Happy NY, everyone! A toast of a lovely NZ wine to ring in the New Year!
This post started out with me writing about holiday detoxing… but that came to feel really irrelevant. If “irrelevant” is too harsh, surely “repetitive” works, because it was going to be about me saying all the things that have worked for me this fall—and summer, really, going back to when I started blogging in June—so detoxing is really just a matter of putting the pieces back together. And yesterday, I started that.
And it was really that easy.
I really owe it all to fat, actually. Everything I thought I knew about eating right has changed—because when I introduced much more fat to my diet, I lost interest in sugar, I began to crave vegetables, and as if by magic, I went back to fitting into my favourite jeans.
But I want more. 
If you read me in September, you’ll know that this “New Year” feels a bit artificial to me. However, as a relentless self-improver, I’ll accept this artificiality and put it to work for me. It just gives me a no-brainer start date for a new idea.
Most people don’t make resolutions, I find. Well, enough of them do to make the gym annoying in January, but for non-resolutionaries, I find the reasoning given by many to be… well… confusing. I just can’t relate, and I hope I never do reach a point of stasis where there aren’t things I want to work on or develop, and I don’t want something more.
I don’t see resolutions as negative, or eroding one’s self-worth, or a plan designed for failure… with that mindset, yeah, I suppose NOT improving is the key for happiness. But I see it differently: did you notice how I said “things I want to work on” and “I… want something more“?
This is about giving myself something that I want.
That’s only positive! Living well isn’t a goal, after all. You don’t get there and give it up, it’s a process! So, as I start practicing living the life I want, there might be setbacks, and less-than-perfect behaviour sometimes… and I. Don’t. Care. I’ll still get there, because I want it.
And most importantly, I don’t just want it someday, I’m ready to make it happen now. If 2010 was the year I unlocked the secrets of my best diet, then let 2011 be the year I tap back into my best exercise regime. Not because I think I should, but because there are things I want to do, and being in stellar shape will let me do them.
Here, too, it’s all about mindset. Someone said to me the other day, after I first returned to the Hinterlands, “oh, give yourself a day and don’t workout, just relax and settle back in” (or something similar). That mentality is basically the same as that which finds resolutions negative—if exercise is seen as an obligation, and inactivity is the treat… well, ANY workout plan, be it at New Year’s or otherwise, is going to stick like teflon.
Now, I’ve over-committed myself at work for the next few months (what else is new?), AND I have the LSAT to write (and therefore prep for) on 12 February, so to add some icing to the “I want this” cake, I have a cunning plan! I hit the Banana Republic sales just before Christmas, and came home with this little beauty… $100 OFF!!! (Please ignore that it looks like it’s hanging next to almost the same sweater. I swear, they’re VERY, VERY different. )
It’s drapey and cashmere-y and an interesting blue-y-grey, and I’m stoked about it! So it then becomes the carrot, of my carrot-and-stick: my plan is, 50 workouts earn me the sweater.
That seems like a lot, I know. But it’s 10 weeks, if I do 5 workouts a week. Or 8.3 weeks if I manage 6 workouts a week. And this isn’t just do-able, it’s desirable! I want to be active, and the body is made to move—so if I do some cardio, some weights, a group run, yoga, or any other form of physical activity for more than 20 minutes a day, that’s a workout. It can be done at home, outside, or in the gym. No problem!
As a blast from the past, when I started yoga in 2006, it was because I wanted the hamstring flexibility to be able to rock this pose… another carrot-and-stick!
(pic from Lululemon.com, but YEARS ago!)
I think it’s important that yoga makes a return to my life, especially since I hope to run a half marathon this year… and suddenly I’m thinking that losing mattar paneer isn’t a tragedy: it cost me $12 a week, which is, coincidentally, the same cost of the *only* good yoga class I’ve ever had in the Hinterlands. Hm! It’s a lateral trade in terms of funds, but it’ll probably benefit me much, much more. I say probably because the joy of mattar paneer has been a huge plus in my life! (And, luckily, Emily posted on how to make paneer cheese at home… yay!)
(This actually fits into a larger goal of mine in the new year, as I careen towards unemployment and a return to studenthood: I’m going to work on my frugality… which isn’t my best skill, I’ll admit, since I have this thing where I want what I want, and if I can’t have it, I don’t want anything… time to develop some flexibility!)
So there you have it. Resolutions are positive, in my mind. For me, it’s about desire, and I WANT to be back in stellar shape when I leave the Hinterlands on 31 May. And if I need a little more incentive, I now have a lovely cardigan, waiting to be mine… all I have to give it is 50 sweat sessions.
I, for one, can’t wait. Off to practice a little yoga!
January 1st, 2011 at 15:15
a beautiful sweater and motivation!
I definitely do carrot and stick. My current one is a bit different – as I recover from a BAD injury, I am SO missing being a runner… as I started a walking program, which became running + walking, now running, I told myself if I can do this in a slow manner and remain injury free (all I wanted to do was get out there are immediately run an 18K) I would buy myself some Vibrams. (I also did not want to buy them if I started running and found it “hurt” too much).
