Today is December 31st, the last day of 2018. Tomorrow is the day that everyone feels like they get to start new. Resolutions will abound, people will feel like they can conquer anything, and motivations will be high. We feel like we can do anything on January first.
The problem I have always faced comes around January fourth or fifth. As a teacher for a living, I get back into a routine and my resolution gets easier and easier to ignore of blow off. We always make resolution that, for me, is hard to keep. Why do we do this to ourselves? Because we think we need to make a big change. We aren’t ever satisfied with a small change.
I have had an issue for most of my adult life with weight, and I have tried time and time again to diet and exercise it away. Some were successful, for a time. Most were not. I always tried to “go big or go home. I needed a lifestyle change, not a diet or new excercise regiment. I broke my back more than five years ago, making excercise difficult for me. Nothing seemed to work.
Around June of this last year, I finally chose to change my lifestyle instead of dieting and excercise. I did a lot of research and chose the KETO lifestyle. I knew for it to work, I had to change the way I thought about eating. With no excercise to speak of, I have lost thirty pounds since August, and kept it off. While this has been good, the better thing is I have finally taken control of my biggest problem, my perception of always starting over with something new and fizzing out.
New year’s resolutions may work for you or someone you know, and I am not saying they are useless or bad. They were a way for me to avoid any actual change. It took me shifting my thinking beyond a resolution or diet, and actually change the way I think about myself and my health. So if you are making a resolution tomorrow, I hope that it is successful and productive for you! I’ll continue what I have been doing and plot on with my journey. Happy New year everyone.