The year is coming to an end and with the dawning of 2022 many people will be making New Years resolutions. The majority of these resolutions are all fitness based and since that has been the majority of my blog topics lately I have decided to provide some gentle guidance and/or thoughts on these annual resolutions.
Typically, the kind of person who makes a fitness resolution is one who is out of shape. Goes without saying, yes? A person who has been going to the gym every week for the entire year likely already has established that habit and so they are less likely to choose daily gym sessions as their area for improvement. Another obvious statement is that the vast majority of people drop their resolutions each year. For whatever reason their goal was either too intense or lacked focus that even before February in most cases gyms that were packed to the rafters like a church on Easter Sunday will be once again frequented only by the regulars.
So why do people fail so regularly with their New Years resolutions? I believe the main cause has to do with what I mentioned above: focus and intensity. Imagine a young man who is over weight by fifty pounds. He knows that it is possible to lose that excess weight if he can only go to the gym for a year. So he gets his gym membership (this is the best time for gym owners too as they make the most money with new people coming into their doors) and goes for his first workout on January 1st. The night before was rather hectic and he is still hungover but he decides that if he can force himself to workout in this state then all the other workouts for the year will come easily.
For his first workout he has to make his way through the throngs of people who are in the gym but he finds a treadmill and prepares for a nice run. He has brought his headphones and his water bottle and he is all ready for the first run of the year. This first workout will be intense. He really pushes himself and runs for over twenty minutes. The treadmill lights blink that he has ran over 2 miles and he remembers that in high school he could run a 5k in that same time. Not bad! He thinks. Only a 30% reduction in his past fitness level. Maybe losing this weight wont be difficult at all.
After the treadmill he wonders over the to the machines. He runs the gamut and hits his legs, arms, chest, shoulders and back. By the end of the workout he is exhausted and his watch tells him that he has been there for over two hours. This is dedication, he thinks. This is focus! Tomorrow I’ll return and do it all over again.
But that never happens. In the morning he can hardly get out of bed. He is late to work and so that early 5am workout never happens. No problem, he thinks. I worked out so hard yesterday I’ll take today off. I’m making such a great start! It’s two days before he returns to the gym as work had conspired to exhaust his energy and despite the rest his legs are still very sore. He managed to not eat any junk food for the interim but someone had a birthday at work and so he convinced himself that a couple slices of the Red Velvet cake would not effect him too much.
Finally he returns to the gym. There are still many people but some have already stopped coming. He feels ahead of the pack and though the scale in the men’s rooms told him he had actually gained a pound since his first workout he pushes the rising number out of his head and finds his treadmill. This time he runs for only 15 min since he saw a fitness influencer on YouTube talk about how overrated treadmill cardio is for burning fat. After the run its back to the machines. He is careful with his legs this time and ends up cutting his workout from 2 hours to 1.
Tomorrow is Friday and he feels fantastic. He is far less sore after his second workout and the guilt he usually feels after a long sedentary and carb filled week is nonexistent. It’s only been two workouts but already his mood is soaring. It is this euphoria that allows him to agree to his friends idea of a beer that night. 1 beer turns into 2 beers and then into 3 etc…
In the morning he is hungover. But it’s Saturday! He is supposed to be hungover. He pushes the idea of a weekend workout out of his head and so begins the final death of his New Years resolution. The young man never goes back to the gym and is only reminded of his failed resolution by the auto bill for the gym membership on his bank statement.
What happened here and why did the young man stop going to the gym? I would argue he was doomed from the beginning. He had focus and intensity but they were misplaced. His focus was too general, and the intensity he placed in these two workouts ended up undermining his future efforts. Had he made a real goal (not some general “Imma just run and lift and see what happens”), planned his workouts, and scheduled his night out instead of allowing his mood to decide when to drink beer, he may have managed to turn his resolution into a real life long habit. What he needed was to focus on one specific goal, and then all the intensity such a goal can allow.
My advice to anyone reading this is to start SLOW. Want to lose weight? Walk. Eat a low carb diet. Go see your doctor and talk with him about what is appropriate for your body to handle. Do not shoot yourself in the foot with an unattainable fitness goal. The idea is fitness that is sustainable is best. Sustainable for not only your body but for your lifestyle. The first day I lifted weights in a gym I fell I love. For others its cardio, or dance, or rock climbing or marital arts. I wold recommend finding that activity that brings you the most joy. When you have found something that makes you truly energized to pursue it then you are very close to making that New Years resolution into a life long pursuit which serves you.
SWF 
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