There's nothing wrong with resolutions

Published 1.4.2016

Happy New Year!

Contrary to the current trend, I like making New Year's resolutions, including some related to diet (weight) and exercise. It's perfectly fine if some people don't like them, but I do. I view resolutions, both the process of reviewing the previous year's and the making of new ones as a method of self-assessment. I don't announce them (and mostly will not do so here, except to make my broader point) because I don't require anyone else's validation of my personal choices. Over the years my resolutions have remained reasonably constant, but have evolved to be a bit more specific over time as I've realized what does and doesn't work for me to achieve them. And no, I have never, not once, kept every single resolution. That isn't the point of the exercise.

I don't think wanting to lose a few pounds equates to "making yourself disappear" or "eradicating a fatty" or a "crime/violence against fat people." If you're happy at your size, good on you. For myself, I was happier when I weighed a bit less (though I am still 25 pounds lighter than my heaviest). Over the holidays, I've been eating more and moving less, and so I've put on a bit of weight. My resolutions involve adjusting my habits to the extent I need to return to the size human that I prefer. What you think of me and my effort is meaningless to me. Nor should my effort affect you or anyone else, for that matter.

Losing weight does NOT have to be about extreme restriction, nor do you have to pay for any program. I am currently eating to support a body that is larger than what I'd like. Eating a bit less (and moving a bit more) will result in a smaller body. How much smaller? I won't know until my body adjusts to the habits I am adopting. As the habits mostly involve going back to the routine I followed for most of the past 3 years, I don't expect them to be difficult to adopt (return to).

A moment of brutal honesty

In 2015, I chose to attempt to adjust my habits to have the (slightly smaller) body size I'd prefer, but didn't manage to do it. I wrote about it, starting here and provided brief occasional updates, but the reality is I failed. There are many excuses I could offer up for this, but the bottom line is that I chose to ingest (mostly in adult beverage form) more calories than I expended. The unsurprising result? I put on a few pounds. Admitting this fact does not mean that I "hate my body." Since when is self-improvement (via healthier habits) considered self-destruction?

Choosing to change habits does not mean I "hate" my body. I'm not going to starve to meet my goal. I'm simply going to adjust my habits to better reflect what I'd like to be and what I'd like to be able to do. This insistence that weight loss has to involve sever restriction is nuts. It absolutely doesn't, but you do have to do things differently if you want a different result. Habits can be difficult to develop or change, but it can be done. I haven't decided yet if I'll give updates on my new effort.

Not all my resolutions are weight related.

Other resolutions of mine concern my work habits as well as my hobbies. As stated above, I have no intention of listing the resolutions in detail, but as a few of them relate to this site I will note those. As I said in my previous post piece, my intention is publish more regularly here, but in longer form. There is an actual blog associated with this site, and I am going to begin put the briefer content there. It's a blog in that it's hosted at blogspot, but I don't have comments turned on because I have neither the time nor inclination to moderate them. And comment sections without moderation are worse than a waste of time.

Apropos of nothing, I am still vacillating about calling my writing here posts, pieces, content or just writings. This is not a blog, and using the term post is "bloggy" to me, so I try not to use it here. And yet, the writing here is most often considered a blog— at least in the feedback I've gotten about it. I can't help what others think of my effort here, but I don't think of this as a blog and don't intend it to be so.

If the publishing schedule I have planned pans out, then I will probably make it official, until that point I am simply noting that I have resolved to meet a schedule for this site. On a different note, I have chosen to begin to write at Mogul, though I'm not sure if my writing there will be related to my writing here. To date, it has not been, but that could change. Here's to a productive 2016!

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