Why I'm All For New Year's Resolutions

Lots of people have strong opinions on New Year's Resolutions. Some strongly feel that resolutions are a stupid idea, while others are consistent resolution makers. I am neither of these. Some years, I make resolutions and some years I don't. I've even been known to go back at the end of the year and manually check off which ones I managed to accomplish. It's always most or all of the list.

Making goals and checklists works really well for me. It is, in fact how I thrive. For others, working with a group of people towards a common goal is what helps them thrive. This is why there are challenge groups, facebook groups and group workouts. As a society, we function through order. There are 7 days to the week. The work week starts on Monday. And for some reason it is just easier to begin something on Sunday or Monday that will continue throughout the rest of the week. We begin at the beginning. It's what we're used to.

This is all that resolutioners are doing. The New Year is a HUGELY celebrated, big beginning. There are a lot of people setting goals and making plans during this time. So, not only do we have the aspect of a new beginning, but there are tons of other people doing the same thing - making resolutions. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be better. Even to the point that we pick out specific issues we know need work, and decide to put effort toward those issues.

If you are someone who can just make up their mind to change and then change, that's amazing. It is truly an enviable character trait. Perhaps you're a person who doesn't really need help from other people once you've decided what you want to do. That's also really great. There are certainly many out there who will make resolutions and will never make any necessary changes to bring them to fruition. That's just life. Not everyone is wired the same way and you can't expect that things that are really strong traits for you will be strong traits in everyone. We're all different. Let's not forget about the resolutioners who WILL in fact accomplish a great deal of their goals. All because they decided to take action at a time that is viewed as cliche for deciding to take action. It's not as if no resolution ever was accomplished. There's not even a way to prove that most resolutions aren't accomplished.

Side note: If you're one of those people who believes that your personal anecdotal evidence of you and your circle's experiences is proof for anything, it is not. That is not data. Your personal experience is never data. It is personal experience. So stop it.

This is one of those areas where I say "Live and let live." Resolutions don't hurt anyone. Sometimes we can be way too judgemental of other people. If you don't want to make any resolutions because you can change on your own whenever you want - great! Don't make any freaking resolutions! If you want to make 20 resolutions even if they're the same ones you've made for the past 20 years - great! Good luck, I hope this is your year! One of my resolutions is to do whatever I want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, so here I say - do whatever you want! Don't let other people's negative attitudes over what you've decided to do hinder you, or else you prove them right. And don't have extremely negative attitudes towards something that really has nothing to do with you.

Happy New Year, errybody.

xoxo,
SweetC

What YOU Want

Because of my interests, I've amassed a large amount of social media contacts in the fitness field. Some of them more knowledgeable than others, and many of them, like me, still figuring things out. A lot of these people can be very intense at times. They set very lofty goals and go full throttle after them. That's great. I have nothing against people attacking their dreams with all they have. It's important to remember though that their goals and their methods to achieve them are just that - theirs.

I am bombarded daily with posts about double workouts, number of calories burned, number of calories eaten, temptation foods avoided, clean diet modifications and motivational sayings. I constantly see pictures of women with flat and defined abs, very little body fat, big boobs, tight butts, toned arms, glowing skin and shiny hair. Every day I read about the newest supplement, the newest diet, going gluten free, eating organic, plant based diets and cleansing. And admittedly, I'm a part of this. I talk about this stuff frequently as well. So I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with these sort of posts - there's not. But when it's the majority of what you see every day, it can definitely start to warp your thinking.  It just leads me to remind everyone, including myself to

Make sure the body you're working to achieve is the body that YOU want. 

At least once a day, I will see someone post a motivational picture of a woman with toned-to-the-T abs. You can see each and every defined section of her stomach and it looks as though her waist is actually too tiny to wear even a size 0. And that's wonderful that she worked to achieve that body and completely fine that someone else wants to work to achieve the same results. Personally, I don't want defined abs. I like a softer look on women. I like the look of being toned but still having a little fat to squeeze. That's my preference. I can't let what other people see as the perfect body affect how I feel about my own results.

 

   All of these tummies look great to me!



For those people who have the time, energy and willpower to do two-a-day workouts - that's amazing. I've done it for short periods of time before and it is certainly tough. My hat goes off to that kind of dedication. But just because they are down on themselves for not getting to their second workout of the day, I'm not going to feel bad that I worked out once. For 30 minutes. And that I may not get to a workout tomorrow because I have work and have school for 14 hours out of the day and sleeping is more important to me than cardio. It doesn't make me a bad person if I only do 5 workouts a week and if I think that that is a perfectly fine number of workouts to complete on a weekly basis. It also doesn't make me a bad person if I decide that instead of lifting today, I'm going to stay home and study for my test on Friday because at the moment, that is a bigger priority for me. And that's ok, it's allowed to be.

When it comes to achieving your perfect body, it does not need to be what other people think it should be. It should be where YOU will be happiest. If getting down to a size 10 has been your lifelong goal and you are in a healthy weight range with a clean bill of health from your doctor, then who the hell is anyone to tell you that you don't look good enough? Not everyone was made to be a body builder and it's not in the cards for all of us to have a washboard stomach. Is it possible? Yes. Of course if that's what you want to achieve and are willing to work for, it's definitely possible. Is it necessary? No, it's not. Not if that's not what you in your heart of hearts want for yourself.

Thank God we live in America. A free country. Where you're allowed to want what you want and feel what you feel and for the most part do what you like. If you want abs, go get 'em. If you just want to drop a few pounds, then lose 'em. If your idea of fit doesn't "fit" with what everyone else seems to think, so long as it fits with your medical stats, then eff 'em.