spend money only on the clothes that make me feel fabulous, whatever size—and I will wear them often. I will wear them too often, in fact.

What about you? Do you have any New Year’s resolutions, negative or positive? Any that you make each January, and then abandon?

4 comments:

Monica Ferris said...

I had been slowly losing weight until the holidays kicked in. I've put on nearly five pounds -- after I promised I'd only put on two. So on the 2nd, I start in the slow-lose program again. I have long found that a "diet" is something I go on -- and then go off. What I've been trying to do is change the way I eat permanently. I have done that, I can do it some more. I'm actually looking forward to it.

Anonymous said...

I don't make resolutions. On the day after, they turn into 'shoulds', and should is the most dangerous word in the language. Tyranny and a guilt complex, all wrapped into one.

Kathryn Lilley said...

You're right--slow and sure is better, Monica. And I agree with you about the word "should," Ellen. I shall now back away slowly from the Okinawa diet book that I've been eying all morning. The odds of my being able to stick to a diet that includes kelp and bitter melon are extremely low, in any case!

Camille Minichino said...

A resolution is the surest way for me NOT to do whatever it is .... I'm just going to consider 1/1 another day in the life ...