New Year New You-what a used up expression that is in a world already continually obsessed with the ultra fit bodies of celebrities and their secret slimming programmes. The majority of the quick-fix reshaping, reinventing and regenerating routines in the media every January each year are mostly outmoded or redundant ideas on how to turn the failing aspects (mainly physical or material) of our lives around.
'New Year new you' really is such a superannuated catchphrase, such a yawn inducing cliché that I was inspired to use it as an icebreaker here-if only ironically. More seriously though, I did so because its only when we scrutinize its true meaning that we realise it's not the new year's resolution tradition that is so tedious and wearisome but the people who make them with such whimsical intentions that render them meaningless and open to common and collective ridicule. We as a western-world nation of struggling dieters have become almost totally desensitized to the term; resolution!
Let's look at the word resolution and its derivative resolve. Resolve means an iron willed refusal to fail. Resolve describes what we would feel if a stranger was trying to pry our beloved child from our grasp. It's what we'd feel if we were hanging by our fingertips from a ledge to avoid falling to our finish. Not really a term we should use lightly nevertheless 82% of New Year's resolutions are broken in the month of January. We should remember that if we truly respect ourselves we should avoid announcing such intentions to our peers because if we fail to keep them; then on some levels we lose credibility. I suppose it depends on your point of view how much that would bother you but none of us should really want to be perceived as a 'failure' of any kind. This is mainly because if we begin the dangerous habit of making promises to ourselves which are not kept will begin to ultimately damage our confidence in ourselves. The effect on our future could be very detrimental. How so you may ask? Well, if we can't commit to losing a stone in weight how can we commit to our next challenge? It might be starting a business, striving for promotion or even getting married. These objectives will ultimately be faced with adversity of some kind. Marriage is different to dieting you might say but could we confidently commit to a lifelong agreement when we can't even make it through a month without biscuits? If adversity strikes would it really be easier to keep our head above water if our new business suddenly found itself in a declining market than to lose a few pounds of unwanted fat? If redundancy occurs in our existing career would it be any easier to learn new work skills or technology than to give up sugar in our tea? In any event, one thing is certain, every successful dieter I have met in 20 years of being in this industry will tell you that the new found confidence they experience as they shed those unwanted pounds contributes to their self-assurance in every other aspect of their day to day lives.
It is human frailty that gives us an aversion to doing the right thing every day. Eat the cookie but skip the gym class, have the affair and overspend on the credit card and so on.
So often when the depression resulting from these actions strikes we overindulge again to change an emotional state while distracting ourselves further by tuning in to mass-appeal television or social media that is obsessed with what is controversial or gossip worthy. This artificial 'newsworthy' status bombards us with nonsense stories and synthetic garbage which constantly takes precedence in our minds and day to day conversation over and instead of what is truly meaningful and worthwhile. So we binge eat, and we drink wine or we shop till we drop and we feel no better about our lives upon waking the next day and the whole cycle becomes accumulative and hard to break.
That's why we need to make 2014 different. We need to lick this dieting thing once and for all. So long as we use food or drink as a crutch when other things go wrong in our life we will never make things go right! Fed up with your job? Then reach for another career not a fudge brownie! Over eating chocolate again because your lover keeps letting you down? Do you think putting on weight will make them pay more attention to you or less, uh? Losing weight and getting in great shape just might. Make a decision to not let anything or anyone get in your way of your weight loss plan and stick to it-that's what we call resolve-and it can make all of the difference in your life.You can get a personal trainer online these days so there really is no excuse!
Ps, It is proven that couples who work out together stay together-why not try it and see?
