The new year is ripe for weight-loss related resolutions. Not for me. My commitment issues only allow for me to have half-assed resolutions. My weight requires my whole ass.
Lots of people make weight-loss related resolutions and that’s fine. Some people need that fresh new year to help motivate them in their health goals. I can relate. I always have to start a goal on a Monday. It feels wrong to me to start in the middle of the week.
For me, though, my weight isn’t a resolution. It informs too much of my existence, too much of how society treats me to consider it so casually. And let’s face it. Most people take their resolutions casually, like champagne bubbles made to broken.
It just so happens that I am trying to lose some weight this year and it just so happens that it looks like I started around the first of the year. But this is not a resolution.
It’s like this. In the last couple of years, due to a delightful combination of illness and injury, sprinkled generously throughout with some mild depression, I’ve gained some weight on top of the weight that I’ve already been lugging around and frankly, it doesn’t thrill me.
Now, I’ve tried to get this weight gain under control, but it seemed like every time I started to get back into the swing of taking better care of myself, something would come along and derail it. And then I’d have to go through the struggle of starting all over.
Last month, I put it to my mind that I was going to get back into the habit of exercising regularly. I started around the beginning of the month (on a Monday, of course) and I was doing well with it. And then I hurt myself. Leave it to me to suffer a devastating knee injury while doing holiday baking.
My knee healed enough that I could start doing modified workouts the week of the first (I started on Monday the 31st, of course). And I’ve continued doing them on a daily basis, wearing a brace and increasing the length and difficulty, using modifications when I need them as my knee continues to heal. This regular exercise should help me feel better and help me lose some of the weight that I gained in the last couple of years.
This is a goal. Not a resolution.
When you’re fat, it’s easy for people to assume that when you’re eating a salad, you’re on a diet. They can’t fathom that you might always eat a salad or that you prefer a salad or hell, you were craving a salad (it happens to me rarely and usually in the summer).
When you’re fat and committing to an exercise plan at the beginning of any given year, it’s easy for people to assume that you’ve made a resolution. And resolutions are famous for being quickly disregarded and therefore, aren’t taken seriously. Which is what compels me to clarify my particular position.
This is not a resolution. This is a goal. A goal with the purpose of creating a lifestyle change. A lifestyle change which should help me feel better.
As much as I struggle, I am taking this seriously.
And, weight-loss related or not, casual or not, I’m wishing you well on your resolutions, too.
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