NY Resolutions

Time for some Resolutions to follow in the New Year, right? TBH, IMO, you don’t have to set any resolution - we all must grow every day. But if you want to, might I offer one suggestion? Just one.

Do not set a big bang resolution. For example, don’t say you’ll lose x kgs this year. Say what you’ll do to lose those? Start small. Maybe say, you’ll eat two healthier meals in a day. Give yourself some room to fail and get back up quickly.

Don’t say, I’ll go to the gym regularly. Maybe say,  I’ll increase my average active time by X mins every week.

This is my fitness story - I woke up on Jan 1, 2019 and felt immediately down coz I HAD a make a resolution and I knew the one I was averting - that I must get to the gym.

Maybe it was the general interest in outdoors that started as part of exploring the parks in HK back in 2010. Or the series of hikes we went on, in Greece in 2013, for which I had to get fitter - but I’d been working out off & on for years. 

Snap to 2016-2018, we’d started hiking - we hiked every weekend after moving to PNW - this was a strenuous extended endurance activity (for at least 4-6 hrs every Saturday) which ended in a reward - a trip to a brewery for the husband. And nothing else all week. Maybe that’s why we hadn’t gained any weight after we moved to the US and my general health had improved tremendously, but we knew we weren’t fit either.

And slowly, I realized we needed a regular fitness routine to up our hiking game to go longer distances and higher elevation gains, but we weren't scaling up.

So, by Dec 2018, I knew something had to change. I just didn’t know what. 

This happened like an epiphany - as I sat on my bed on Jan 1, 2019 and asked myself what I should change about myself this year, it came to me - I should be consistent. 

Let me explain - My mom got diagnosed with diabetes as soon as she turned 40. And she flew into a panic, she didn’t want to leave her kids motherless at such a young age, she'd been motherless from a very young age too and she didn't want her kids to be the same. She started walking - a bit maniacally. Since then, my mother’s morning routine has wavered very little over the last 30 yrs. Come rain, come shine, this woman has finished her quota of kms by 6AM. Everything else was a bonus.

I realized my mother is an inspiration - that was the epiphany. Irrespective her eating habits (which are pretty healthy too, TBH), this woman has a walked every day for ~30 yrs. I could do this too, I realized.

So, for 2019, I resolved to get fitter. Not to get to the gym everyday, but to get fitter.

Then, while sitting on the bed, I asked myself how I was gonna do this.

I figured all my earlier attempts at working out regularly had failed coz I’d get sad after I skipped a few days of gym. I tried running but I didn't enjoy it much. I was much too restless to enjoy the sedate activity of walking. I was constantly intimidated by all the machines in a regular gym. Yoga was something I loved but I was too lazy to drive the distance to a yoga studio. 

And all these efforts left me dejected and disappointed with myself. I was constantly berating myself - I took pride in the illusion that I was a disciplined person, but obviously I wasn't since it has been taking so long for me to stick to a habit that is actually good for me. 

I realized that morning that I was being hard on myself.

So I told myself, I’ll forgive myself if I skip gym one day and that I’d go back as soon as I could. But I needed to be able to measure this, coz I loved metrics. 

My resolution was - I should’ve worked out on two out of the last three days.

This meant, if I skipped on Sunday, I must workout on Monday & Tuesday. If I worked out on Tuesday, I could skip Wednesday but I HAD to go to the gym on Thursday.

And thus started my habit of working out regularly.

In 2019. All from the epiphany I had while still sitting on the bed ‘depressed’ at having to make a resolution.

I relied on this 2 out of 3 days for the first half of 2019. And then I needed more bang for the buck for the gym fee I was paying - so I made an effort to go in 5 out of 7 days in a week in the second half. By the end of the year, I'd put in ~200 days in my then gym, Orange Theory Fitness.

(OTF also had a method to penalize the person if they signed up for a class and didn't show up. And you had to signup for a class, coz those were mostly always full. This penalty of 12$ was a huge incentive for me to not skip the gym once I'd signed up for it the previous night)

I changed everything in my personal life to optimize for my gym schedule in the morning. By the time we got to 2020, I was dependent on my workout schedule to fall asleep - a chronic insomniac that I was, I could only fall asleep if I had worked out in the last two days. 