I am going to look at Vibrams later next week!
I am not big on resolutions. Not because I don’t have anything to improve upon, but because I don’t need to wait for a date on the calendar to do them, I just do.
I do, however, love the excitement of the New Year, and the things we have already planned for it.
HAPPY NEW YEAR !!
January 1st, 2011 at 19:01
I loved this post! You know, I wrote that I don’t like resolutions, but that’s because I tend to put so much stress and pressure on myself that I summon the failure upon me. (For somebody who’s not into resolutions I made quite a lot, though.)
Anyway, I’m very much like you in that I am perfectionistic and compulsively achieving. I don’t feel well if I don’t do anything meaningful (working on my diploma thesis, reading for education, practicing the piano) on a day. I feel the need to do that also on days like Christmas Eve, when everybody just wants to celebrate. Not me. Pure relax days are very stressful to me because they make me feel uncomfortable, restless, and dissatisfied.
On something more important: some more comments on your post!
(1) I really, really need to get a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc NOW. If I see you dring white wine (at least the one you picture and thus make me think you drink it), it’s ALWAYS Savignon Blanc. So it must be good. And since I like white wine a lot, this means I want it, too.
Unfortunately, it’s not the default grape in German supermarkets wine shops. (Here everything is Riesling, Pinot Gris or Blanc, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, etc – not bad, but just no Sauvignon Blanc.) I feel I have a mission now.
(2) I’m amazed about what a little more fat in my diet does for me! So great!
(3) I have a lot af VERY different sweaters and jackets.
Saying this, I think you know that I can perfectly understand that you need that lovely piece of comfort!
(4) 50 workouts would be too much delay of gratification for me. Especially if I already have that lovely piece of comfort hanging at my bedroom (?) door.
(5) Carrot-and-stick is “Zuckerbrot und Peitsche” in German. I try not to do that with me anymore. (I was a big punisher in the past.) I rather want to be nice to myself if I feel like it, and especially even if I think that I don’t deserve it. Most time, I go for my ascetic ideals anyway, so I’m not so afraid of overindulging at the moment. Being nice to myself is the greater challenge, compared to restricting.
(6) I just tried that pose and found I could do it without problem. Now hate me.
But I’m overly flexible and even able to fall asleep seating with legs straight and my upper body tilted over and my head lying on my knees. Nobody understands how I can find it comfortable to be like that, but I liked it.
(7) I love the song “The Time Is Now” by Moloko. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXNPkhxnyn8
(8) Yoga is great! I used to do 12 circles of Surya Namaskara every morning, and that added the last bit of flexibility to my already hyperflexible joints. So yay! I had to stop that after I had and inflammation in my elbow and surgery a few years ago. I should take it up again.
(9) I always wanted to mae Paneer cheese at home, but then I found out I was dairy intolerant … I could make it for my parents, though! Yay DIY!
(10) I find it great and brave that you’ll go back to university. Life-long learning is what I think somebody like you needs to have to be happy. The little motor inside is always running.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I’m looking forward to reading how it goes! (And hoppefully seeing a picture of you in your lovely cardigan. Stellar shape, of course.
)
January 2nd, 2011 at 11:49
@ Kristina: I SO relate to needing *not* to run as much as you want to! I fell into that trap this summer—there’s something about West Vancouver that makes me want to frolic outdoors! Even when I was just there last week, I couldn’t stay inside. But if I run on consecutive days, my old disk injury gets cranky. Really, I feel for you! I like your carrot… in theory: I don’t think I’d want fabric between my toes for running. Doesn’t it chafe (along with looking funny)?
@ Kath: Wow. That’s a comment and a half! Here we go: (1) I like drinking local, but because of stupid liquor laws in BC, BC wine is more expensive that a lot of comparable foreign wines. So since I have an affinity for NZ, I’ve made that my local. And I’m systematically working through one grape at a time—they make SUCH a great Sav Blanc that that’s where I chose to start. When I lived in Freiburg, I drank a lot of Riesling. And I also enjoyed Burgunder Spaetlese. I focused on what was produced in the Kaiserstuhl—but I should also say that I was more into sweet wine then compared to now. So bring on the Sav Blancs!
(4) and (5) I like to feel like I’ve earned something. If I just give it to myself, well, that’s lame—it’s too easy! I think the path of most resistance builds character! It works for me, anyway…
(6) I have loose joints, and it lets me get away with a lot in yoga (though it’s cheating, since I should focus on sucking my joints in and putting the muscles to work!)–shoulder flexibility and upper body stuff I can do, no sweat. That all falls apart when it comes to my hamstrings, which have always been my Achilles’ heel. Heh. So I don’t hate you, I know flexibility is case-specific… and I can do 66% of the pose: I can grab my toe around my back, I just can’t do it pronated… so: hence the carrot!!
(7) Good song!
(10) Yes. Apparently, I like debt.
HNY to you, too: Cardigan pics of me will follow after 31 May!
February 19th, 2011 at 21:38
[...] you’re counting, I’m at 17 workouts towards my cardigan. BOOOO! There’s not a ton of winter left, either, so I can’t just put all my hopes on [...]