Do you have any New Years Resolutions for 2012? What are they? Do you make them every year or do you skip doing this? I do but I keep them realistic by making small changes. I wont resolve to lose 40 pounds, but I can resolve to lose a pound a month. Mine are usually about my weight and career.
How about yours?
What's your New Years Resolution?
I take New Year's Day as a time to look back and figure out what I did right and what I did wrong. I don't make resolutions and start nothing on New Year's Day. I did start doing my 5 mile power walks but that was on no particular day in December. While my friend has been visiting I did the power walk while she took my car to Curves and did her thing. It has been a great visit although I am horny as hell. Having a guest in the house has radically cramped my style. May you all have a prosperous, happy and safe New Year.
Happy New Year All!
This year however, I came across a TV program called "Extreme Weight Makeover." The one segment that I saw really hit home. It featured a black woman who weighed considerably more than 400 lbs. She was assigned a personal trainer who happened to be a white guy. When she was weighed in she made a comment that she "felt like a side of beef" because the scales had to be warehouse scales in an industrial plant...
The next scene is her groaning and grunting in her spandex tights working up a sweat as she is lifting weights and doing the things her trainer was motivating her to do... All the while she is going through the exercises this guy has her doing he is screaming in her face "when did you die! when did you die!" Finally, after hearing that for several minutes and watching this obese woman sweat like she had never sweated before she let out with a statement "it was when I was molested as a young girl!"
That comment really hit home. At the point this woman let herself get into such lousy shape it was the abuse that another person committed on her that changed her life totally. What a tragedy...
But the trainer's comment "when did you die!" also hit home. Those words have motivated me to get my butt out walking more than I have done and with fewer excuses why now is not the time...
I have used every excuse under the sun for not exercising. Among them:
"it is too hot"
"it is too cold"
"my head aches,"
"I haven't eaten yet"
"I just ate"
"I have to get up early in the morning"
"it is raining"
"my stomach hurts"
"the back of my heel hurts"
"I didn't get enough sleep last night"
"I just had a beer"
And the list goes on... There is no end to excuses that I have told myself to justify NOT exercising over the years.
Now, I ask myself "when did you die, Carl!?" and I say something like "get your sorry ass out in the nighborhood and do it now!" Reminding myself of what that trainer was screaming into the face of that grossly obese woman really hit me with the realization I have no valid excuse for not exercising. Short of actually being dead, no excuse applies in my case except one I might call L A Z Y.
I am regularly walking 3.5 miles several days a week and am hitting a consistent time of 1 hr and 2 min... (it is not a fast pace that I attempt to achieve). I find this time to be a good time for a spiritual bit of "self talk" about the issues of the day or of the coming week. It also takes my mind off the stresses of tax preparation and customer service issues that will always be there... And, I feel a whole lot better when I am done!
I figure as long as my heart beats and I draw breath I want to do two things: work til I drop and keep exercising through walking. On another, more personal side, as long as I can get "it" up i wanna use it til either my heart quits beating, I no longer draw breath, or "it" no longer works... but, that is another story!
everysooften
west Michigan