This made me more reliant on the simple routine of going to the gym. I'd also discovered CrossFit workouts, and the formats in the box got me hooked. These were high-energy, adrenaline-boosting workouts which I could slowly ramp up to and I had mini-goals to keep me going. The CrossFit community is a super-supportive one while still encouraging & motivating a person and I loved the friendships I formed there. 

(Honestly, I don't know how I'd have lived through the isolating years of 2020 & 2021 if I didn't have the gym and the routine it gave to my day). 

By 2021, I resolved that I should be fit enough to go on any hiking trip that I wanted at any time, and not have to specifically train for it. I'd been super happy at how we hiked the Inca trails in 2019 without any additional preps and were perfectly fine through the rest of the holiday. It was the love for outdoors that pushed me to keep going to the gym - an upcoming hiking trip to Patagonia in Chile. 

Now, here in 2024 - I’ve had 5 years of regular gym going as a habit. I don’t have much physical progress to show - I look almost the same as I did back then. I’ve lost ~6 kgs in all these years and dropped three dress sizes. 

But, I know I am healthier now. I can feel my muscles though no one can see them, especially coz of the way I dress. 

My eating patterns have stabilized. 

My social life is optimized so I get in to the gym the next morning by 6AM, which is a very healthy pattern and boundary. 

I sleep on a schedule and this is super important to me. 

My out-of-town schedule is optimized to not miss too many gym days. 

My insulin resistance is under control, and my sugar cravings are almost nil - I still eat a dessert but only because I like it not because my body craves for it. 

I had no semblance of any morning routine and I now have a whole day before my workday starts at 930. From someone who didn't know what form of workout she liked to someone who loves leg & core days, I've come a long way. (yeah, upper body is still a weak area for me, but I'll get there, slowly)

I thought I aspired to be a digital nomad but I realized that I was tethered to the gym - we barely left town in 2020 when everyone we know were working out of remote locations like Hawaii or Eastern Washington, only coz I didn't want to miss gym. 

In fact, we moved to where we are now, when we moved back to India only because one of the two CrossFit gyms in Hyderabad was very close - not coz I had a ton of friends in this neighborhood but because it was closer to the gym. 

Our holidays aren't longer than a week offlate - yes, we miss our home and our bed by the Day 4, but I also miss the gym and I have FOMO at the workouts.

I know I've developed an unhealthy obsession with the routine of working out - I know I am reliant on the mere fact of whether I’ve been to the gym that day or not. But I’d pick this over the dejected feeling I get when I know I’ve skipped gym for 2+ days. 

(The other day, I was happy I got my period while I was on a holiday - I had a full day of road trip ahead of me and a period then is actually inconvenient, but I was glad that the hard days of the period would be done by the time I got to the city and in time for the next day's workout - this was definitely unhealthy - I should be able to rest at least when I get my period without rejoicing or bemoaning its timing!) 

I will work on this dependency this year - I shouldn’t be dejected if I skip gym, I know I won’t lose this habit now (hopefully). 

I will also work on the addiction I have to DOMS - the delayed onset muscle soreness I feel after every workout is now my way to feel alive and this isn't healthy either. (In fact, I was joking the other day at how it has been at least 5 years since I have gotten up from a chair or sat down without wincing in pain caused by the stiffness & soreness and how I love it all)

I am insecure that I will lose my habit of waking up so early in the morning and getting to the gym - I am scared I'll revert to my old ways. This fear is unhealthy too, I must get over it. 

Do you see the growth in my mindset from 2019 to 2024 - a reluctance to workout to forgiving myself if I skipped a gym session? I think all that was because I decided to be consistent, built in systems to help me be consistent and measure it all to help me keep going. Above all, I have been kinder to myself.

So, might I suggest you resolve on being fair to yourselves and take baby steps wrt your resolution to get healthier? All the best!