Oh January

I actually don't mind being back to work.



I also don't understand how people eat breakfast before getting to work. If I ate breakfast at 6:30 or 7am, I'd be hungry again by mid-morning. And not the kind of "oh I need a snack" hungry that I could handle with an apple...the "okay, it's lunchtime!" hungry that needs a bowl of soup or whatever.



I got on a bagel kick for a while in late fall, mostly out of laziness...but I think I might actually be bagel-ed out for a while. Fage 0, fruit and granola...I missed you!

I've been kicking around the whole "new year's resolutions/goals" thing in my head, and was thinking about it more last night at the gym. I mean, what else is there to do on a treadmill for 40 minutes, right?

I do NOT like the concept of "New Year's Resolutions." The overcrowding at the gym for the next six weeks illustrates my issues perfectly. I started working out regularly during my freshman year of college back in 2000. For the past ten years, there are six weeks, twice a year, that the gym is mobbed. Once from early January to mid-February, and again from early May through mid-June.

On an individual level, I have nothing against any one of these new people. I was new to the gym once too! Everyone, as an individual, has every right to do exactly what the new crowds are doing: start a new routine. Explore fitness and exercise. Figure out gym etiquette and figure out what kind of exercise they enjoy and what works best for them.

But...BUT. Every year, for ten years, the same phenomenon happens. Lots of people either start at the gym for the first time, or come back for the first time in years or months, because it's "a new year" or because "it's almost bikini season!" And there are lines for the treadmills, people standing around staring into space, weights not put back where they belong and people not wiping the sweat off of their machines. It's a hassle. I know it's only temporary, but it's still a hassle.

And I am resistant to the idea of setting goals just because it's a symbolic time of year because I don't want to end up like one of the January/June temporary exercisers. I don't want to get caught up in the mentality of it and make goals that I don't actually WANT to commit to. I did that for years...for me, it was dieting. I've had the physical activity thing down for about a decade now, but, as most people reading thing probably know, "abs are made in the kitchen" and all that. So I'd say, I'm going to lose ten pounds this year. Or 20 or whatever. And I'd eat well religiously for a few weeks and then slowly get back into eating how I liked to eat. It wasn't worth it to me at the time, so I didn't do it.

When I did lose that twenty or so pounds, it had nothing to do with the New Year OR with bikini season. The first time I lost weight, most of it came off over the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. I kept it off for several years before embarking on a dangerous combination of "eating whatever I feel like and blowing off the gym" during my 1L year. It was sometime in March that year when I decided I was done being overweight again. I repeated that dangerous combination during most of 2009, and I've spent the last year or so trying to decide when I'm going to be done with it this time.

All of this to say:

- I decided back in December that I'm done with it. Again and hopefully for more than a few years at a stretch this time. I'm done with not fitting in most of my pants and I'm done with looking at my rounder-than-I-would-like-it-to-be face in pictures.

- I decided around the same time that I'd like to focus on building my speed back up while continuing to run middle-distance races (10-milers and half marathons). I like the length but I miss running 9:00 miles.

BUT. For some stupid reason, I am EMBARRASSED to admit that those are my goals right now. Because I feel like they're cliche, and I'm worried that the timing of these goals is going to suck me into the symbolic New Year's crowd.

This is a really stupid thing to worry about. After all...the only person who can force me to "fall off the wagon" in February is me.

My other resolution? Practice my knitting so that when I start making my scarf next week, it doesn't look like THIS.



(Sabrina and I are taking a beginner's knitting class. Her dishrag-thing was MUCH prettier than mine is!)